WORN at the Rijksmuseum

The display fills the museum’s Special Collections galleries, where a new selection from the costume collection goes up every 12 months. It is curated by Vanessa Jones, the Rijksmuseum’s curator of costume and fashion, and designed by Wilmotte & Associés, the French studio behind the museum’s galleries. Every piece comes from the Rijksmuseum’s own collection. The argument is a timely one: second-hand and vintage clothing has a long history, and people kept wearing old clothes for reasons of craft, money and memory long before anyone called it sustainable.

A gown for several generations

The most striking piece belonged to the Six family, the Amsterdam dynasty whose ancestor Jan Six was painted by Rembrandt. In 1978 a descendant gave the family’s collection of clothes and accessories to the Rijksmuseum. This gown is citrine-yellow silk embroidered with flowers, eighteenth century on the outside. Open it up and the structure inside is nineteenth century. Members of the family wore it again in 1896 and as late as 1925, by which time someone had fitted it with a modern corset, boned with steel. It is one dress, altered by each generation to fit the next.

One skirt, many bodices

A nineteenth-century dress of blue taffeta, with a pattern woven into the silk, shows another way to make clothes last. It has a single skirt and several bodices, which were swapped depending on the occasion: one skirt, several outfits. One of the bodices was taken apart and put back together more than once to extend its life. The oldest pieces in the room include a pair of richly embroidered seventeenth-century mules.

Plan your visit

WORN runs until 21 March 2027 and is included in the museum ticket: €25 for adults, rising to €26.50 in 2027, and free for anyone 18 or under. The Rijksmuseum is open every day from 9:00 to 17:00. Book a time slot on the museum’s website. The Special Collections galleries are smaller and quieter than the Gallery of Honour, so this is a good place to start or end a visit.