Donation To Support Our Work We love sharing and celebrating fashion history with you, but we are only a small museum, staffed mostly by volunteers. We work hard to keep our prices low, but if you can give more please consider a monetary donation. Your donation would go towards a range of vital costs we have to keep the museum running, from heating and dehumidifying our rooms so we can provide the correct environment for our historic textiles, to emergency repair works (this year we have had to contend with a leaking roof, a broken dishwasher in our tearoom and issues with our boiler). It could also help us to afford to keep running events by contributing to the payment of equipment, guests and staff as well as subsiding the prices for our family focused workshops. We are a charity, as well as one of the only fashion focused museums in the UK. If you can, please consider donating today. Thank you. If you would like to make a monetary donation please follow this link: https://fashion-museum-blandford.arttickets.org.uk/donate Charity Number (Cavalcade of Costume Ltd): 1052471 Contact us at collections@blandfordfashionmuseum.co.uk Our donations page is hosted by the Art Fund SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER Enter your email here...* Yes, subscribe me to your newsletter. * Subscribe

Donations / Acquisitions Due to storage issues, we have to be very strict on accepting donations and making acquisitions. If you would like to donate items to the Blandford Fashion Museum please email photographs and any relevant information to collections@blandfordfashionmuseum.co.uk The donations will then be considered by our display team, before going through the acquisition panel, where the collections' manager and a group of trustees will decide if we accept the item. This process can take a few months. We are lucky that we receive a lot of offers of donations, but to process them takes time. If your item is accepted, we will arrange the relevant paperwork and set a date to deposit the item.Please note, as we are a fashion museum we only take items relating to costume and fashionable dress. We do not currently accept other textiles (such as quilts, tapestries etc) or social history items (such as dolls). We currently do not have the budget to purchase any items for the collection. Items accepted may be taken into our main collection, our education collection or be used for set dressing, but we will discuss these options with you more thoroughly depending on what we think is best for the item. Please do not deposit or post any donations to the museum without prior confirmation that we will accept the item. Doing this may result in disposal. Thank you for considering donating to us.

'Power Dressing' February 2025 - November 2026 Power Dressing: 1770-1990 Fashion and textiles have long been signifiers of power and wealth. Throughout the ages, the colour and fabric of garments communicated the status of the wearer. Certain fabrics and colours have even been banned for lower classes. The style of a garment can enable the wearer to create a statement and take up space. The production of textiles has the power to create fortunes and destabilise entire economies. This exhibition is split into two rooms. The Powerful Silhouette focuses on how emphasis on shoulders in women's wear can create a commanding figure, from the shoulder pads of the 1980s to Romantic leg-of-mutton sleeves of the 1820s. Power & Textiles examines the cultural and economic significance of certain fabrics through time, from sumptuary laws and velvet to paisley shawls and The British Empire. See handout for more information.

'Laura Ashley : From Kitchen to Catwalk' Extended until Summer 2026 In 1953, inspired by a Women's Institute exhibition at the V and A Museum, Laura and Bernard Ashley started printing fabrics in their kitchen. They soon started selling tea towels, and in 1955 opened a showroom in Old Burlington Street in London. Gardening aprons and smocks marked a move towards garments. In 1959, Laura Ashley started to use flower motifs, something the company would become well known for. Once the Ashley family relocated to Mid Wales and opened a shop in Machylleth, Laura Ashley began to experiment with historical styles. After initially having a small factory in Kent, an old social club in Carno provided a new location for the Welsh factory. Five years later, the company was so successful they moved to disused railway station to build a new factory. Through the 1960s and 1970s, there was a boom in small British led boutiques that would shape the British high street for the next few decades. Along with other British female designers, such as Mary Quant and Barbara Hulanicki (Biba), Laura Ashley became a household name and her dresses, especially her floral, prairie-style, maxi dresses became highly desirable and synonymous with the era. Throughout the 1970s, the Laura Ashley brand achieved international recognition and in 1980 they launched their homewares catalogue. Laura Ashley passed away in 1985 and the company was floated on the stock market. By the 2000s, the brand had started to fall out of favour and focused back on homewares. The late 2010s and early 2020s started to see a revival for the brand as original pieces appeared in vintage shops but the company went into administration

Events Pants - a Brief History Tuesday 24th March 2026 2:00 to 3:30 pm Read More

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Jewellery Picture Workshop Everything is provided to create a beautiful canvas using unwanted broken jewellery in this fun, in-person workshop! Hey there! Ready to reuse broken jewellery into a unique sparkly picture of you own imagining. Join Trish McGarry at our in-person workshop where you'll hands hands-on fun and creative vibes. Perfect for anyone who loves sparkly stuff. Don't miss out! https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/jewellery-picture-workshop-tickets-1985461495781?aff=ebdsoporgprofile

