The exhibit is a most stylish nod to the many parallels between art and fashion.
The Louvre arguably is the world’s most famous museum. Its foot traffic alone is proof enough of its immense popularity—an astounding 8.7 million visitors in 2024, averaging nearly 30,000 per day, making it the most visited establishment of its kind globally.
Art lovers and casual visitors alike flock to it venerable halls, drawn by priceless collections top billed by the likes of Eugene Delacroix’s “Liberty Leading the People,” Antonio Canova’s “Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss,” and of course, Leonardo da Vinci’s “La Gioconda” or more popularly known as the “Mona Lisa.”
On Friday, Jan. 31, however, an exhibition opened at the Louvre that is quite unlike any other that the museum has seen in its 232-year history. “Louvre Couture — