Museum institutions and fashion: determinants of museums’ involvement in fashion-related activities

Abstract

ABSTRACT Fashion and textiles have always been present in museum collections and exhibitions. In recent years, however, they seem to be becoming more visible, both in response to the interest of curators and audiences in the field and due to the development of new links and forms of cooperation between museum institutions and the creative sector. The aim of the paper is to propose a new quantitative approach to assessing the extent of museums' engagement with fashion, and to consider the factors determining the presence of diverse activities related to textiles, garments, fashion and fashion accessories in museums, with a view to furthering the discourse on the connections between museums and cultural and creative industries. The empirical analysis in the text is based on a comprehensive survey of Polish museums administered in 2022. This enabled us to consider how the intensity of museums' engagement in fashion-related activities may be measured and what characteristics of museums and their environments make them more likely to engage in a broader range of fashion-related endeavours or focus on a particular fashion-related activity type. Our goal is not only to diagnose the situation in the Polish context but to also contribute to the broader discussion on factors impacting museums' programme choices and performance.