General Textile Museums

While many (if not all) fashion museums have flat textiles as a part of their collections, these museums focus specifically on the fabrics. They generally highlight construction and handicraft, like weaving, dying, textile design, printing techniques, embroidery, and quilting. Many of the museums include non-western textiles.

 

General Textile Museums:

  1. Textile Museum (Washington, D.C.)
  2. Textile Museum of Canada (Ontario, Canada)
  3. Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture (London, England)
  4. Prato Textile Museum (Museo del Tessuto) – Prato, Italy
  5. German Textile Museum (Deutsches Textilmuseum Krefeld) – Krefeld, Germany
  6. St. Gallen Textile Museum (Textilmuseum) – St. Gallen, Switzerland
  7. Abegg-Stiftung Museum – Riggisberg, Switzerland
  8. Textil Museet (Textile Museum) – Borås, Sweden

 

Silk Museums:

  1. Macclesfield Silk Museums (Macclesfield, UK)
  2. Museum of Textiles & Decorative Arts (Le musée des Tissus et des Arts Décoratifs, Lyon, France)
  3. Almgren Silk Weaving Mill (Stockholm, Sweden)
  4. Museum of Decorative Arts (Kunstgwerebemuseum, Berlin, Germany)
  5. Yokahama Silk Museum (Yokohama, Japan)

 

Cotton Museums

The focus here is primarily on indigenous cotton textiles:

  1. Bhutan Textile Museum (Thimphu, Bhutan)
  2. Calico Museum of Textiles (Ahmedabad, India)
  3. Kurdish Textile Museum (Arbil, Iraq)
  4. Museum Tekstil (Jakarta, Indonesia)

 

Leather Museums:

  1. Walsall Leather Museum (Walsall, UK)
  2. Museum of Leather Artistry (Vic, Spain)
  3. Igualada Leather Museum (Igualada, Spain)
  4. Deutsches Ledermuseum (Offenbach, Hesse, Germany)

Some of the Shoe Museums may also include leather and historical production techniques.

 

 

For a quirky angle at what a textile can be, see also Leila’s Hair Museum, in Independence, MI (USA)

 

 

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