Taking the concepts of ‘champion’ and ‘performance’ as its point of departure, the Superhuman Performance: the development of textiles for sport exhibition is Prato Textile Museum Foundations’s way of paying homage to sport in the year of the Beijing Olympics.
The exhibition brings together over eighty garments, uniforms, kits and accessories from museums, archives and leading Italian and international manufacturers. The aim of the exhibition is to illustrate the development of competitive sportswear whilst humourously considering the idea that the development of textile technology could easily enable today’s sportsmen and women to be considered real and proper ‘superheroes’.
The first section of the exhibition compares such great champions of the past as Tazio Nuvolari, Gino Bartali and Gustavo Thoeni with champions of today (Valentino Rossi, Lance Armstrong, Alberto Tomba) to show how sports clothing has evolved in time.
The second section of the exhibition illustrates the most recent technological innovations in sportswear. The items considered in this section include fabrics, designs and items of clothing which ensure three types of functionality: performance (aero- and aquadynamism); protection (thermoregulation and safety in violent impacts); and intelligence (engineered materials and smart fabrics which combine textile and electronic research). The aim of the section is thus to show how research into fibres and textiles contributes to the creation of clothing which is able to stimulate or even enhance the performance of champions.

During the exhibition there will be new concessions for visitors.
 
Catalogue published by Museo del Tessuto Edizioni

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