The Costume Gallery

The Costume Gallery is probably one of the most important museums of History of Fashion in the world. It has its premises in a wing of the Pitti Palace, called “Palazzina della Meridiana”, which was built by order of the granduke Pietro Leopoldo di Lorena in 1776.
Our Course of History of Fashion cannot help but include a visit to the Costume Gallery, whose several rooms exhibit many important examples of clothes and accessories of different trends and styles that followed one upon the other from the 18th to 20th century. In each room a specific period is illustrated with an amazingly accurate display and a perfect setting.
The museum was funded in 1983 and since then every two years it has been changing the exhibited precious collections so as to avoid the risk of overexposure to light and especially to tourists. Some of the costumes on display are more recent and have been designed by prestigious stylists, such as Valentino, Emilio Pucci, Missoni, Versace, Yves Saint Laurent and many others. In addition to that it is possible to admire the marvellous costumes made for the granduke Cosimo I de’ Medici, his wife Eleonora di Toledo and their son Don Garcia. Worthy of particular interest is the reconstruction of the way they dressed these treasured garments and the history of the tissues in that period (16th Century).
Last but not least: the costumes of 18th and 19th century like the typical culottes of the French Revolution years or the Napoleon style attire, which lay the foundation for the development of the European fashion towards the contemporary period.
The admission ticket to the gallery also includes the visit to the Modern Art Gallery, which you might consider as an opportunity of appreciating the costumes in the exhibited paintings, mostly by 19-century artists.
Click here for more information.