FMAD 3225 - History of Costume: Find Museums & Digital Collections

The Costume Institute's collection of more than thirty-three thousand objects represents seven centuries of fashionable dress and accessories for men, women, and children, from the fifteenth century to the present.

The Fashion Museum Bath holds a world-class collection of contemporary and historic dress. The Museum of Costume was opened in the Assembly Rooms on 23 May 1963. It was founded by Doris Langley Moore, a designer, collector, writer and scholar, who gave her famous private collection of costume to the city of Bath.
The Museum of Costume changed its name to the Fashion Museum in summer 2007.

FIDM (Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising) was founded in 1969. The nonprofit FIDM Museum and Library, Inc. was established in 1978. The FIDM Museum holds over 15,000 fashion objects dating primarily from the eighteenth century to the present, and 200,000 Special Collections artifacts.

The Kyoto Costume Institute (KCI) collects and preserves outstanding examples of Western clothing, together with documents and other related items. It also conducts research in this area, exhibiting or publishing its findings.

Spanning five centuries, the V&A Museum's Fashion collection is the largest and most comprehensive collection of dress in the world. Key items in the collection include rare 17th century gowns, 18th century ‘mantua’ dresses, 1930s eveningwear, 1960s daywear and post-war couture.