A Carlisle exhibition and gallery has unveiled a new collection that will now be on permanent display to visitors.
Tullie House has opened its Costume Collection, displaying rare and beautiful dresses worn by Carlisle women including many never before seen by the public.
The gallery, which has been 18 months in the making, is one of the biggest of its kind in the north.
It showcases 300 years of clothing worn by local women, including some items of national importance.
Unusually for costume galleries, most of the dresses are accompanied by information about their owners.
“It’s wonderful to open the new Costume Collection gallery to the public this week, and to see people come in and enjoy and engage with the costumes,” said Gabrielle Heffernan who is curatorial manager at Tullie House museum and art gallery in Carlisle. “Whenever someone goes in, they stand there and say wow, it’s amazing.”
Two rooms have been renovated to create the new gallery space and it has been filled with more than 40 costumes from the museum’s collection.
“We know our visitors love costume,” says Gabrielle. “Some of the dresses have been out for temporary exhibitions in the past and they have always been really popular. Many have never been seen by the public before.”
Nationally important items include a court mantua from the mid-eighteenth century owned by the Jackson family of Carlisle.
“It’s a beautiful blue dress with silvery threads,” says Gabrielle. “It is about six feet wide and quite bizarre-looking – they were worn by rich women at the incredible events they went to.”
A number of wedding dresses include one worn by Carlisle parlour maid Margaret Pearson for her wedding in 1925.
The most up-to-date exhibit is the scrubs worn by nurse Evelyn Charlotte Nakachwa as she worked through the COVID-19 pandemic at the Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle.
The stories of the wearers make the Carlisle gallery special, says Gabrielle: “They aren’t just clothes, they tell the stories of people and we can link them back to the families.”
Carol Donnelly, from Faugh, a village just outside of Carlisle, was one of the exhibition’s first visitors. She said: “I’ve come into Carlisle today because I’ve been following what’s been happening and I know there’s been a lot of conservation done and that’s a wonderful thing.
“Tullie House is a wonderful museum to start with – they couldn’t do more to celebrate Cumbria and the Borders. But this exhibition is more. And I’m sure I’m going to enjoy The Costume Collection very much indeed.”
