We Shouldn’t Exist. But We Do.

We are the only museum in the world dedicated to couture sewing patterns, an entire chapter of fashion history no one else is preserving.

And we started it at the worst possible time.

While major institutions are laying off staff and more and more museums across America shutting their doors, we opened one. It’s irrational. But if we didn’t insert ourselves into the record now, this history would be lost forever.

We are the only fashion museum on the Central Coast of California. And globally, we’re the only archive focused solely on couture sewing patterns, some dating back to 1921. That makes us historically significant, yet the unique specialization of our work makes us deeply vulnerable.

This museum was founded by a first-generation immigrant, a woman of color, someone who saw something special when no one else did. She spent decades collecting patterns from various sources while quietly collecting and building what others overlooked. No other museum, library, fashion house, or pattern company had the records and archives of this American heritage that impacted millions of women. The founder of the Couture Pattern Museum just had a long-held belief that this history and the archive she was building, mattered.

We didn't start with an endowment or a trust fund. What we do have is one of the rarest archives in the world, gathered by a singular vision to save and archive a history that doesn't exit anywhere else on earth. What we do have is a plan to preserve it. Through dedication, and perseverance today, the Couture Pattern Museum is the largest known comprehensive archive in the world of haute couture patterns.

Academics, designers, students, and collectors around the world come to us for access to materials they can’t find anywhere else. No one else is doing this work. No one else is preserving these artifacts or this knowledge.

100% of net proceeds go directly to operations and expanding access.

We’re here. We shouldn’t exist.

But we do...because people like you decided history matters.

We’re raising $100,000 to keep the museum open, expand access, and launch an educational learning center on haute couture construction.

We’ve built everything on almost nothing. Imagine what we could do with real support.

All donations are tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law through our fiscal sponsor, Creative Visions Foundation (Malibu, CA).