Museo del Traje

I enjoyed everything about this museum! It's so well curated and organized beautifully! Admission is free on Sundays. I went when it was nice and quiet, there were only a few people in the museum. They have stunning pieces from different decades and interesting props to make the clothes pop more in the showcases. My only downside was this museum was very dark. However, I think this is necessary for the preservation of the fabrics. The grounds are beautiful as well and they have a nice cafe where you can have a bite to eat. This place makes for a nice day out to a lesser known museum in Madrid!

Everyone has different opinions right? Well for me, I very much enjoyed this museum.

First things first:
- Yes you can indeed finish this museum in 10 minutes. It's one floor, one circle.
- hey, did you know that you can see this entire museum on their website? You can take "a virtual tour" and walk through the entire museum.
- so it's free online!
- it's free Sundays. It's free Saturdays after 2:30pm
- it's also free on certain days, like World Heritage Day (April 18, 2015, which was when I visited)

okay that's actually a million things first.

========= Here's why I enjoyed it =========

The museum kept true to the Spanish culture and history. Sure, France and Italy started much of the country's fashion influences, the museum emphasizes on the SPANISH history -how they dressed, how they were influenced, what they kept from the Spanish ancestors, what they added from the French, etc.

The museum organizes its collection from earliest to today's fashion (2015).

It's like a history book with lots of pictures!!

I love history books with lots of pictures!! (because I fall asleep reading textbooks)

The museum included old furniture and accessories relating to dressing, ex. mirrors, drawers, even fashion dolls. Fun fact: how did fashion magazines start? Fashion designers created mini mannequins with beautiful clothes and sent them to the rich people. By mannequin, I'm talking about vintage dollies. With vintage clothing on. This was what the rich people received as their "catalog"!!! The poor people received sketches and papers. Well... the rich people ALSO received these papers.

So as more catalogs and sketches were produced, and more people want to know what other people were wearing, and they wanted to know what people in other countries were wearing.... these fashion sketches became very popular. Fashion sketches became fashion magazines.

What happened to men fashion??? Well men were into business and etc. so they just dressed professionally (and blandly). Women need to look good. The more extravagant they look, the richer the husband pretends to be.

And all of this I learned here at the museum because the information is bilingual!! Yay!!! There are leaflets in each section/room that tells you the name and dates of what you're looking at. Eventually the dates look like numbers (uhhhh 1930s.. 1920s...) to me. But for the first half of the museum, I was like, "ZOMG THIS IS ##### YEARS AGO!"

For the 10 minutes that most people could finish this museum, I stayed here for 2 hours reading every single (English) description. Like a book.

========= So it's up to you =========

I like learning about how we evolved from day 0 to year 2015. So this was a great museum, I loved it to bits. I couldn't work their old computers though, it's all in Spanish and the rolling ball mouse is weird.

========= Atmosphere and venue =========

I visited on the Saturday morning and it was very quiet. There was a tour group ahead of me, but they weren't loud. A security person patrols these rooms very often. During my visit, there was an exhibition!!! An exhibition of old printed fabrics, very elegant. The exhibition room is very small. Hopefully your visit features an exhibition too!

The museum is located in a quiet area with trees and nature and this small body of water. So it was a peaceful Saturday morning for me, thank goodness. Can't deal with crowds.

The museum is comfortable to walk around in, it's dark (to preserve the fabrics), but spacious. Neatly displayed and never overwhelming. I hate when museums display the artifacts like, "Ha, look at me! Look at all these things I have!!" and it's mess!! Not this museum :) so I'm happy I visited.

I went on their Sunday "free admission" day and it was wonderful! It wasn't crowded and better yet, it wasn't teeming with tourists and summer camps. I came across this museum from a shopping guide placed in our hotel room and SO glad that I did.

I'm by no means fashion obsessed but it was a great way to spend an afternoon perusing and learning about how clothing transforms/influences society, customs & traditions. I loved that they incorporated the local fashion/design institute and showcased up & coming fashion designers!