At Ulster Museum · Botanic Gardens, Belfast, BT9 5AB
Only the published dates are confirmed for this programme.
Ashes to Fashion, the Ulster Museum’s fashion and textile exhibition in Belfast, has been extended and now runs until Sunday, 3 January 2027.
Billed as the museum’s first major fashion and textile exhibition in 15 years, the show marks 50 years of the museum’s fashion collecting and features around 120 objects, spanning eighteenth-century historic garments through to contemporary pieces by houses such as Chanel and Versace. Among the highlights is the Lennox Quilt, an eighteenth-century embroidered quilt and the sole surviving piece from a devastating fire at the museum’s stores in 1976. Other exhibits include work by internationally recognised designers Alexander McQueen, Carolina Herrera, JW Anderson and the late Paul Costelloe, alongside recent acquisitions from the Lanto Synge Needlework Collection tracing the history of Ulster’s own textile heritage. Together the pieces are intended to show both the international reach of the museum’s fashion holdings and the local stitching and textile traditions that sit alongside them, from historic Ulster linen work through to contemporary Irish design.
The Ulster Museum is in the Botanic Gardens area of south Belfast, served by bus routes along Stranmillis Road and Botanic Avenue. Pay and display parking is available nearby.
The museum sits inside Botanic Gardens, next to Queen’s University and a short walk from the Tropical Ravine glasshouse, so a visit to the exhibition combines easily with a walk through the gardens. There is more to see in Belfast and across Co. Antrim.
Heading to Ulster Museum in Belfast? Antrim has plenty more to see. Read the Belfast area guide, find what else is on, and explore the towns and villages nearby.
We do not yet have a suitable Antrim tour in our reviewed collection that starts locally. Use the IrelandMe tour finder to compare bookable experiences for the rest of your trip.