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Elmbridge Museum

The Museum's strength costume collection is sizeable, containing approx 5000 items. The aim is to collect clothing and textiles made, worn or used by the people of Elmbridge.

The emphasis is mainly on women's wear worn in the 19th and 20th centuries with examples of more recent 1960s, 70s and 80s costume and a wedding dress collection from the 19th and particularly 20th centuries. There are smaller collections of men's garments (including an example of male court dress), children's and baby's clothes and a large collection of accessories including hats, shoes, gloves, fans, artificial flowers etc. An interesting range of occupational clothing includes civil defence, ambulance, British Rail and firemen's uniforms, as well as clothes worn by domestic servants.

The Museum has a database with photographs of part of its costume collection and if notified in advance staff can search for textiles which are relevant to student's needs and make them available for viewing. There is a large collection of historical fashion textbooks and clothes catalogues which students are welcome to study. A loan box of Victorian clothing and accessories is available to schools.

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