The Museo del Tessuto di Prato is one of the most active permanent cultural institutions in Italy for the study, conservation and valorisation of ancient and contemporary textiles and fashion. It also represents the historical memory and cultural interface of the Prato textile district, a reality that has its origins in the Middle Ages and is still today one of the most important in Europe.

The Museum was founded in 1975 inside the Tullio Buzzi State Technical Institute as an institution for recovering the local manufacturing memory and supporting training in the textile design sector.
The current site is the former textile factory ‘Cimatoria Campolmi’, a late 19th century architectural complex of over 8,000 square metres located within the medieval walls, a true monument of industrial archaeology.

The collection consists of artistic, manufacturing and industrial goods of great interest. The collection includes thousands of textiles, clothing and accessories from Italy, Europe and other continents. The collection of Italian Renaissance textiles is among the most important in the world. Local productions are represented by textile machinery and specimens from the second half of the 19th century to the present day. In addition to the textile collections, the collection of clothing and fashion accessories is constantly growing. The contemporary textile collection was formed in the 1990s through cooperation with companies in the district. In 2021, the Textile Library was created, an archive exclusively dedicated to contemporary fashion textiles.

The visit opens with the factory's spectacular boiler room, and then continues with the room dedicated to the exhibition of historical collections; from here one arrives at the materials and processes area that illustrates textile fibres and the manufacturing process. 
The Prato Città Tessile room is dedicated to the most important stages of the territory's production history, while an engaging audiovisual installation - through symbolic objects, historical films and contemporary images - tells the city's more recent history, with its social transformations and productive changes. Temporary exhibitions explore the relationships between textiles, fashion, art and society.