Luigi Micheletti Award

The South German city of Augsburg was one of the most important centres of the textile industry in Europe and the museum opened in January 2010 in the halls of the former Augsburg worsted yarn spinning mill, founded in 1836. The permanent exhibition takes the visitor through three main routes.
The first route explores the textile production process, from the raw textile fibres, the spinning, weaving and refining stages, right up to the tailored item of clothing. Here in the museum’s own weaving mill, historical looms demonstrated by former textile workers produce a vast array of textiles, enabling visitors to experience the sounds, sights and smells of the original mill. Within this route TIM presents a section devoted to fashions of the past two centuries, with displays illustrating the different body concepts which have redefined clothing with each new era.
On a second route the museum tells the story of the workers and the entrepreneurs whose lives were shaped by the industry from the 19th century onwards. Exhibits portray the economic, social, political and cultural aspects of work in the textile industry, with the last exhibit extending the history into the present day, focusing on high-tech textiles such as an artificial muscle, the rear flap of an Italian racing car made of carbon fibres, or medical textiles. The third route contains the pattern book collection of the New Augsburg Calico Factory (1780s-1990s) which contains more than 1.3 million printed fabric patterns.
Traditional and modern opportunities for children and for adults include trying out various spinning, weaving, knitting and printing techniques, as well as examining textile raw
materials under a microscope.