Jonathan Walford believes that fashion is one thing that ties everyone together which interests and concerns each person.
“[…] it’s identity,” Walford said. “It’s everything. It reflects what the technology is in the world right now. It reflects roles in men and women. It reflects different cultures. It reflects status. It’s identifying who you are.”
Walford is the curatorial director and co-founder for the Fashion History Museum in Cambridge. On Jan. 22, 2025, he, along with co-founder Kenn Norman, received the King Charles III Coronation medal. The medal was announced on May 3, 2023, and was awarded to 30,000 recipients across Canada.
Norman said the medal came at a low point and helped remind them of their value to the community.
“[These past two years have] been incredibly difficult…last year, we ended up both taking a leave of absence for some time,” Norman said. “I can’t tell you what it meant. It just was amazing.”
Norman and Walford met while attending Simon Fraser University, then moved to Toronto in 1985. They continued working arts and heritage fields in different respects.
The Fashion History Museum is a result of years of expertise and dedication from both Norman and Walford.
They founded it in 2008 and hosted exhibits across Ontario. After successful exhibits in Guelph and Waterloo Region in the early 2010s, they found a home in the historic post office in Cambridge in 2014, where the museum currently resides.
Walford is interested in the stories behind fashion and his lifelong commitment to fashion inspired Norman’s commitment to the museum.
Although his background was largely in administration and finance, when he went on a leadership training course in California in 2004, he began mapping out what would eventually become the Fashion History Museum.
“And part of [the leadership training] was to concentrate on a project that would create change and have meaning,” Norman said.
“I chose to create the fashion history museum because I knew how Jonathan had devoted his life to building knowledge and having all of this, not just the collection, but the knowledge as well to go with it, in order to really tell the story and really connect people,” he said.
At one point, Norman was offered the opportunity to establish the museum in California, however, he said he realized that it was a distinctly Canadian endeavour.
That is, although it was not a museum of Canadian fashion, it was a Canadian museum for international fashion.
“[T]hat’s when I realized I wanted it to stay in Canada, not because we were only Canadian fashion oriented, but because…there was something about just giving it back to the nation and having something here that was a serious consequence,” Norman said.
In the 1800s, there were many textile factories and mills in the region.
“[It] kind of made sense to us to locate here, because this is where the fashion and textile industry was in Canada,” Walford said. “So, why do we pick Cambridge? I’m not quite sure. Why do you mean I think there was because it didn’t have Museum.”
Norman also stated that the museum brings economic benefit to the businesses surrounding the museum when visitors come for day- or longer trips.
Moreover, Gallery 29 in the studio provides space for events and leisure where visitors can connect.
“[W]e had created this banquet along one wall, the full wall that provided more space for us to do activities in this room, such as lectures and workshops and things like that, and teas,” Norman said.
“And we found that people that came tended to like sit, socialize and stay a lot longer than they normally would…it’s really been rewarding for us to extend so much more meaning into someone’s visit than just coming to look at clothes on display,” he said.
The museum is also embedded in the community in other ways.
Along with having good relationships with the municipal government, they also provide employment opportunities for youth through the Canada Summer Jobs program.
“We’ve been very fortunate in that we’ve gotten to know a lot of the politicians in our community, in our wards and related to us, because we want to work in tandem with them for government programs,” Norman said.
Still, they face some adversity from the various levels of government.
“I just don’t think that municipally is understood. The value of the museum has and the fact that we need help to run this museum, and it comes across sort of feeling like it’s a hobby…we sort of feel like we’re being tolerated, not celebrated by municipality,” Walford said.
With impending construction on the Cooper St. Norman said the museum would likely be closed for several months, until July. This would also give them opportunities to do work on the building itself and prepare upcoming exhibits.
For more information, visit fashionhistorymuseum.com.
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