March Mayhem has arrived so let Furniture Fashions assist fill your own home with consolation, luxury & model. As with the Furnishings and Woodwork assortment, its designation as a Nationwide Assortment is taken as representing additionally a assist position for the various smaller collections of textiles held by museums all through Britain that are important parts in the wider national collections.
Our primary emphasis nevertheless will be on contemporary material, including technologically advanced materials and their use within the style trade, acquisitions made for particular exhibitions or generated by way of Fashion in Movement (specifically London designers), rising fashion centres corresponding to Belgium and a broadening of acquisition policy to incorporate able to put on.
Though the collection is designated because the Nationwide Assortment, we recognize its place as a part of the broader national collection held in museums, homes, church buildings and public buildings throughout the UK. The V&A has all the time inspired other institutions within the UK to develop particular collections of furniture and woodwork and the Department continues this custom.
The department contributes to the Museum’s dynamic exhibitions programme, mounting both exhibitions and displays in collaboration with the Exhibitions Department and also phases a regular collection of stay catwalk shows known as Trend in Movement within the galleries of the museum.
Although Western furnishings is now seen as the core of the Furniture and Woodwork collection, it originated (as did most collections within the Museum) within the purchase of fantastic examples of woodworking techniques/craftsmanship for the Government Colleges of Design at Somerset House in the 1840s.