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home > collections > textile + fashion arts
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 |  | | From homespun to couture, enjoy works of fabric and fiber
The MFA's textiles collection was started when Boston was the center of the US textile industry. Today the Museum owns more than 27,000 objects ranging from American needlepoint to European tapestries, Middle Eastern rugs, African kente cloths, and haute couture fashions. |
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Highlights
View these interactive tours of objects from the Museum's outstanding collection of Textile and Fashion Arts.
NEW! Trabert & Hoeffer-Mauboussin Archive
The Trabert & Hoeffer-Mauboussin archive consists of over 100 fine
drawings in gouache that show, in remarkable detail, jewelry designs
from the 1930s to the 1950s. This archive is a gift of
Jean S. and Frederic A. Sharf.
NEW! Walter Mitschke Archive of Mallinson & Co. Drawings
Explore this extensive newly discovered archive of original sketches by designer Walter Mitschke for H.R. Mallinson & Co., one of America’s leading textile firms of the early 20th century. Tours are organized by the series that they represent.
“American Indian” series
“Early American” series
“National Parks” series
“Playgrounds of the World” series
Miscellaneous series
"Walk This Way" exhibition
The MFA’s 2007-2008 exhibition featured footwear from the Museum’s
historic collection paired with artwork from around the Museum.
Textile and Fashion Arts Highlights
Highlights from the MFA’s encyclopedic collection of costume and
textiles, from Andean textiles to haute couture.
Jewelry Highlights
From ancient Egyptian broadcollars to contemporary studio jewelry, the
MFA has an exciting collection of jewelry from almost every culture.
Art and Adornment
This tour puts jewelry into context with paintings and decorative arts to
give a broader perspective on personal adornment in the arts.
Kenneth Paul Block Archive Highlights
In 2009, the MFA received nearly 2,000 original sketches from
widely acclaimed fashion illustrator Kenneth Paul Block. The gift
includes society portraits, editorial fashion illustrations, advertising
commissions, and couture sketches.
The Ellen Stone Collection of American Textiles
Ellen Stone (1854-1944) of Lexington, MA, gave over 700 textiles to the MFA at the end of the 19th century. This large gift came from her family homestead in Lexington, where her mother’s family—the Robbinses— had lived for generations. Most of this collection dates from the 1780s to the 1830s, when the Robbins family prospered.
Fashion Illustration from the 1940s-80s
Learn about thirteen different fashion illustrators working in the mid to
later part of the 20th century and see nearly 300 diverse examples
of their work. Many of the drawings were given by Jean S. and Frederic
A. Sharf, some have been given by the artists (including Richard Ely),
and all are part of a growing group of fashion-related material in the
Museum’s collection.
Asian Textiles
Thanks to generous grants from an anonymous donor and the Coby Foundation, Ltd., the Museum has completed a comprehensive project documenting its important collection of nearly 5,000 textiles and costumes from Japan, China, India, Southeast Asia, and Korea. Explore a group of particularly sumptuous and sophisticated robes in the tour "A Taste For Splendor." |
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Visiting the Collection and Library
The department is open to teachers, classes and serious researchers by advance appointment. For more information, please contact William DeGregorio (wdegregorio@mfa.org) at least eight weeks in advace of your desired date of visit. The departmental library is an international study resource, including rich holdings ranging from rare books of the sixteenth to early twentieth centuries to contemporary fashion magazines. It is also open by appointment. |
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Friends Groups
Join the Fashion Council and the Textile and Costume Society to support and learn more about the David and Roberta Logie Department of Textile and Fashion Arts at the MFA. |
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The David and Roberta Logie Department
of Textile and Fashion Arts - History and Overview
The department currently houses more than 27,000 objects, including samplers, fans, tapestries, Japanese textiles, and ancient Peruvian textiles and costumes.
When the Museum was incorporated in 1870, Boston was the center of the United States textile industry, and the Museum's founders thought it essential to form a textile collection to provide access to examples of good design. A prime mover was Denman Waldo Ross, Harvard professor of design and a Museum Trustee who in 1890 began to build the collection with his gifts of Coptic and Andean textiles; European, Turkish, Indian, and Persian silk weavings; Indonesian batiks; and Middle Eastern rugs. Between 1889 and 1915 the Museum also acquired many superb examples of Japanese textiles and robes, mainly donated by William Sturgis Bigelow, a noted connoisseur of Japanese art. In 1930, the Museum became the first general art museum to establish a department devoted solely to textile-related artifacts.
Gertrude Townsend, the department's first curator, strengthened weaker areas in 1938 by adding the Mrs. Philip Lehman Collection of textiles and costume accessories, which included examples of sixteenth through eighteenth-century European embroideries and knitting. With the Elizabeth Day McCormick Collection, acquired in 1943–53, the Museum received its most important and extensive collection of costumes, accessories, needlework, costume books, and prints. Other gifts and purchases expanded the holdings of high fashion, regional dress, and ecclesiastical garments. The Esther Oldham Collection, one of the world's greatest collections of fans, was donated to the Museum in 1976. Twentieth-century and African textiles have been a focus of recent acquisitions.
In 2004, the department was named the David and Roberta Logie Department of Textile and Fashion Arts, in honor of a major bequest from Roberta Gleiter Logie, one of the department's most loyal and ardent supporters.
The first curator of jewelry in an American art museum was appointed at the MFA in 2006, thanks to a generous endowment by Susan Kaplan in honor of her mother. While based in the Textile and Fashion Arts Department, the Rita J. Kaplan and Susan B. Kaplan Curator of Jewelry oversees objects of adornment Museum-wide.
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