The Fashion Gallery

Showcasing Calderdale Museums’ fashion and textile collections from ancient Egypt to modern day.

Calderdale Museums has one of the best but little known textile collections in the country. There are 17,000 objects, collected from all over the world. The collection began when the museum first opened in 1887. It represents the influence of world textiles on local production as well as how local textiles have been exported around and influenced the world. The collection includes significant objects from Ancient Egypt, The Balkans, China, Japan and the Indian Subcontinent. A range of English embroidery, samplers, costume, court dress, military uniforms, pattern books from West Yorkshire manufacturers and the design archive of Crossley’s Carpets. It represents not just textiles but textile production from spindles to spinning wheels, cards, combs and looms. The new fashion gallery tells both the story of the production and manufacture of textiles in the local area and how those textiles were then used.

Image courtesy of Bankfield Museum, Halifax, UK