Museo della Moda e delle Arti Applicate

The Museum of Fashion and Applied Arts in Gorizia's Borgo Castello preserves clothing, accessories and objects related to the region's textile and decorative arts. Its collection of roughly ten thousand pieces spans the eighteenth to twentieth centuries.

Why it matters

Silk production and weaving were important to the eighteenth-century County of Gorizia. The museum presents this local textile history alongside Central European fashion, connecting Gorizia with Trieste, Vienna and Prague, as well as with French fashion. Dress and applied arts offer evidence of the region's changing social life and its connections across the Habsburg world.

What to notice

Casa Dornberg's displays introduce silk production and weaving in the county, including an eighteenth-century human-powered circular silk-twisting machine described in the Ministry of Culture catalogue as unique in Europe. The collection includes eighteenth-century clothing and sacred vestments made from Gorizia fabrics, men's and women's fashions from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and a crinoline with metal hoops. Other material includes Gorizia glass and objects from the Monastery of Sant'Orsola, present in the city since 1672.

Context and history

The museum was created in 1999 around earlier collections of textile machinery, samples and jewels, as well as the Verchi collection of Central European clothing and accessories, acquired in 1992. Its holdings include more than nine thousand garments and accessories, with particular depth for the period 1900–1920. Since 2014 the displays have extended across Casa Dornberg, Casa Tasso and Casa Formentini within the Borgo Castello museum complex.