European Dress
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Glasgow Museums has a collection of over 15,000 items of European dress from about 1415 to the present.
This collection contains clothing made or worn in Scotland, Britain and continental Europe, as well as items made in the Americas and Asia for the British market. It comprises main garments of men, women, infants and children, night and dressing wear, outerwear and underwear representing important developments in fashionable dress. There are large collections of accessories worn and carried from the 1600s onwards ranging from hats to shoes, bags to umbrellas. There are also smaller thematic collections of regional dress, religious dress, performance costume and sports and leisurewear.
The earliest items are late medieval religious vestments, such as the Whalley Abbey Dalmatic (about 1415–30) and a rare embroidered petticoat panel (about 1610–20) that is part of a small but significant group of seventeenth-century dress in the Burrell Collection. The majority of the collection dates from the 1700s century onwards with a particular strength in mid-1800s to 1970s womenswear. There are few items made by significant international designers, but the main focus is on garments worn or made in and around Glasgow, including those made or sold by the city's leading designers and department stores.
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