Playing by the rules: Childhood, dress and imagination

Published:: 31 January 2023

Shelley Tobin installing the newly conserved Diana dress for the 2024 fashion exhibition | © Steve Haywood

The new fashion exhibition will draw on the Killerton collection and explore children's clothing of the 19th and 20th centuries, many of them part of the Margaret Bodley collection of children's clothes which was acquired by the National Trust in the early 1980s.

The 'Playing by the rules' 2024 fashion exhibition at Killerton is now closed

Please check back soon for more information on the exciting 2025 exhibition, opening 15th February.

Children's fashion

‘What I envy the little girls of today is the fewness and simplicity of their garments...’ (Eleanor Acland, Goodbye for the Present, 1935)

As well as 19th and 20th century children’s clothes drawn from the extensive Killerton collection, there will be a chance to spot dolls, toys and games from more than a century ago, there will even be activities for the little ones to get involved with too.

The exhibition outlines how attitudes to children’s fashion has changed over two hundred years, including dressing boys and girls almost alike in petticoats until the age of four or five. We also tell some astonishing stories connected to the some of the children who wore the clothing on display, one grew up to be Admiral of the Fleet, another a star of West End musicals and movies!

Detail of stitches on child’s smock. — Detail of stitches on child’s smock from the collection at Killerton | © National Trust / Steve Haywood

Young curators

This year we've been helped by local Girl Guiding Units - our Young Curators. Broadclyst and Cranbrook Brownies, aged from six to ten, share their designs for Future Fashion for children, while the Guides and Young Leaders, aged ten to sixteen, select photographs from the collections reflecting children’s clothes for different occasions.