City - Fashion - Machine

Spread across three floors of the main building, the exhibition abandons chronological narration in favour of a story about the city, work and fashion. The ground floor presents machines processing textile raw materials - wool, cotton and linen - along with a laboratory-like station with fabric samples and a microscope, linking the industrial thread with the design one. The Laboratory also includes designs for printed fabrics. Production equipment is thus accompanied by design work and the study of the material itself.

The first floor shows the inner tensions of an industrial metropolis through contrasts between work and leisure, management and workers, work and strikes, presented from the perspective of both factory owners and rank-and-file workers. The second floor is devoted to fashion, with particular attention to the dress culture of Piotrkowska Street - it juxtaposes commercial brands such as Telimena, Moda Polska and Hoffland with home-made clothing and designs by graduates of art schools. The whole documents the transformation of Łódź from a city with one of the longest shopping streets in Europe into a place hit by unemployment after the 1989 transformation, when many textile plants were closed or thoroughly restructured.