Spring 2012 - Dress and Textile Specialists

on making sure that people can see the actual objects; moreover, that we can listen and talk to
visitors to make sure that we understand their needs, and can respond to them.
Our paper will explore this practise by showcasing principally, three areas of our current endeavour.
First, our displays, particularly, Behind the Scenes: The Historic Collection where our collections of
19th century dress are presented as if visitors were entering the museum store. Secondly, and
leading on from this, storage of our collections and the way in which we are making our stores
accessible. Thirdly, we will discuss the development of the Fashion Museum Study Facilities, which
are currently visited by over 1,200 people each year.
Background to the collection
One of the reasons we were so keen to attend the DATS conference this year was to achieve our aim
of spreading the word about the Fashion Museum and introducing as many people as possible to the
collection. The Fashion Museum is housed in the historic Assembly Rooms on Bennett Street. For
centuries Bath has been a centre of fashion, attracting visitors to its spa and social diversions. The
Assembly Rooms is one of Bath’s finest Georgian buildings and is still central to the city’s social life
today.
Bath's magnificent 18th century Assembly Rooms were opened in 1771. Designed by John Wood the
Younger, they were known as the New or Upper Rooms, to distinguish them from the older
Assembly Rooms in the lower part of the town. An ‘assembly’ was defined in 1751 as ‘a stated and
general meeting of the polite persons of both sexes, for the sake of conversation, gallantry, news
and play’, which basically meant that guests amused themselves at cards, danced in the ballroom,
drank tea or just walked around talking and flirting.
The Fashion Museum came to Bath as the Museum of Costume in 1963. It was founded by Doris
Langley Moore, an inspired collector, writer, historian and costume designer who was passionate
about fashions of the past and who generously gave her private collection of historic dress to the
city of Bath. The Museum of Costume actually found its first home in 1955 at Eridge Castle in Kent, a
little outside London. At Eridge Castle, Doris Langley Moore established her particular style of
costume display, which was to display her collection on ‘realistic’ mannequins.
Doris Langley Moore believed that you needed to understand the context of the dress, something
that we still strive for today at the Fashion Museum, albeit in different ways. In the mid-1950s
however, this was not the usual approach to the display of dress within a museum, where more
often than not, dress was viewed solely as a textile and as a branch of the decorative arts. The
Museum of Costume remained at Eridge Castle for three years, and in 1958 was transferred to the
Royal Pavilion in Brighton for a special exhibition. But eventually in 1963, the Museum of Costume
found its permanent home in the newly re-opened Assembly Rooms in Bath.
The museum was called the Museum of Costume, Bath until the name change in 2007. It was a big
decision to change the name of the museum and one we only undertook following careful audience
evaluation and testing. The feeling was that ‘Fashion’ rather than ‘Costume’ was a better fit with the
museum collection and with visitor expectation; and it has been a seamless and successful
adjustment in our identity.
The Fashion Museum galleries are on the lower ground floor of the Assembly Rooms. The displays
are arranged (by and large, chronologically) in a series of non-uniform showcases following a
labyrinthine route. There are currently just over 180 figures on display, plus displays of accessories.
There are also feature areas within the museum galleries that present dress thematically. For
example in 2011, we have a display of wedding dress, and in 2012, the year of the Olympics, there
will be a display of fashion and sportswear.
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