8 Best Fashion Museums in the World

The Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art: New York City, New York

On May 10, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York will open the new, nearly 12,000-square-foot galleries of its venerated Costume Institute. Adjacent to the museum’s Great Hall entrance, these displays will focus on the Institute’s annual spring exhibition as well as shows from the museum’s other curatorial departments. The first exhibition here, “Costume Art,” will be celebrated at the Met Gala fundraiser, which will take place on May 4, and be cochaired by Beyonce, Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams, and Anna Wintour. This exhibition will juxtapose garments and works of art from across the museum’s collection, creating pairings that will illuminate the connection between clothing and the body, as well as the interplay between artistic representations of the body and fashion as an art form. “Costume Art” will be on view from May 10 through Jan. 10, 2027.

The Museum at FIT: New York City, New York

New York City’s Fashion Institute of Technology—a college for design, fashion, art, communications, and business—also has a museum with exhibitions, programs, and publications. Its permanent collection encompasses some 50,000 garments and accessories from the 18th century to the present, including those created by designers such as Adrian, Balenciaga, Chanel, and Dior. The museum’s upcoming special exhibition, on display from Sep. 16 through Jan. 4, 2027, will focus on connections between dolls and high fashion, featuring designs from the 18th century to today, by Marc Jacobs, Lanvin, Martin Margiela, and Anna Sui, among others.

The Stuart Weitzman Collection of Historic Shoes: New York City, New York

The Stuart and Jane Weitzman Shoe Museum, an ongoing exhibition in The New York Historical‘s new Tang Wing for American Democracy, will open on June 18 and show some 150 pairs of historic shoes from the collection of Stuart and Jane Weitzman.

Stuart Weitzman founded his namesake women’s shoe brand in 1986. In 1996, his wife, Jane Weitzman, began collecting and commissioning artsy renditions of display shoes to showcase in her husband’s store’s windows. These shoes were made from everything from fresh flowers to stained glass, and will be on view at the Shoe Museum. Another installation will tell the story of women’s history through shoes, from the suffrage movement of the early 1900s to the heyday of Hollywood.

Bata Shoe Museum: Toronto, Canada

Founded in Toronto in 1995 by the late Sonja Bata (wife of Czech shoemaker Thomas Bata), the museum encompasses 4,500 years of footwear history in four rotating galleries. On display through Sep. 20 is “Rough & Ready: A History of the Cowboy Boot,” while the first-ever exhibition of the footwear of Andre Perugia, an Italian French shoe designer whose creations revolutionized luxury footwear, will be on view through April 2027. “Unearthing Vindolanda: Footwear from the Edge of the Roman Empire,” featuring footwear-related pieces from south of Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland, England, will be on view from May 7 until Sept. 2027.

Victoria & Albert Museum: London, England

The fashion collection of London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, in South Kensington, spans five centuries and is the largest and most comprehensive collection of dresses in the world. Its holdings range from 17th-century gowns and 1930s eveningwear by Coco Chanel to 1960s daywear by Mary Quant and post-war couture by Christian Dior and Cristóbal Balenciaga.

“Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art,” on display through Nov. 8, is the first exhibition ever staged in the U.K. devoted to Maison Schiaparelli, and charts the history and impact of one of the 20th century’s most innovative fashion designers, Elsa Schiaparelli. This traces the origins of her house, from its first, paradigm-shifting garments to its present-day incarnation under current creative director, Daniel Roseberry. The exhibition features over 400 objects, including 100 ensembles and 50 artworks, accessories, jewelry, paintings, photographs, furniture, perfumes, and archival material.

MoMu: Antwerp, Belgium

MoMu houses the largest collection of contemporary Belgian fashion in the world, and is famous for its immersive exhibitions. On display through Jan. 17, 2027, “The Antwerp Six” highlights the unique trajectory that connects the city’s six legendary designers, Dirk Bikkembergs, Ann Demeulemeester, Walter Van Beirendonck, Dries Van Noten, Dirk Van Saene, and Marina Yee. This began with their study at the fashion department of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp; they each presented collections at the British Designer Show in 1986, which led to their international breakthrough and established the Belgian city as a fashion capital.

La Galerie Dior: Paris, France

The original House of Dior in Paris has been transformed into La Galerie Dior, a testament to the visionary boldness of couturier Christian Dior and his six successors, Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferreé, John Galliano, Raf Simons, and Maria Grazia Chiuri. The museum displays outfits, original sketches, archival documents, accessories, and what it calls “exceptional pieces,” many exhibited for the first time. Featured here through May 17 are over 100 Dior works from the collection of the foundation of Azzedine Alaïa, the Tunisian French couturier. A related exhibition is on display at Alaïa’s foundation, also in Paris, through June 21.

Ferragamo Museo: Florence, Italy

The family of legendary Italian shoe designer Salvatore Ferragamo founded this museum in 1995 to introduce international visitors to the artistic qualities of Ferragamo and the role he played in the history of footwear and global fashion. The museum is located in the medieval basement of the Palazzo Spini Feroni, built by the cloth merchant and banker Geri Spini. The building, which houses 17th and 18th-century Florentine paintings and a 17th-century chapel, is also the headquarters of the footwear company. The museum describes its current, temporary exhibition, “Salvatore Ferragamo 1898-1960,” set to end on May 10, as a “film reel of our past, a step back to explore the role of a museum and the curating that accompanies it.”