24.10.2025 – 12.04.2026

Whether evening gowns or streetwear, lingerie or gentlemen’s suits – collectors gather textile treasures, arrange and preserve them. What is behind this passion for collecting. What makes an item of clothing worthy of collecting?

The exhibition immerses itself in the fascination of collecting and poses questions about property, responsibility and excess. It offers insight into the Textile Museum St. Gallen’s in-house collection as well as showing extracts from four private collections.

Pop culture and graphic design are reflected in exclusive T-shirts; a collection of refined underwear, which reflects the changing ideals of female beauty, provides a glimpse ‘underneath’; unique sets tailored from patterns by haute couturiers in Switzerland enchant the public; stylish suits and elegant accessories represent men’s fashion from the 1920s to the 1940s.  The exhibition is complemented by important pieces from the Textile Museum own collection, which preserves the rich textile history of St. Gallen and eastern Switzerland. They demonstrate how a collection conveys knowledge and provides inspiration – but also the challenges that come with preserving this cultural heritage.

Visitors are encouraged to give this some thought, to consider their own wardrobe and possibly their own collecting habits: do we consciously put together our closet or do our clothes just pile up? How do we find a personal style beyond fashion trends? In the tension between a fascination for and an abundance of clothes, (over-) consumption also comes into focus – and the fine line that exists between targeted collecting and indiscriminate accumulation.

In the art installation Lumpensammlerin (Collector of Rags) (2024), artist Andrea Vogel takes up this theme, showing the unexpected places where discarded textiles end up – and what can be created from them. In the second artistic intervention, photographer Rebecca Bowring takes as her subject the legacy of private collections and the emotional value of textile memorabilia in her series l’étreinte (2020).

We are very pleased to collaborate with the private collectors Rosmarie Amacher, Marcus Gossolt, Reto Salis Gross and Beata Sievi  and the artists Andrea Vogel and Rebecca Bowring.