Fot. Lech AndrzejewskiWith fashion through the XX century
The exhibition "With fashion through XX century" has been prepared utilizing the Department of Fashion's collections. This is the first exhibit in Poland to feature such a broad retrospective review, which reaches the present day.
We present more than 230 women's and men's apparel and accessories. The exhibition is divided into two distinct parts arranged in quite different ways. The first one covers the period of 1900-1939, while the second one shows fashion from the 1940s to the late 1990s.
In the first part, we tried to reflect the mood of the era by arranging a number of residential and commercial interiors which depict scenes from the life of the middle class, dressed in accordance with the current fashion trends at that time. Visitors may find themselves in an old living room, admire the costumes of ladies who came to the photo studio, peep in on women undressing in the bedroom, take part in a shopping trip with a fashionable couple, participate in the social life of fashionable salon or, finally, watch the most elegant members of society in a theater's foyer. Costumes and fashion accessories are accompanied by furniture, textiles, paintings and objects of utility, loaned from other museums and from private owners.
In the second part, we present clothes which highlight - in the most spectacular way - changes in the canons of fashion, and also show significant phenomena in Polish fashion. In the exhibition hall, there are two separated presentations. On the "catwalk" there are clothes from the 70s and 80s from Fashion House "Telimena", Warsaw House "Centrum" (designed by Barbara Hoff), and also costumes designed by artists from Lodz. In the showcases, we present in chronological order both womenswear and menswear that are most specific to particular decades. Separately displayed are also bags and shoes. This part of the exhibition is enriched by a multimedia presentation.
Since the exhibition is a permanent one, we anticipate a partial exchange of the exhibit after some time for conservation reasons.
Ewa Sierańska,
Senior Curator, Department of Fashion
Photos: A. Ambruszkiewicz, L. Andrzejewski
Translation: E.C.
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