Mise en Scène. Fashion photography from the Belle Époque to the present day
03.07.2026 – 28.02.2027
In the spotlight: couture and Swiss fabrics. The exhibition ‘Mise en Scène’ combines international photographic art with the regional textile industry, illustrating more than 120 years of fashion, photography and social history.
Fashion photographs tell stories not only about clothes, but about body images and ways in which roles are perceived, too: from the liberated silhouettes of the 1920s to the glamorous femininity of the post-war period, up to the self-confident, highly varied representations of the present day. In this way, fashion photography becomes a mirror of social change – and a showcase for the Swiss textile industry, the products of which have been a standard feature of international fashion events for many years.
Mise en Scène brings together works by renowned photographers and studios such as Séeberger Frères, Atelier d’Ora Benda, Helmut Newton, Peter Knapp, Jeanloup Sieff and Iwan Baan. Along with textiles and fashion from Forster Rohner, Jakob Schlaepfer, Akris and other Swiss companies, the exhibition establishes a fascinating dialogue between international photographic art and the textile tradition typical of Eastern Switzerland.
Another side of the fashion industry is highlighted in the series ‘Portrait of a Swiss Company’, which can be seen at the same time in the lounge of the Textile Museum: in 1972, Barbara Davatz created impressive portraits of workers at the textile company Walser AG in Herisau.
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