The Costume Society is a British organisation formed in 1965 to promote the study and preservation of historic and contemporary dress. It publishes a scholarly journal, ''Costume'', as well as one-off publications; and organises events and study days.
History
The Costume Society was formed in 1965, arising from a developing interest in the history of fashion and a desire on the part of its founders to foster serious research in an area which previously had been the domain of the amateur collector. The immediate genesis of the organisation was a meeting held at the
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...
on 13 October 1964.
Its first chairman was
Charles Harvard Gibbs-Smith
Charles Harvard Gibbs-Smith (22 March 1909 – 3 December 1981)Roy Strong
Sir Roy Colin Strong, (born 23 August 1935) is an English art historian, museum curator, writer, broadcaster and landscape designer. He has served as director of both the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. ...
, V&A director, Anne Buck, curator of the Gallery of Costume at Platt Hall in Manchester, and
June Swann
June Marion Swann MBE (born 1929) is a British footwear historian, formerly the Keeper of the Boot and Shoe Collection at the Northampton Museum and Art Gallery in England, where she worked for 38 years from 1950 to 1988. In the late 1950s she ...
, Keeper of the Boot and Shoe Collection at the
Northampton Museum and Art Gallery
Northampton Museum and Art Gallery is a public museum in Northampton, England. The museum is owned and run by West Northamptonshire Council and houses one of the largest collection of shoes in the world, with over 15,000 pairs, The most recent chairman (2014-2018) was Deirdre Murphy, senior curator at Kensington Palace.
Activities
Since 1967, the society, through Edinburgh University Press publishes its journal, ''Costume'' twice per year. ''Costume'' is listed in the Arts and Humanities Citation Index of the
Institute for Scientific Information
The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) was an academic publishing service, founded by Eugene Garfield in Philadelphia in 1956. ISI offered scientometric and bibliographic database services. Its specialty was citation indexing and analysi ...
. It organises regular conferences, study days and museum visits, and administers a number of conservation awards and bursaries.
Student awards and conservation grants are aimed at students of the history and theory of dress, costume design and production as well as other related fields. They also make awards to museums and other institutions to cover the costs of conservation of objects.