In the elegant Georgian Assembly Rooms you’ll find the Fashion Museum in Bath. This is where fashionable society gathered in the 1800s to dance, drink tea and socialise. Their fun and flirtations were immortalised in the novels of Jane Austen. You can find the Fashion Museum near the Royal Crescent and The Circus, where you can see some of the grandest Georgian houses of the city.
Update 2023: The Fashion Museum of Bath is currently closed in preparation for its move to the Old Post Office in the centre of Bath. However we have left the article as a taste of what the museum will offer.
There’s the Ballroom which is also used for concerts and weddings, so not always open, the Tea Room and the Octagon and Card rooms, which is now house the café. The chandeliers in the Tea room are enormous! You don’t need to pay to take a look at these rooms, if they are open, but there’s a charge to visit the Fashion Museum.
Costumes on show at the Bath Fashion Museum
There were costumes from different eras such as those from the reign of Queen Victoria in the 1860s. Many of the dresses had royal connections.
You can see an evening gown by Hartnell, the couturier of choice in the 1950s which was worn by the actress Margaret Leighton at a ball given by Queen Elizabeth in 1960 to celebrate the marriage of her sister Princess Margaret.
Also on display at the Bath costume museum are dresses worn at the coronation of King George IV in 1821 which was a splendid affair.
Evening Gowns at the Bath Fashion Museum
The evening dresses from down the ages were especially eyecatching. The pink one was made around 1900 by the French couturier, Worth of Paris for the American heiress, Mary Curzon wife of the Viceroy of India.
The gold is from the 1980s, by Bruce Oldfield who made dresses for Princess Diana. Which would you choose?
Especially lovely were the costumes from the Regency period in the early 1800s when Bath was in its heyday. Ladies fashions of the day were modelled on the flowing styles of Ancient Greece and Rome.
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Dressing up at the Fashion Museum of Bath
If you fancied pretending you were a Victorian lady there were some corsets and crinoline to try on, with instructions on which was the front and back – I noticed that no female passing through, including me, could resist trying them.
But I’m not sure I could compete with these bathing beauties from the 50s before lycra had been invented. These ones had a certain retro glamour to them, but I didn’t fancy the heavy knitted woollen ones, which were like something your granny would have knocked up.
Every Year since 1963 the Museum has asked a leading fashion expert to choose a Dress of the Year to add to the collections.
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Update 2023: The Fashion Museum of Bath is currently closed in preparation for its move to the Old Post Office in the centre of Bath.
Tea at the Fashion Museum of Bath
After our visit we had some tea and cakes in the café which anyone can visit – you don’t have to be visiting the museum.
The drinks and cakes were reasonably priced compared to many places in Bath. I’d recommend it as a pleasant alternative to the Pump rooms which has become a popular but expensive tourist haunt for afternoon tea or lunch in Bath.
More info: Fashion Museum, Assembly Rooms, Bennett Street, BATH, BA1 2QH
Update 2023: The Fashion Museum of Bath is currently closed in preparation for its move to the Old Post Office in the centre of Bath.
This article is originally published at Heatheronhertravels.com
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