Feature image

Top to Toe Exhibition

When
04 October 2008 -
19 April 2009

10:00-17:45

Where
V and A Museum of Childhood

Nearest Tube
Bethnal Green

Cost
Free

Age Restrictions
n/a

The Top to Toe exhibition at Museum of Childhood looks at the changing nature of kids fashion over the centuries and invites children to explore the different ways in which young people have dressed. Top to Toe: Fashion for Kids is a fascinating look at the influences on children's fashions and the historical trends that keep on repeating themselves.

Childhood milestones
Many children's fashions mark a significant period of their lives, and this has lead to certain clothing having a special meaning to the child that wears them. Marking milestones at different peiods in their lives, the Top to Toe exhibition looks at the breeching of boys into trousers, the length of a Victorian girl's skirt or her first corset, and various shoes, hats and hairstyles that signified a more adult version of a young person at different periods of history.

Changing fashions
Various different fashions are associated with diffferent periods of history and with a wide ranging collection of clothing from 1800s to the present day, visitors to the Top to Toe exhibition will be able to see the classic dropped waist dress of the twenties and the bell bottom trousers of the 1960s and 70s. Kids will love to imagine what it was like to wear these garments and look at how designers nowadays are influenced by a whole range of styles, from historical detail and shapes to fabrics and function.

Fashion statements
Children spent many years wearing essentially the same kind of clothes as their parents, but smaller and it has only really been within the last hundred or so years that kids fashion has become a distinct and different concept. Whether something was deemed fashionable or not to the children of the Victorian or Edwardian era was often dictated by quality or quantity of material involved. Kids are able to look at the ways in which fashion for children has developed over the years with exhibts of dresses from various periods that have been influenced by other cultures, styles and techniques in manufacturing.

The Top to Toe exhibition at Museum of Childhood takes place from Saturday 4th October 2008 - Sunday 19th April 2009. Entry is free.

Other London events

Body Worlds London

Body Worlds at O2

Body Worlds at Mirror of Time

Renaissance Faces at National Gallery

Bruegel to Rubens at Buckingham Palace

Childrens Film Festival London

Other Events at V and A Museum of Childhood

13 February 2012 - 17 February 2012
Tue 2pm-4pm (term time only)
Tue 2pm-4pm (term time only)
Tue 2pm-4pm (term time only)
Mon-Sun 10am-5.45pm, last adm 5.30pm, closed Dec 24-26, Jan 1, ends Mar 4
01 October 2011 - 04 March 2012
Jan-Dec, Mon-Sun 10am-5.45pm, last adm 5.30pm, first Thu of every month 10am-9pm, selected galleries open after 6pm, closed Dec 24-26, Jan 1
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