Fashion and textiles

From the very beginning, the Historical Museum also collected costumes and traditional costumes, headgear and shoes, as well as fashion accessories as evidence of the changing spirit of the times. Costumes and accessories primarily illustrated developments in the history of style and type, while the traditional costumes were intended to document rural customs that were threatened with extinction.

Today, the Historisches Museum Frankfurt collects clothing and accessories primarily as sources for social and everyday history, which deals with aspects as diverse as fashion as a system of signs and as a means of social representation. The significance of clothing for shaping the body and the moral values conveyed by clothing are research questions that are the focus of work with the collection. In cooperation with the University of Paderborn (Cultural Studies of Fashion and Textiles), a research project funded by the Volkswagen Foundation was initiated and the question of how cuts and forms of historical clothing influenced the movement was investigated. The results of the research project"Setting Clothes in Motion" led to the 2020 exhibition "Clothes in Motion. Women's fashion since 1850".

Clothing, underwear and accessories

The Fashion and Textile Collection, with over 16,000 objects, focuses on bourgeois women's and men's clothing from the second half of the 18th century to the early 19th century and women's clothing from the 1850s to the 1930s, as well as numerous examples of everyday and leisure clothing after 1945.

The collection of underwear from 1860 to the present day is unique in Germany with around 1,000 items. Accessories such as headgear, gloves, stockings, shoes, bags and containers, canes, umbrellas and fans are also represented with valuable collections. There are also handicraft and craft accessories and household textiles such as table and bed linen, embroidery pictures and wall hangings. The collection is supplemented by sample collections and sample books (such as fabrics and buttons) from various manufacturers and dealers as well as a large collection of color sample cards.

The Frankfurt flag collection

The flag collection is of particular importance for the historical tradition of Frankfurt. In addition to the district flags of the 18th century, it mainly contains guild flags (such as the painted flags for the Gutenberg Festival in 1840) and flags from Frankfurt's choral, warrior and sports clubs, as well as political associations of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Part of this collection is presented in the new exhibition building on level 1, Societies.

The Frankfurt Fashion Department

The Textile Collection has a rich collection of fashion accessories and some outstanding items of clothing that document the work of this institution between 1933 and 1945. In addition, numerous design drawings, photographs (in the photography collection), archivalia and printed matter are kept in the "Archive Frankfurter Modeamt" at the HMF. In spring 2022, three items of clothing that Margarethe Klimt, the former head of the Fashion Office, had taken back home to Vienna with her after her retirement were acquired from the family estate. They are an excellent source for retracing the design and production plans of the Fashion Office in the original.

Specialist literature and fashion graphics

Specialist literature, fashion magazines from 1900 onwards (Eva Larraß Foundation) and mail order catalogs from 1955 onwards, as well as a large collection of prints (Eva Larraß Foundation) are part of the textile collection and can be found in the HMF library and the Graphic Arts Collection.

To the research page Costume Library Eva Larraß

The Jewelry Collection

The jewelry collection comprises over 700 individual pieces from the 17th to the 20th century and thus forms another important element of fashion history. In addition to precious metal jewelry in the form of necklaces, brooches, rings, earrings and pocket watches owned by wealthy Frankfurt citizens, the collection also includes costume jewelry made of various plastics from the early 1920s onwards. Another important area is jewelry for traditional costumes and religious occasions.