[Views of the Worth, Inventing haute couture exhibition featuring pieces from the Fashion Museum Bath Collection at the Petit Palais, musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris. © Paris Musées / Petit Palais, musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris / Gautier Deblonde]
Bath’s Fashion Museum collection may be currently in storage – awaiting the development of its new home – but that hasn’t stopped items from it being sent around the world to promote the city’s name.
A pair of gloves belonging to King James I and an exquisite silver and gold embroidered court dress designed at the dawn of Haute Couture are just two of the extraordinary items from the collection to be seen in leading exhibitions this summer.
Recognised as one of the world’s most significant fashion collections, the Fashion Museum Bath Collection spans five centuries of fashion, from the late 16th century to today. From couture artistry to everyday dressmaking, the Collection celebrates clothing as an expression of creativity, culture and identity.
Though the Museum is currently closed to visitors while it undergoes an ambitious transformation and relocation to a new home in the centre of Bath, its global lending programme continues to connect this remarkable collection with audiences worldwide. In 2024 alone, over 1.2 million people viewed pieces from the Collection on loan.
Garments from the museum can be seen in prestigious exhibitions in Paris, London, Edinburgh, and across the UK, underscoring the relevance and enduring influence of the Fashion Museum Bath Collection.
Elisabeth Murray, Senior Curator at Fashion Museum Bath, comments:
“It is a pleasure to be working with local, national, and international museums on such an exciting exhibition programme for 2025. Our loans-out programme provides a wonderful opportunity for people to see, enjoy, and be inspired by our extraordinary Collection. Each item has a unique story to tell, and it is a delight to match these pieces up with some of this year’s most important exhibitions.”
Designed to be worn at royal courts, on the beach or in the garden, this summer’s loans span from the early 1600s to the 2oth century—demonstrating the breadth and significance of Fashion Museum Bath’s Collection. Their versatility is reflected in the wide range of exhibitions they’ll appear in this year, as pieces from the Collection travel from Bath to the following museums and galleries:
Petit Palais & Galliera, Paris, France:
- Two exquisite couture dresses designed by the House of Worth are taking a starring role in the much-anticipated exhibition Worth, Inventing haute couture (on now until 7 September). Established in Paris in 1858, Worth was founded by English designer Charles Frederick Worth. Often referred to as the ‘father of haute couture’ Worth is known for his pioneering design and business practices, including ‘inventing’ the fashion show. Worth’s impressive international client list included Empress Eugenie, and Mary Curzon, Baroness Curzon of Kedleston, who both of the Fashion Museum Bath pieces were created for around 1903: a cream silk court dress adorned with silver and gold embroidery and diamantés, and a yellow silk evening gown embroidered with an oak leaf design.
National Galleries of Scotland: Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh:
A pair of elaborately embroidered brown leather gloves once owned by King James I, alongside a 17th-century multi-coloured embroidered women’s waistcoat, appear in The World of King James VI & I at the National Galleries of Scotland: Portrait Gallery (25 April – 25 September). This is the first exhibition in five decades dedicated to the monarch’s life, reign, and court.
The Garden Museum, London, UK:
- Cecil Beaton’s Garden Party (14 May – 21 September) includes a hat worn by Beaton himself and a silk dress worn by actress Wendy Hiller featuring his hand-painted ivy-leaf design.
Across the UK:
- Polesden Lacey, National Trust, Surrey: Dress to Impress (1 May – 2 November) explores the politics and symbolism of dress. Pieces from Bath include an 18th-century blue silk waistcoat with military-style gold embroidery.
- Dorset Museum & Art Gallery, Dorset: Jane Austen: Down to the Sea (14 June – 14 September), marking the 250th anniversary of Austen’s birth, will explore seaside leisure through the lens of Regency fashion. The exhibition will include early 19th-century dresses, menswear, and hands-on replica garments from the Fashion Museum Bath collection.
As Fashion Museum Bath prepares to reopen in its future home, these loans continue to connect its remarkable Collection with audiences across the world, ensuring its stories and styles continue to inspire.
Councillor Paul Roper, Cabinet Member for Economic & Cultural Sustainable Development, Bath & North East Somerset Council, said:
“The Fashion Museum Bath collection is an incredible time capsule of fashion history and a real asset to the city. As we work towards a flagship new home for the museum, it is particularly exciting to see that this collection continues to inspire through loans out to other museums. Working with such high-profile cultural organisations puts Bath firmly on the fashion map.”
About Fashion Museum Bath
Fashion Museum Bath will bring fashion to life for local and global audiences. It will be located in the Grade II-listed Old Post Office in the centre of the UNESCO World Heritage city of Bath. The Museum will champion fashion’s transformative power as a global industry and expression of creativity, culture and identity.
