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Avenir Museum of Design and Merchandising

Avenir Museum of Design and Merchandising

The Avenir Museum of Design and Merchandising is Colorado State University’s historic apparel and textiles collection.

The Avenir Museum tells stories of dress and textiles that inspire respectful curiosity and connection across peoples, places, and cultures.

Explore Our Museum "Avenir" means future...

We use objects from the past to tell stories about our present and to design for tomorrow. Learn about the Avenir Museum from the perspective of our CSU Design and Merchandising students in the video below:

Audio-Described Version of Avenir Museum of Design and Merchandising at Colorado State University | Spark Your Curiosity

Through exhibitions, courses, and public programs, the Avenir Museum of Design and Merchandising fosters the telling of global stories of people and their textiles, dress, and interior furnishings — how they are made and used, and what they mean to us all. Stay up to date on exhibitions and programming information by signing up for our newsletter! 

Exhibitions and Galleries

The Avenir Museum of Design and Merchandising features several new exhibits every academic year. We welcome our regional community to visit our exhibits and participate in our lecture series.  The Avenir is FREE and open to the public. We have four galleries in two locations across the CSU campus.

We welcome CSU students and the regional community to exhibition and study facilities in state-of-the-art premises, where we now preserve and research some 20,000 artifacts of historic apparel and textiles.

The Blackwell Exhibition at the Avenir Museum of Design and Merchandising

The Collection

The collection began in the early 1950s as a small teaching resource for faculty in the former Department of Home Economics; it was housed for many years in the Gifford Building, which was also the location of the collection’s original Gustafson Gallery exhibition space.

Today, CSU students have the opportunity to visit the Avenir Museum of Design and Merchandising and work with our collection artifacts according to museum standards of care and handling and learn about apparel and textiles spanning cultures and centuries.

embroidered coat

Making an Impact Avenir in the News

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