Welcome to the Dress and Textile Specialists website.

DATS Mission:

• To provide links and mutual support for professionals in the United Kingdom and Ireland working with specialist collections of fashion, dress and textiles and with wider museum collections that include these materials

• To encourage sharing and exchanging knowledge, information, skills and resources

• To promote best practice in curatorship within dress and textile collections
• To encourage and develop expertise, research and scholarship within the profession
• To enable those working with dress and textile collections to develop and use their collections for the benefit of the public

Benefits 

• An annual two-day conference with invited speakers from a range of disciplines on topics relevant to members but with an emphasis on training and raising professional standards. The conference is held in alternate years in London and in the regions to maximise local attendance
• An annual one-day event to encourage members to visit venues which are of interest to the profession and to facilitate an informal exchange of ideas and experiences
• A bi-annual newsletter, one of which contains synopses of the annual conference papers

  Current objectives 

• To instigate a series of training workshops with specialists. Outputs will include information packs which can be uploaded onto the website or mailed out to benefit all members  
• To create a website to promote the exchange of information and resources, to raise the profile of the profession and to reach new audiences

• To publish the annual conference papers as a journal

Membership: 

DATS was established in 1975.  It is subscription-based and currently has 100 individual and forty-nine institutional members. Membership is open to all professionals who are involved with dress and textiles in museums, galleries, historic houses, archives and universities or whose work involves collections-based research. 

Working Structure: 

DATS is led by an elected committee of five officers, six regional representatives, a representative for the national museums and a conservation representative. The committee members are all voluntary. Officers and committee members serve for a three year term which can be extended to a maximum of five years. There are four committee meetings a year all of which are attended by the officers and conference organisers and two of which are attended by the full committee. Minutes are taken at all the meetings and are circulated to the full committee. 

The committee has powers to co-opt from the membership additional committee personnel to work on specific projects. There are currently two co-opted members, one to progress a dedicated website and the other as SSN liaison officer.  

Any member is able to stand, propose or second for the committee. Elections for vacancies are held at the AGM which is held during the annual conference. All members are encouraged to play an active role in the group to ensure that it remains responsive to the needs of the profession. 

Any member may put forward ideas for meetings and events, contribute to the newsletter or proposed website, or raise issues for discussion by the committee or by the membership at the AGM.