Fashion at The Salisbury Museum
The Salisbury Museum fashion collection contains over 3,500 items dating from the last 300 years.
The garments are from all aspects of life including weddings and christenings, formal occasions and occupations such as farming and the military. Accessories also form a large part of the collection and these include fans, brooches, parasols, buttons, gloves, hats and shoes.
Since 2018 the museum has run a series of innovative fashion projects, working alongside young people to discover hidden gems in the fashion collection, share stories of fashion sustainability from the past and co-curate fashion displays and exhibitions. Our current project is Fashioning Our Future.
Fashioning Our Future
2024 - 2027
The Fashioning Our Future project is building on the work we have been doing with our fashion collection over the last few years, most recently with Fashioning Our World. Young people will be sharing their own perspectives by co-curating fashion exhibitions which will go on show at The Salisbury Museum, Blandford Fashion Museum and Southampton City Art Gallery. Young people will also plan and take part in fashion workshops and events.
The storage of the fashion collection at The Salisbury Museum will be transformed, and a new study room created. Volunteers will work alongside the project team to achieve this, helping to make sure the collection is protected, valued and much more accessible. They will help research the collection, sharing their knowledge and textile skills with young people, including young carers.
If you are interested in getting involved with the project, contact Katy England at katyengland@salisburymuseum.org.uk
Fashioning Our Future is made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Fashioning Our World
2022 - 2024
The Fashioning Our World project worked with young people (aged 11 – 25) to discover hidden stories of sustainability told by clothes and accessories in the past. The project worked in a collaborative way to share these powerful stories with the community, change attitudes to fashion in the future and help fight the climate crisis.
Young people working on the project organised a Sustainable Fashion Show and co-curated the Fashioning Our World Exhibition at The Salisbury Museum. Fashioning Our World was funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund – delivered by the Museums Association.
Find out more about Fashioning Our World here.
Look Again
In 2018, the museum started Look Again: Discovering Centuries of Fashion and worked alongside young people, experts and volunteers to redisplay the fashion collection.
The Look Again project was funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund – delivered by the Museums Association.
Learn more about the Look Again project here.
The end result of this project was a redesigned Fashion Gallery at the museum. This display explored how we interact with clothes and told the stories of some of the items in the museum’s collection. It was opened in 2021 by British fashion icon Dame Zandra Rhodes.
The Fashion Gallery was removed in 2023 and some of the items were redisplayed in the museums new Salisbury History galleries.