Colours: Moments in Fashion

Colour has been an essential element of fashion for centuries. Through a fabulous array of clothes and accessories from Te Papa’s collections, this exhibition celebrated the popularity of six colours in Western fashion from the 1800s to the present day. The six colours were black, red, blue, yellow, orange, and pink. Black is not technically a colour, but is accepted as a colour in the fashion world.

Colours: Moments in fashion explored some of the reasons each of the six colours is associated with specific eras and fashion movements. Despite these changing trends, people also choose colours to express the way they feel, or the way they wish to appear. Through the rich and varied garments on display, the exhibition focused on some of the changing meanings associated with colour.