Head and shoulders. Coins in fashion

About the Exhibition

This exhibition sheds light on changes in fashion and lifestyle across thousands of years through more than 100 historical coin portraits. Coins are among the smallest portraits in the world, containing intricate bust portraits within a small, confined space. The exhibition allows visitors to grasp the culture and spirit of each era through the hairstyles, clothing, and accessories engraved on coins. It offers a journey through some 2,400 years of fashion history, showing that coins were frequently used as images of royal power and were thus the images citizens of the time encountered most often. The exhibition also addresses cases where hats, blouses, and hairstyles of the Italian Renaissance reflected fashion trends. Visitors can sense how the styles of the figures on coins have persisted across eras.