Louvre Couture- Art and Fashion, Statement Pieces
Exhibition at the Louvre from 24 January – 24 August 2025
Over a nearly 9,000-square-metre space, 71 fashion designs are displayed, along with a number of accessories, newly illuminating the close historical dialogue that continues to take place between the world of fashion and the department’s greatest masterpieces, from Byzantium to the Second Empire. Each of these garments and accessories is on special loan from the most iconic fashion houses, both long-standing and recent, in Paris and throughout the world. This was the introduction of this very large fashion show. It is the very first fashion exhibition in the Louvre, showing how conservative this famous museum really is, where other art museums have included fashion as art since some d<span
The Louvre wanted to fill its not-often-visited departments of decorative arts with some iconic pieces from international fashion houses performing at the Haute Couture shows in Paris. Because even though people like fashion, not many are able to pay the prices for such high fashion pieces. From insiders I learned that the haute couture is struggling to find their customers, paying for the handwork involved in the making of the pieces that are now displayed in the kilometer-long fashion circuit. Yes, French haute couture is facing significant challenges and could be considered an existential crisis. Although it is considered the pinnacle of fashion, it is struggling with economic problems and declining interest In addition, the Louvre has problems with its decorative departments, particularly with regard to infrastructure and visitor flows. The museum’s president has pointed to structural deficiencies and the need for modernization.
Reading the catalogue I saw that the curator Olivier Gabet, director of the Louvre Department of Decorative Art , had tried to match certain fashion pieces with historical periods, 1.Byzantium and the Middle Ages, 2. the Renaissance, 3. From Baroque to 18th century grandeur and decadence and 4. The 19th century or excess . Here is his statement: “Louvre Couture weaves a dialogue, for the first time, between the museum’s collections and the achievements of contemporary fashion. Like painting or literature, art objects, from Byzantium to the 19th century, are vibrant sources of inspiration. Sometimes the quote is literal, sometimes the designers have surrounded themselves with so many works that they ended up integrating them to the point of restoring their spirit and breath. Over time, fashion has proven itself to be a subject of art history in its own right. An inexhaustible field of exploration and knowledge, it poses here in the museum, for the duration of a sumptuous fashion show”.
For me as a visitor it was a not an easy task to see it all and to get a sort of overview on the exhibition as a whole; the reference to the history was there but not as clear as the catalogue is suggesting. I found that there was the overruling purpose to show both the Louvre and the Paris fashion industry from their best sides in order to promote each other mutually. The display in the already overloaded decorative art department must have been difficult. I preferred the way the fashion objects in the exhibition “Au fil de l’or” (Golden Thread) was displayed against neutral backgrounds, which was of course impossible here.
I would have liked to see fashion pieces that could have taken me, as a more textile-oriented person, on a new discovery trip. Instead I saw iconic pieces, one after the other from 1960 till today, and long rows of fashionistas admiring the installations.
I felt a bit manipulated by the obvious promotion for fashion and the Louvre, and I learned that the reason for an exhibition should not be confused with promotional matters and always have an idea behind it that enlightens the whole event, like was the case with the exhibition of Olga de Amaral and the Golden Thread, that we also saw one day earlier in February this year. The exhibition catalogue showed that there was such an overall purpose for this exhibition that without the catalogue I would not have recognized.
Title of the catalogue: Louvre Couture, Objets d’art, objets de mode , in French, 266 pages, all designs are presented in color, price around 40 Euro, available at the Louvre or via Amazon.
