As part of the conference programme, professional visits were organised to prominent museums and cultural institutions across Spain, home to valuable collections of historical costume, textiles and decorative arts.
In Madrid, participants visited the Gallery of the Royal Collections (Galería de las Colecciones Reales), which houses significant examples of royal attire, as well as the National Museum of Decorative Arts (Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativas), whose collections illustrate the development of applied and decorative arts from the 14th century to the present day.
The programme also included a visit to Burgos, where participants had the opportunity to explore valuable examples of medieval textiles and tapestries preserved at the Monastery of Las Huelgas and Burgos Cathedral.
Another part of the programme was dedicated to Ávila, where participants were introduced to the city’s significant ethnographic museum collections and visited the Royal Monastery of Santo Tomás (Real Monasterio de Santo Tomás).
On the final day of the conference, participants were introduced to the textile collection of the museum in Segovia, followed by visits to the cathedral and the Episcopal Palace, which house exquisite examples of historical textiles, embroidery, liturgical vestments and tapestries.
The conference provided a valuable opportunity for the exchange of professional knowledge and experience, exploration of important European textile collections, and discussion of contemporary approaches to the research, preservation and presentation of textile cultural heritage.
