Project « Collecting fashion »

Mariemont’s collections include textiles, garments and vast quantities of lace that are calling out to be examined. Some of the pieces belonged to Raoul Warocqué’s display collection. Others hail from the wardrobes of the women of the Warocqué family. Some were preserved as family heirlooms, a practice begun by Marie Warocqué who had sometimes annotated them. 

Although the collection was the subject of unpublished research in the 1950s, it has not been on display since the fire at the castle in December 1960. Plus, later acquisitions have been added. So we are looking at a complex group of items that reflect the paradoxes of fashion collections, between family history and records of technological methods, industrial and small-scale production, creativity and conformism.