Blandford Fashion Museum welcomes groups to view our wonderful exhibitions. We are open for such visits on either Monday, Thursday or Friday between 10.30am and 4.00pm. In the first instance, email the museum to check whether the date you would like to come is available. If the date is free, we will then email you a booking form along with the museum’s bank details so that immediate payment can be made. Only BACS payments are acceptable – no cheques or cash. The booking will only be confirmed once full payment has been received. We do not take bookings over the phone. Lastly, our team is made up of part-time volunteers so you may not receive an immediate response to your request. We aim to get back to you as quickly as possible so please allow a week for a reply. Our displays are over two floors. The building is a mix of Georgian, Victorian and 20th century construction. Both floors are on varying levels and may not be suitable for all visitors. Sadly, we do not, as yet, have a lift. There are ground floor toilets facilities and are easily accessible. We have a tearoom and gift shop and you may wish to enjoy a drink and a piece of cake when you visit. However, there is limited seating and it can be busy with our regular customers. There are 4 categories of visits. Please read carefully to decide which category applies best to your proposed visit. Bronze Visit This is designed for a group of up to ten people to view the current exhibitions accompanied by one of our volunteers. The tour normally lasts about one and a half hours. After the tour you may want to enjoy a cup of tea and a slice of a cake in our award-winning tearoom and gift shop. Please note – refreshments are not included in the entry price. The cost is £100 and payment will be made at the point of booking. This is fully refundable if you cancel more than a week before the proposed visit. Email collections@blandfordfashionmuseum.co.uk to check for availability and a booking form. Silver Visit Silver is for larger groups (up to 20) who would like a more in-depth experience. The visit will be led by a costume and/or textile professional who will share their extensive knowledge with you. The visit will be divided into 2 groups; half the group will tour the museum while the other half will enjoy, at close quarters, some of the costumes we have in our archive. The groups will then swap over. The visit will last up to 3 hours. After the tour you may want to enjoy a cup of tea and a slice of a cake in our award-winning tearoom and gift shop. Please note – refreshments are not included in the entry price. The cost is £250 and payment will be made at the point of booking. This is refundable if you cancel more than a week before the proposed visit. Email collections@blandfordfashionmuseum.co.uk to check for availability and a booking form. Gold Visit This is designed for students (up to 5) to view items in the archive for project research. The length of time can be discussed with the collections manager. The cost is £25 per hour and payment will be made at the point of booking. This is fully refundable if the visit is cancelled at least a week beforehand. These visits will be limited to either Thursday or Friday. Email collections@blandfordfashionmuseum.co.uk to check for availability and a booking form. Platinum Visit A bespoke service available to individual researchers. A one-to-one visit costs £25 per hour and details will be discussed with the collections manager at the time of booking. These visits will be limited to either a Thursday or Friday. Email collections@blandfordfashionmuseum.co.uk to check for availability and a booking form. Group Visits

About The late Mrs. Betty Penny MBE founded the Blandford Fashion museum, located in Lime Tree House, in 1996. The house is a beautiful Georgian property in Blandford Forum, built by John and William Bastard after the town’s Great Fire in 1731. Mrs. Penny’s collection of costumes, known locally as the Cavalcade of Costume, form the nucleus of the present collection. However, since then the collection has almost trebled in size and continues to grow thanks to generous donations from the public. In 2024, thanks to Dorset Council for the Culture and Community Project Fund we were able to initiate Stage 1 of our digitisation project, which has enabled us to digitally record all of the paperwork and photography associated with the Cavalcade of Costume. We are looking at a way at making this available through our website but for now, if you are interested in studying this wealth of information please email collections@blandfordfashionmuseum.co.uk . The Arts Council gave the museum accredited status in 2010, and renewed it in 2015. We receive a small grant from the Town Council, but no other public funding. As a result, we have a few paid members of staff and an invaluable team of volunteers. We have a reputation locally for our friendly atmosphere. We have thirteen display spaces over two floors, and there is a rolling programme of exhibition changes. Our exhibitions showcase historic dress and textiles and the connection between fashion and social history. Additional facilities include a Resources Room for use by students studying fashion & textiles and a Lecture Room for study days.

Title Join us at the Blandford Fashion Museum on April 2, 2026 at 10:30 AM for a fun, hands-on event where you can create your own Easter decorations! Don’t miss out on making your space extra special this Easter! We will stitch an easy pattern onto wooden eggs and make a window decoration. All materials are supplied. A drink and a biscuit are included in the price and you can also look around the Fashion Museum, if you wish. All children must be accompanied by a parent/carer. This workshop must have 4 attendees to run, so invite your friends to join you. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/easter-decorations-tickets-1984771603294?aff=ebdssbdestsearch Previous Next