Fashion Museum Bath, City of Bath
2024 - 2030
Fashion Museum Bath will become Britain’s leading museum of fashion. The museum’s collection, founded in 1963 by writer and dress historian Doris Langley Moore, is one of the most significant in the world. For the first time, it will be exhibited in a dedicated museum in the heart of Bath’s World Heritage Site championing fashion’s transformative power as an expression of creativity, culture, identity and wellbeing.
Alongside Venice, Bath is one of only two whole cities inscribed as a unesco World Heritage Site. From its origins as a Roman spa town, a Medieval hub for the cloth trade, and in its later expansion during the Georgian period, Bath’s history weaves together outstanding architecture, textiles and spectacle. 6a is designing the transformation of the city’s Grade II listed Old Post Office. Intervening carefully in the 1920s structure, 6a will open the building from the elegant Georgian street, through a public foyer to a new garden at the heart of the museum. The garden introduces biodiversity, and a quiet beauty while celebrating the botanical origins of textiles. A new stair hall and contemporary exhibition and learning wing will be created from timber and Bath stone.
The garden is designed in collaboration with Sarah Price Landscapes and draws on the distinctive limestone landscapes of the surrounding area, offering a counterpoint to the solidity of the Bath Stone facades that define the city.
New galleries will showcase the breadth and depth of the museum’s collection, offering visitors memorable encounters with fashion across time, cultures, and contexts, with exhibition design by JA Projects.
Fabric awnings dress the building, protecting the collection while allowing views in and out of the galleries, connecting its stories to the city beyond. The awnings are part of a groundbreaking approach to heritage-led climate adaptation, reducing operational carbon emissions in a wider decarbonising strategy.
