BATH FASHION MUSEUM & ASSEMBLY ROOMS
Period Fashionable Costume and Georgian Society
The Bath Fashion Museum is an extensive ever changing exhibit of contemporary and historic costume and fashion through the ages, mostly from the 1600’s to the present day presented in the basements of the Assembly Rooms of Bath. The Fashion Museum (originally called the Museum of Costume) began as a private collection of Doris Langley Moore a fashion historian who first began collecting fashion illustration plates in the 1920s. She eventually donated the collection to the City of Bath in 1963.
The clothing on display is rotated in changing themes selected from over 30,000 objects in the collection organized in order of eras behind glass. The exhibits are focused on fashionable dress for women, men and for children with the earliest pieces of gloves and embroidery from the Elizabethan 16th Century to the annually selected Dress of the Year, nominated from current fashion designers from Alexander McQueen to Donatella Versace and Ralph Lauren. There is also a chance to play Dress Up in the dressing room, with an opportunity to try on replica Victorian period fashion.
Bath Assembly Rooms
Aside from fashion, you can also visit the Georgian period 18th Century historic Assembly Rooms of Bath. There are four historic rooms, the Ball Room, the Tea Room, The Octagon Room and the Card Room. The rooms were used for a society form of entertainment called an 'assembly', a public forum for weekly events and balls where citizens could gather to dance or play cards, have tea and hear music to while away the time and provide a proper public setting where unattached young men and women could meet to stroll and flirt. These assemblies are rather much mentioned in the works of Bath resident Jane Austen, with a reference in “Pride and Prejudice” to a preference for private balls over the public ones.
More
Principal Features:
Costumes and Fashuion from 17th Century to Modern
Assembly Rooms
Visiting Bath Fashion Museum
Hours: Daily
Seasonal hours are 10:30am to 5pm March to October
10:30am to 4pm January-February, and November-December.
April to October from 9:45 am to 5:30 pm
Extended Summr Hours July and August 9am to 6 pm
Winter Hours - November to March 11am to 4:30pm Sunday to Friday and 9:45 to 5:30 on Saturdays.
Last admission an hour before closing
Prices: Adults £8 (£2.50 Asembly Rooms Only)
Students & Seniors £7.25
Children 6-16 £6
Getting There: Located next to the Royal Crescent and Circus, approximately 10 minutes’ walk from the city center.
Nearest Train Station: Bath Station
Also visit: Jane Austen Centre Maritime Museum Sherlock Holmes Pub
Nearby Hotels: Bath