The Costume Museum

The Costume Museum has its origins in the Regional and Historical Costume Exhibition of 1925, although it was founded in 2004 as the Costume Museum and Ethnological Heritage Research Center. It is located in the Ciudad Universitaria of Madrid, in a building that was awarded the National Architecture Prize in 1969.

The Costume Museum has a permanent collection of fashion and clothing of more than 30,000 pieces, a collection that continues to increase thanks to the growing interest that fashion has been arousing as one of the most characteristic manifestations of contemporary culture.

Historical garments and fabrics coexist with the most modern designs in a collection that houses treasures sometimes unknown to the general public: one of the best collections in the world of 18th century fashion, the best preserved examples of the phenomenon of majismo that Goya portrayed, the which is possibly the richest collection of Spanish regional costumes, with all its jewelry and accessories, the best collection housed in a museum of works by Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo, a large representation of works by Cristóbal Balenciaga and Pedro Rodríguez, of whom we also preserve her complete documentary archive, which covers her work from 1940 to 1978, one of the best sets of Spanish Haute Couture dresses, with representation of all the big names, among which Manuel Pertegaz and Elio Berhanyer stand out; a large collection of Spanish ready-to-wear, with important examples of the work of designers who have renewed Spanish fashion since the 70s; as well as a complete collection of Haute Couture and international ready-to-wear, with representation of all the major contemporary fashion brands, from Worth, Poiret and Chanel to Kawakubo, Margiela and McQueen.

Along with this, we must highlight unique dresses such as the one designed by Hubert de Givenchy for the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's, worn by the iconic Audrey Hepburn, or the spectacular design by Jacques Fath for the movie Red Shoes, a unique piece in the world.

The jewelry collection constitutes one of the most notable hallmarks of the Museum, which also has an extraordinary collection of fashion accessories, with a total of 9,000 pieces.