Dressing the Gilded Age exhibit at the Washington State History Museum
Hello vintage fashion club friends…Who might be interested in a trip to Tacoma to see Dressing the Gilded Age exhibit at the Washington State History Museum sometime in January? The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday 10am to 5pm. Price of senior tickets is $14.00. We could carpool, visit museum in the morning, and then have lunch at a nearby restaurant. Please let me know if you are interested and dates you may be available. Hope you are are keeping well and have some wonderful Thanksgiving plans. It would be so fun to see you all again!
The season’s best to you, Su Phillips
Dressing the Gilded Age: Fashion from the 1870s to 1910s
June 28, 2025 – February 15, 2026
A new exhibition at the Washington State History Museum (WSHM) showcases an era of rapid change in American history through fashion. Dressing the Gilded Age: Fashion from the 1870s to the 1910s will be on view from June 28, 2025, through February 15, 2026. The exhibition explores how clothing helped introduce new ideas about social, political, and technological progress.
The Gilded Age was a time that brought abundant wealth to the United States through industrialization and technology. Manufacturing capabilities progressed, and the distribution of commodities nationwide became easier through newly established transcontinental railroads.
“Before the Gilded Age, clothing was primarily handmade,” said WSHM director Jennifer Saunders. “It was a time-consuming and expensive production process. With the introduction of mechanized sewing machines,
mail-order catalogs and ready-to-wear fashion, the cost of clothing dropped significantly. Fashion became widely available to people of different social classes for the first time.”
Dressing the Gilded Age features a variety of clothing and accessories, from beautifully restored dresses worn by the wealthy to everyday working-class attire from the Washington State Historical Society’s collection. Photographs, historical advertisements, and catalogs illustrate the rise of consumer culture and the widening socio-economic divide. The exhibition also includes tools and stories of the harsh conditions in the fashion industry that often took advantage of women and immigrant labor.
The exhibition also connects how fashion served as a symbol of identity, status, and political ideology. Figures such as the “Gibson Girl” characterized fashionable, independent, and athletic middle-class women. Women aspired to try new gender-defying activities, particularly sports like mountaineering and basketball. Suffragists of the time advocated not only for the right to vote but also for less restrictive and more practical clothing.
