Inclusion body myositis (IBM) is a unique category of inflammatory myopathy. It is characterized histologically by the presence of muscle fibres with rimmed vacuoles and abnormal intracellular accumulations of proteins. We report here a 62-year-old patient with bladder carcinoma, where the signs of IBM overlapped with clinical features of dermatomyositis (DM). A combination of cutaneous changes typical for DM with histological and other features of IBM is exceedingly rare, and has not been previously addressed in dermatological literature. To the best of our knowledge this is also the first description of the association of DM/IBM with internal malignancy.