Museums turn gift shops into stand-alone shopping destinations

Museums are increasingly treating gift shops as stand-alone shopping destinations, using curated merchandise to boost revenue and extend the exhibition experience.

Instead of relying mainly on art print postcards and coffee table books, museums are now selling products ranging from slogan T-shirts to coffee mugs. The result is a shift from cultural institution to cultural retailer.

A new exhibition about Marilyn Monroe’s legacy at London’s National Portrait Gallery, which opens next week, includes merch such as cat-eye sunglasses similar to those she wore, a limited-edition lipstick inspired by her red pout and a baseball cap with her scrawled signature.

Ed Simpson, the buying and product development manager at the NPG, said the museum began developing the Monroe range 18 months ago. He said the wider selection is “a really great way of interpreting the exhibition without being too literal”.

Other museums are taking a similar approach. Tate Modern is selling cat feeding bowls and cat-shaped hair clips alongside Tracey Emin’s exhibition. At the V&A in Dundee, bottles of hairspray and gold scissors reference an exhibition about the catwalk.

At a showcase of Dick Jewell’s work, a bikini printed with his Erotic Armpits collage is on sale. Visitors to the Schiaparelli blockbuster at London’s V&A can buy a tote bag featuring a trompe l’oeil of a jumper shown in the exhibition.

A Royal Academy retrospective of Rose Wylie ended with merchandise including a football scarf, while the NPG’s Lucian Freud exhibition included an “Everything is a portrait” T-shirt designed by his daughter Bella Freud.

Simpson said he and his team try to avoid “just slapping an image on a product”. He said an autographed baseball cap offers “a kind of ‘if you know, you know’ nod to the exhibition”.

Bridget Dalton, a semiotician and cultural analyst at Truth Consulting, described the trend as “cultural capital in the old school bourgeois sense”. She said it combines support for a cultural institution with fashion and self-expression.

The approach also appeals to younger audiences. On TikTok, gen Z users post “museum hauls” showing their purchases. The Design Museum’s Wes Anderson archival exhibition has drawn interest for items including earl grey teabags in a box modelled on the Mendl’s pink patisserie box from The Grand Budapest Hotel and an Asteroid City alien logo T-shirt.

For many viewers, those videos can be enough to encourage them to book a ticket.

Anna Chase-Roberts, fashion buyer for the V&A, said merch is no longer a “nice add-on” but something customers expect and ask for.

Prices range from £3 for a magnet to three figures for jewellery, making merchandise a significant revenue source for museums.

In its annual report last year, the V&A said merchandise linked to its Taylor Swift exhibition generated £1.1m in just seven weeks, its highest level ever recorded.

The new V&A East Museum in Stratford includes two shops: a 1,500ft main store and a smaller shop dedicated to landmark exhibitions. It is currently selling grime spinner necklaces and “Don’t scratch my soda” T-shirts for its inaugural The Music is Black exhibition.

Chase-Roberts said the curation of products for the new stores was “years in the making”. She said a desire to support new talent and demand for limited-edition pieces led to collaborations with up-and-coming makers such as the London-based ceramic artists Clink Street. A £380 “Rave culture” vase is sold alongside £8 neon-coloured socks.