Museu Nacional do Traje

In the Angeja-Palmela Palace, a former leisure estate in Lumiar, the National Costume Museum shows how clothing can tell the story of a country. Opened in 1977, it brings together around forty thousand garments and accessories, from the eighteenth century to the present day, and follows above all the ways in which the aristocracy, the upper bourgeoisie and the middle classes dressed, represented themselves and changed over time. The original core came from the National Coach Museum and included pieces linked to the Royal Household, a detail that helps explain the richness of the collection. Yet the place does not end in the galleries: the museum extends into the Monteiro-Mor Botanical Park, created in the eighteenth century, with lakes, woodland, a kitchen garden and the first known araucaria in mainland Portugal. Here, costume stops being mere fashion and becomes a living reading of Portuguese society.