Priorities, Inclusions, and Exclusions

: Curatorial Collecting Practices and The Acquisition of Mid- to Late-Twentieth-Century Fashion by UK Museums Since 1960. A Case Study of Worthing Museum and Art Gallery

Abstract

Using the Costume Collection held at Worthing Museum and Art Gallery, West Sussex, as a case study, this thesis examines the curatorial practices involved in the acquisition of mid- to late-twentieth-century fashion by UK museums since 1960. Its close assessment of one extensive regional costume collection, and examination of its personnel and practices, demonstrates curators’ and collections’ priorities, inclusions, and exclusions in building histories of fashion in the UK museum sector.
Fashion is used in the thesis as a global term to refer to all sartorial expressions through time and from all geographical locations; this expansive definition highlights the limitations built into UK museum collections. This thesis maps, through one case study, how such collecting norms and limits have been, and continue to be, shaped and challenged. Through analysis of archival sources, collections data, museum standards literature, and the production of a body of interviews with past and present curators, alongside object-based analysis of items inside and outside Worthing Museum’s collection, this thesis utilises a multidisciplinary research methodology, drawing on dress history, fashion studies, museum histories and critical collections management.
Through these sources and approaches, the thesis asks core questions about histories of museum fashion collecting at Worthing and beyond. What makes an item worthy of a place within a museum fashion collection? Who gets to decide? How do these decisions inform how fashion history is produced? The thesis identifies implicit and explicit criteria that informed historical fashion collecting choices, and demonstrates how these choices shape, and are shaped by, cultural hierarchies. It argues that these practices underpin attitudes about who and what museum collections of fashion are for; these value judgements illuminate wider debates about cultural inclusion and exclusion.
Focusing on regional practice offers a new perspective on fashion collecting outside metropolitan centres; the limited exploration of acquisition practices to date have focused on national museums. Consequently, this research sheds new light on the growth of museum collections of fashion in the UK from the 1960s onwards. It identifies the curatorial and institutional networks that facilitated the acquisition and redistribution of sartorial items. It argues that curators are active agents with significant personal and professional impact on the construction of institutional collections. Examining fashion collecting by individuals in institutions, and by positioning these institutions into wider networks, this thesis argues that personal, social, and cultural positions on the value of museum fashion collections can be revealed. Understanding these positions and practices offers new ways to understand existing fashion collections and can inform new approaches to acquiring fashion items for and in the future.

Date of Award	Jan 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Brighton
Supervisor	Annebella Pollen (Supervisor) & Charlotte Nicklas (Supervisor)