Metamorphosis of Workwear, Chemnitz Industrial Museum, Chemnitz, Germany, 2025-2026
Walking Archive of a Future Textile Historian (2065), 2025 (Above)
Handwoven cotton, ribbon and silk, trimming from from braiding machine at Museum of Science and Industry Manchester, antique wooden textile archive storage box. Photo credit: Toni Petraschk
Jenny Steele was selected as one of the three Manchester based artists for the Creative-Europe project Metamorphosis of Workwear, alongside Kevin Boardman and Jess O’Riley.
What do Chemnitz, Gabrovo, Łódź, Manchester, Mulhouse, and Tampere have in common? It is the story of the industrial rise - and of structural change that continues to shape these cities today. In the Creative-Europe project Metamorphosis of Workwear, these transformations become visible through fashion, art, and interaction.
Eighteen artists from these six European ‘Manchester’s’ embarked on a journey into the past, present, and future of their cities - and create artistic reinterpretations of classic workwear: overalls, nylon aprons, or smocks become statements about identity, change, and social justice.
The project’s artistic director is Dresden-based designer and curator Wiete Sommer. With her interdisciplinary approach, she created spaces for exchange and reflection - on fashion as a social medium, on change in work environments, on gender, sustainability, and belonging.
From January to June 2025, textile artworks inspired by industrial heritage and the voices of locals were created in six cities. Through workshops, city visits, and open afternoons with the public, stories are transformed into wearable art. A performance of these wearable garments including dance at the Chemnitz Museum of Industry on 20 September 2025 & 15 November is accompanied by an exhibition that will also be shown in Łódź and Gabrovo in 2026.
Metamorphosis of Workwear is a European conversation about work, change, and cultural identity. Coordinated by the Chemnitz Museum of Industry as part of the European Capital of Culture 2025 and funded by the EU, the project gives a new voice to workwear - and through it, to the cities that helped build Europe.
Photography credits: Toni Petraschk
Image Below: Garments left by Kevin Boardman (left) & Jess O’Riley (bottom) alongside Jenny’s garment. Photography credit: Toni Petraschk.
Jenny’s work, ‘Walking Archive of a Future Textile Historian (2065)’, for the Metamorphosis of Workwear project pays tribute to women in the textile industry past and present in the form of a handwoven ‘archive apron’. The archivist or historian could point to different weaving techniques and products woven in Manchester, including plain, tabby and inlay weaves, as well as passementerie trimmings.
The colour way of pink, blue, orange and purple came from a geometric design in the Museum of Science and Industry archive by Manchester based 1930’s female designer Jean Elizabeth Gregson, whose work Jenny also referenced in one of the patterns in the Textile City installation. The wooden antique box refers to the portfolio cases the historic textile designs are held in within the MOSI archive, which Jenny has explored within her research for various projects.
Above: Still images of dance performance, 20 September 2025, Chemnitz Industrial Museum, Chemnitz, Germany
