Costume & Textiles Group

 

The Costume Collection at the Beecroft Art Gallery, Southend Museums Service, houses a large, varied, and hitherto unseen collection of costume and accessories, ranging from the reign of Victoria to the late 20th Century.

The collection was started during the mid seventies, and is stored at the Beecroft Art Gallery in Westcliff. Since their appointments in 1998, our Keeper of Art, Clare Hunt and Museums Conservator, Claire Reed have been working towards improving storage at the gallery, with an eventual view to display the many hidden treasures we have in the collection.

In April 2000 a selection of pieces were displayed in public for the first time during one of the Museum Service's popular "Adult Access" sessions.


After attending a session, a group of ladies from the South and East Essex branch of the Embroiderers' Guild volunteered their services on the spot! - and so began the Southend Museums Costume and Textiles Group.
This small but dedicated team, headed by Claire Reed, meet once a month at the gallery and have to date, stitched specialist costume bags and conserved many pieces of Victorian and Edwardian ladies dresses. 

An exhibition, "The Art of Fashion" was held at the gallery in 2002, which combined portraits and costume from the collections, spanning a 200 year period, providing an ideal opportunity to view aspects of both these exciting collections. Future similar exhibitions are planned to view different aspects of the collection.


For more information on our collections or the work of the costume group please contact Clare Hunt at the Beecroft Art Gallery (01702 - 347418) or Claire Reed at Central Museum (01702 - 434449)
 

Other Volunteers

And don't forget, we have other volunteers who help us with other parts of the Museum collections.