Fashion History Museum

Fashion History Museum is a museum in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada, which chronicles the history of fashion. It was founded in 2004 by Jonathan Walford and Kenn Norman. The museum is a non-profit charitable organization.

Prior to founding the Fashion History Museum Walford had been a curator at the Bata Shoe Museum. Walford has been collecting historical fashions since the 1970s, finding pieces from auction houses, garage sales, and even rescuing some items from the trash. He has also written several books on fashion.

Kenn Norman serves as the museum's chief executive director, and has a background in finance, project management and design.

For the first ten years of its existence the museum lacked a permanent gallery, so it created exhibitions that travelled extensively around Canada and the world, from Hong Kong to Bahrain. A pilot gallery in a former clothing store located at 64 Grand Ave S., Cambridge ON, in 2013 saw almost 8000 visitors in the four and a half months the museum was open there. The space ultimately was not suitable due to a lack of storage space and environmental controls.

In June 2015 the museum opened in a 3,000 square foot decommissioned post-office built in 1929 in the former town of Hespeler, now a neighbourhood of Cambridge. The museum retained and restored the original terrazzo floors and installed replicas of antique light fixtures for lighting. A restoration project for the clock over the museum's front doors is in the works, funded by the public. The town of Cambridge has a connection to the textile industry, making the museum a good fit for the town.

The museum's collection encompasses over 10,000 items. These items range from what may be the oldest existing European shoe worn in North America (it was reputedly worn in New Amsterdam and dates to about 1660), to dresses by Hollywood designer Adrian (Adolph Greenberg) to 1970s handbags made from cigarette packs! In November 2016 the museum, with help from the Barker Veterinary Museum, exhibited a large collection exploring the ways fur, feathers, skin, and bone have been utilized in the fashion industry, focusing on endangered species.

The museum has three galleries with changing exhibitions throughout the year.

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