Saving world-class heritage, Fashion Museum Bath will be a catalyst for change, revitalising its Designated Collection in a new museum that will be an exemplar of environmentally sustainable retrofit in a listed building. The museum will inspire and challenge through fashion, exploring it as an artform and global industry, whilst celebrating the creativity of designers, makers, and wearers, and providing learning, skills, digital and wellbeing programmes.
Fashion Museum Bath will appeal to tourists and locals alike, driving socio-economic change and placemaking and supporting and facilitating the creative industries through championing craft, skills, learning & future talent, and creating pathways to jobs and opportunities. It will be a place of community and opportunity for fashion lovers, culture seekers, local audiences, the fashion industry and the next generations. Additionally, it will support communities across the region with a range of programmes addressing barriers to access for people who are generally underserved by heritage. It will be a welcoming and accessible space for all.
The new museum will:
- Provide flexible exhibition spaces to display more of the internationally renowned Bath Fashion Museum Collection than ever before.
- Showcase a changing programme of exhibitions from our own Collection and other major museums.
- Reveal dedicated and accessible spaces for innovative learning and engagement, including lectures, workshops, events, school visits, and residencies.
- Offer café and retail areas.
- Offer commercial venue hire opportunities outside of core public hours.
- Support the creative industries by offering career pathways, talent development pipelines, and partnerships.
- Be an exciting and accessible welcoming space for all – the ‘Museum on the High Street’ is relevant for all ages and reduces barriers for those who have not engaged with heritage before.
- Establish a landmark cultural asset, free to local residents and uniting local, national and international communities through creative activities linked to fashion.
Fashion Museum Bath Collection: Fashion Museum Bath holds one of the world’s leading collections of fashion, spanning 400 years of human creativity, from 1600 to the present day. Founded in 1963 as the Museum of Costume, the original collection was gifted to the city of Bath by collector, writer, and dress historian Doris Langley Moore in 1959. Designated as a collection of outstanding national significance, it has since grown to 100,000 items, with strengths in European, especially British, fashionable dress and accessories. It also encompasses sketches, fashion magazines, fashion photography and designers’ archives.
The Collection includes many of the best examples of fashionable dress in worldwide collections. It is the variety and extent of the collection, accessible in a single museum, that sets it out as rare and unusual on an international scale.
The Old Post Office: The Old Post Office is one of only a few listed 20th-century buildings in the centre of Bath. The project will bring back to life this key heritage and civic building that has fallen into disrepair and will be designed as an exemplar of environmentally sustainable retrofit. The Old Post Office offers up to 3500 sqm of space for the Museum, a transformational change in scale to showcase more of the Collection.
Timings: It is anticipated that construction will start on site in 2027, and that the new museum will open in Autumn 2030.
Milsom Quarter Masterplan: The museum is a key part of Bath and North East Somerset Council’s regeneration plan to reimagine central Bath to create a destination for fashion and culture. The Fashion Museum Bath will be an anchor element of the Milsom Quarter Masterplan to make the area a great place to live, work and socialise.
For more information on the Milsom Quarter Masterplan, and the other projects underway, see our video and website.
Support
The Fashion Museum has embarked on its largest ever philanthropic appeal to transform the Old Post Office into a ground-breaking new museum that brings fashion to life for local and global audiences.
Alongside the investment already made to acquire the post office site, the project has secured more than 50% of funds required thanks to a £20 million supported borrowing commitment from Bath & North East Somerset Council.
We are very grateful to the funders who have embarked on this journey with us. To date, this includes a founding grant from the West of England Combined Authority and generous development funding* from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to progress plans through the detailed design phase.
Arts Council England is also supporting our Explore the Collection project in collaboration with Bath & North East Somerset Libraries.
Follow @FashionMuseumBath on Twitter/X, Facebook and Instagram and use #FashionMusuemBath www.fashionmuseum.co.uk
About The National Lottery Heritage Fund
Grant applications over £250,000 are assessed in two rounds. Fashion Museum Bath has initially been granted round one development funding of £768,000 from The National Lottery Heritage Fund, allowing it to progress with its plans. Detailed proposals are then considered by the Heritage Fund in a second round, where a final decision is made on the full funding award of £ 7.2 million.
Our vision is for heritage to be valued, cared for and sustained for everyone, now and in the future. That’s why as the largest funder for the UK’s heritage, we are dedicated to supporting projects that connect people and communities to heritage, as set out in our strategic plan, Heritage 2033. Heritage can be anything from the past that people value and want to pass on to future generations. We believe in the power of heritage to ignite the imagination, offer joy and inspiration, and to build pride in place and connection to the past.
Over the next 10 years, we aim to invest £ 3.6 billion raised for good causes by National Lottery players to make a decisive difference for people, places and communities.
Follow @HeritageFundUK on Twitter/X, Facebook and Instagram and use #NationalLottery #HeritageFund
