Our History
FHM co-founders Kenn Norman and Jonathan Walford had years of working in the cultural and heritage fields when Jonathan was hired by Sonja Bata in December 1987 to transform her shoe collection into the Bata Shoe Museum, which opened to the public in May 1995.
After leaving Bata in 1999, Jonathan and Kenn pursued a freelance career of independent curatorial work, including developing travelling exhibitions. Jonathan authored six books on various aspects of fashion history, from paper dresses to shoes, and the two worked as dealers and appraisers of antique and vintage clothing. However, many of their best finds ended up in collections scattered around the world and they mused about creating their own museum, starting with the collection Jonathan had been acquiring since the 1970s for developing lectures.
There was a growing interest in vintage fashion around the turn of the millennium. Old clothes became a hotly collected commodity and experienced a rapid rise in auction and online sale prices. There were more buyers vying for the best pieces that came onto the market and fewer good pieces were showing up.
In 2004, Jonathan and Kenn registered the name Fashion History Museum (FHM). The next step was for the FHM to become a non-profit corporation with a governing board. In March 2009 the Canadian government granted the FHM charitable status; this allowed the FHM to give tax receipts for donations - a crucial step for building a collection without the benefit of a large acquisitions budget. The museum now had to make itself known - exhibitions were created for museums around Ontario and abroad. A shoe exhibition was especially popular that travelled as far as Hong Kong and Bahrain.
After considering Toronto and other locations, the Waterloo Region was considered a suitable location for the museum. The area was once the heart of industrial 19th and early 20th century Canada where textile and clothing production were leading industries. In 2013, an opportunity for a pilot gallery in a renovated mill in Cambridge became available, and a five month exhibition brought in over 8,000 visitors. The following spring another exhibition created by the FHM about fashion and architecture at the nearby Waterloo Regional Museum brought in 24,000 visitors in nine months. The region looked to be a good fit for the FHM.
In late 2014 a five year lease was offered to the FHM for the old post office of the former town of Hespeler - home to what had been the largest woollen mill in the British Empire in the 1920s/30s. The Hespeler post office was built in 1928 by Thomas William Fuller (1865-1951), the Chief Dominion Architect from 1927 to 1936, in an Art Deco/Italianate style. The building had been the centre of the Hespeler community until it was decommissioned in 1993 and sold to a private buyer.
ABOVE View of the former Hespeler Post Office, newly opened in 1929 (the clock tower was added in 1932). Image courtesy of the City of Cambridge archives.
With grants from the Region of Waterloo, City of Cambridge, as well as private funding, the museum space was renovated and opened its doors in June 2015. However, due to major roadwork re-construction of the main street that year, an official opening was postponed until March 2016.
The city of Cambridge purchased the building in the summer of 2020, with the intent of securing the museum’s tenancy into the future. COVID-19 closed the museum to the public, but during the shutdown, the FHM invested nearly $200,000 of significant improvements to the storage areas and library; exhibition space in the galleries, and washrooms and an emergency exit to meet accessibility codes.
However, after municipal elections in October 2022 the new mayor and council no longer saw the museum as an asset for the community, despite all data proving we brought significant value to the city’s tourism, culture, heritage, education, and art scene, In February 2023 the museum was informed in an email from Jan Liggett, the mayor of Cambridge, that it's rent would be increased by nearly $80,000 per year. A promise to review the rent by city council never came. Disingenuous negotiations by the city in the Fall of 2024 refused to recognize the museum's value to the community, despite receiving numerous awards from different organizations as a favourite local museum, gallery, and tourist attraction. Instead, the city chose to publicly vilify the museum and its founders for not paying rent during the city's prolonged two years of negotiations, which ended abruptly On March 14, 2025, when the City of Cambridge served an eviction to the museum that threatened forced removal by a bailiff with two weeks notice.
The FHM collection was hurriedly put into storage and the museum has now relocated to Stratford, Ontario where we are looking for a suitable permanent location. While we look, we will continue to create exhibitions in other venues. In July 2026, we opened Encore Vintage boutique at 41 Market Place in Stratford with all proceeds going to support the re-establishment of the Fashion History Museum.
Mandate, Mission, and Values
MOTTO
Where History is Always in Fashion
MANDATE
The Fashion History Museum connects the history of fashion with the world that created it. What we wear is a subconscious human expression, guided by habit and need, that reflects aesthetics, culture, identity, politics, economics, and technology. The museum collects, preserves, researches, and exhibits historical garments and accessories that illustrate these connections to better understand our past, present, and future.
MISSION
- Develop vibrant exhibitions that provoke discussion about the meaning and value of fashion.
- Strive for authenticity in all museum presentations and activities.
- Undertake original research.
- Protect our fashionable past by developing and caring for an important collection.
- Offer services that are accessible and valuable for all.
- Become a gathering place for the local community and destination point for tourists.
- Maintain an international presence and stellar reputation.
- Grow into a self-sustaining, well-respected cultural institution.
- Make a significant contribution and be recognized by the international fashion and museum communities
VALUES
- Practice respect
- Diversify our reach
- Encourage excellence
- Honour accuracy
- Demand authenticity
- Nurture curiosity
- Inspire creativity
- Value artistry
- Promote dialogue
- Participate and collaborate