• Past Exhibitions
  • Made in York
  • The Genius of Grinling Gibbons
  • Savage Satire
  • The Georgian Edit
  • In Pursuit of Pleasure
  • A Century of Shoes
  • Consuming Passions
• Museum Partners

The Georgian Edit

Cutting-Edge Fashion of the Eighteenth Century

23 August – 31 December 2019

Georgian Fashion: extravagant, excessive, often extreme but always exciting. The eighteenth century was an era of radical styling, bold design, vibrant colour and innovative cut, when fashion went to unchartered heights and brought theatre and fantasy into the ‘everyday’ life of Britain’s fashion-addicted society.

In the world of Georgian fashion, towering hairstyles met outlandishly high heels, daringly wide hooped petticoats matched impossibly exaggerated silhouettes and decadently rich fabrics went hand in glove with luxuriously embroidered detailing. As this country carved its own distinct sartorial identity and British tailoring led the world, trend-setters and pioneers of fashionable innovations and excesses were feted like superstars.

Bringing together historic costume from collections around the UK, The Georgian Edit: Cutting-Edge Fashion of the Eighteenth Century, showcases the developments and dramatic changes in style across this iconic era in British fashion.