Two centuries of Textile and Fashion Design is the title of the new exhibition organized by the Textile Museum in the Ancient Fabrics Room which opens its doors to the public on 15 July. The new exhibition illustrates the transformations in textile design and fashion that occurred from the end of the eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth century .

Over 100 objects including men's and women's clothing, fabrics for clothing and furnishings, fashion sketches, sample books, fashion accessories document the transformations of the textile sector in a historical period characterized by great social, economic and customs changes, mainly due to the mechanization of production processes and consequent industrialization.

All the objects come from the Museum's collections : some are completely new because they recently entered the collection and therefore exhibited for the first time - such as the two-piece wedding dress from the late nineteenth century, the tunic dress by Maria Monaci Matrix-printed Gallenga from the 1920s, the evening cloak from the Elsa Schiaparelli Atelier, the 1950s cocktail dress from the Roman tailoring Fanucchi - others have been the subject of specific restoration which has finally allowed them to be displayed to the public in full safety.

The only exceptional loan is the rare example of a women's day dress dated 1820 -1825 in printed cotton canvas from the archive of Massimo Cantini Parrini , the award-winning costume designer who in 2019 was the protagonist of the Museum's cultural programming with the exhibition on his costumes for the film “Pinocchio” by Matteo Garrone.

Arranged in chronological order, the exhibition illustrates the extraordinary transformations of textile design and the changes in fashion that occurred over a period of time in which the relationship between tradition and modernity, between the uniqueness of the artistic product and the replicability of the serial product , become the theme of a heated debate on applied arts. The protagonists of this long journey - textile designers and fashion creators - with their artistic and professional experiences (as evidenced by the exhibited works of William Morris, Mariano Fortuny, Raoul Dufy, Gio Ponti, Lucio Fontana, Elsa Schiaparelli, Maria Monaci Gallenga ) However, they left a trace and an important contribution in the history of style and design.