The largest and most expensive exhibition of historical costume ever presented in Ireland opens at the National Museum next week. Costing £750,000 to mount, "The Way We Wore" at Collins Barracks is a survey of clothing and jewellery manufactured and worn in this country over the past 250 years. It draws on the museum's extensive collections in these areas and includes many items never on show to the public before.
Spread over more than 300 sq m and three galleries in the barracks' west wing, the exhibition will be officially opened on Monday by the Minister for Arts and Heritage, Ms de Valera, and her Northern Ireland counterpart, Mr Michael McGimpsey.
More than two years have been spent selecting and preparing the exhibits, under the supervision of the museum's keeper in the Art and Industry Division, Ms Mairead Dunleavy. The exhibition has been designed by the architect Mr Patrick Gannon, who has also worked on the restoration of Kilkenny Castle.
It is more than a quarter of a century since the National Museum last displayed anything like a representative selection of its costume and jewellery holdings which have been collected for the past 100 years.
The institution's textile collection now takes up an entire floor of the east wing at Collins Barracks, so the pieces included in this new exhibition are only a fraction of the total material. Nonetheless, Ms Dunleavy believes the new galleries will give visitors an excellent introduction to the subject and show just how rich the museum's holdings are in this field.
However, she also notes that the items on display tend to have come from the more affluent sections of Irish society, since the poor usually wore their clothes until they fell apart. Only one case at the exhibition is devoted to what is customarily perceived as traditional Irish clothing, such as a woman's red skirt and black shawl and a man's corduroy breeches.
Several other cases feature clothes with a specifically Irish character, among them a uniform made in 1845 for a Co Meath member of the 1782 Club formed by Daniel O'Connell; in dark green felted wool, its cutaway coat has large brass buttons decorated with the date 1782 surrounded by a wreath of shamrocks.
Next to this costume is a red gown from the same period and made from silk poplin: a fabric once closely associated with Ireland but today no longer manufactured in this country. The dress was made for an 18-year-old girl called Lucinda Mills who lived at 33 Dorset Street in Dublin. As in this instance, wherever possible the exhibition gives details of the items' original owners.
So, for example, there is a complete man's costume dating from around 1770 which was probably made in Limerick for a member of the Quinn family who later became the Earls of Dunraven. Also from Limerick, but more than four decades later, is a white, embroidered muslin wedding dress worn by the grandmother of Evelyn Gleeson, one of the founders of the Dun Emer Guild at the beginning of the 20th century.
One of the last cases contains dresses worn by three former Irish presidential spouses: Sinead de Valera, Rita Childers and Maeve Hillery. Elsewhere, there are examples of garments that were constantly worn but rarely seen, such as whalebone corsets. There are also accessories, including perfume bottles, card cases, gloves and fans.
Much of the cost of the new exhibition galleries has been accounted for by specially commissioned full-length glass display cases designed by Patrick Gannon and video installations. There is a touch-screen map of Ireland showing where different clothes and fabrics were made.
While the last case contains clothes by Ireland's first internationally acclaimed fashion designer, the late Sybil Connolly, visitors can leave the exhibition with a more personal image. At the end of the final gallery is a bank of television monitors on which anyone so inclined can look at his or her own appearance.
"The Way We Wore" opens to the public from next Tuesday