Plan Your Visit to the Museum

You come into contact with them every day!

Textiles are objects that protect the body, furnish the home, and express personal and cultural identity.

Made from a wide range of natural and synthetic materials, they demonstrate the ingenuity of their makers, who transform wool, cotton, silk, animal skins, bark, polyester, or grass into cloth that perfectly suits its purpose.

Our permanent collection represents historic techniques that continue to be practiced today. It includes woven textile fragments from 11th century Egypt, an Inuit seal skin appliquéd hanging, a Malaysian cowrie shell war vest made around 1910, an early 20th century camel headdress from Afghanistan, Indigenous beadwork, a child’s suit made from salmon skin from China, hooked rugs and quilts from across Canada, a collection of Chinese children’s festival hats, William Morris curtain fragments, prayer rugs from Iran, indigo-dyed women’s wrappers from Nigeria, and woven alpaca ponchos from Bolivia.

Our contemporary exhibitions celebrate textiles as personal and cultural expressions, technical innovation, cultural continuity, and new materials.

The Textile Museum of Canada is relevant to anyone who has clothes on right now, or who stepped out from between the sheets this morning to open the curtains and put their feet on the rug. These are just a few of the basic encounters we have with textiles and fibre, but it’s a global human experience that runs deep and rich.

We have digitized our entire collection of over 15,000 objects, and incorporate objects from our collection into our exhibitions whenever possible. However, due to the size constraints of our gallery space there is not a dedicated exhibition of our permanent collection at this time. We are working towards re-establishing a permanent collection gallery by late 2021.

If you wish to make an appointment to view an item from our collection for research purposes please contact Kelsey Cassin at kcassin@textilemuseum.ca or 416-599-5321 x 2248.

Textiles are one of the most light-sensitive materials that you will find on display at a museum. Exposure to light causes weakness of fibres and fading, which can result in severe damage to textiles if left unchecked. All forms of light can cause damage but light sources with high UV content, such as daylight, are the most destructive. Light damage to textiles is cumulative and irreversible, so it’s important for us to reduce the amount and intensity of light exposure to our collection whenever possible.

The Museum uses a dimming LED lighting system in our galleries, as it contains low levels of the UV spectrum and can be adjusted for the needs of individual pieces. We also have motion detectors that dim the lights when no one is in a gallery to reduce the amount of light exposure a textile receives. Placing a light source father away from an object reduces the intensity of light exposure that an object receives while on display. For this reason, we do not place spotlights within our cases.

We strive to make our galleries accessible for our visitors but sometimes the needs of the textiles on display require low lighting levels for their care. If you are finding that the lighting in a gallery is making it difficult to read the labels, a clear print exhibition guide is available at the front desk. Tours for visitors with low vision are also available through our education department.

Please don’t. Our museum is special because there is no glass separating you from the artifacts on display, and you can get up close. But we ask you not to touch, and here’s why:

Our skin contains oils, salts, and residues. When people touch an object, these things build up and result in chemical reactions that cause deterioration. Damage caused to textiles is a slow, gradual process and the immediate effect of poor handling is not apparent. Although the damage isn’t as easy to see as a ceramic vase breaking when you drop it, it’s still happening! This also means that a textile, especially an old one, is probably much more fragile than it looks at first glance. Dyes, chemicals, and a variety of natural but slightly gross substances are often used to make textiles. These can remain on the surface and touching them means they will get on your hands and clothing.

In short, we ask you not to touch because it keeps you and the textiles safe. The longer we keep an object in good condition, the more people will get to see it. Please help us preserve our collection for generations to come.

You can access our Museum Shop and Library admission-free. Our Library is open Monday to Friday 1–4 pm and Wednesday evenings 5–7pm. Our Shop is open during regular Museum hours, 11 am–5 pm daily, 11 am–8 pm Wednesdays.

The Museum is grateful for the donation of objects to the collection. However, please note that we have currently placed a moratorium on new acquisitions as we undergo an in-depth review of our policies.

For more information about donating to the Museum’s collection, click here.

Interested in selling your items in our Museum shop? Please contact our shop manager June Lee at jlee@textilemuseum.ca or 416-599-5321 x 2233 to make an appointment, as items left behind for review without prior authorization will be considered donations or will be disposed of.

Thank you for your support! For information about what items we accept for our fundraising sales and how you can donate, please see our textile donations page.

Our conservator Hillary Anderson has put together a list of resources for textile enthusiasts and owners including local independent appraisers and conservators. Due to the overwhelming number of requests we receive, we are not able to respond to inquiries relating to artifacts which are not in our collection.

Yes! Check out our Get Involved page to learn more about volunteering at the Museum and find out if there are currently any job openings.