Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation

BPF was founded in 1974 by Ioanna Papantoniou and it is located since 1981 in an early 20th century house belonging to Papantoniou family which was converted into a museum. The same year BPF was awarded with the European Museum of the Year Award (EMYA). During the 70's and the 80's, the foundation made several researches over Greece, Cyprus and the Griko communities of Southern Italy, gathering data and documents about the traditional culture, music and dance and also about the preindustrial technology and the old fashioned children toys. In 1989 BPF founded the first Childhood Museum in Greece, in Nafplion at the old local railway station. Four years later, Melina Merkouri (then Culture minister of Greece) assigned to BPF the Hellenic National Costume Archives while in 1999 the foundation's facilities were renovated. Artifacts of the foundation have been exposed in various exhibitions worldwide including Athens, Thessaloniki, Brussels, Dallas, Limassol, London etc. Foundation of the Hellenic World, Hellenic Centre of London, Teloglion Foundation of Art etc. ==Collections==

BPF collections include c. 50,000 items. The majority of them, more than 27,000 items, are directly connected to the popular and modern Greek culture including traditional costumes and items from mainland Greece, Crete, Aegean and Ionian Islands, Cyprus, Asia Minor, etc. The museum also holds a collection of 5,500 items linked with the history of fashion, including works by designers such as Christian Dior, Issey Miyake, Paco Rabanne, Christian Louboutin, Sue Wong, Mariano Fortuny, Laura Ashley, Jean Dessès, James Galanos, Yiannis Tseklenis etc. Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation also owns a photography, sound and film collection dedicated to its past researches, a library of 10,000 titles a publishing house. ==Gallery==

File:Grey top hat by Scotts Ltd of Old Bond Street, London, with hatbox, 1950.jpg|A top hat from the 1950s File:Gidas.jpg|Wedding dress from Alexandria, Macedonia, Greece File:Kavakli.jpg|Local Greek costume from Kavakli, from BPF's photo archives File:Perachora's dress.jpg|Local costume from Corinthia, Peloponnese, Greece, from BPF's photo archives File:Pair of long white kid gloves.jpg|19th century gloves ==References==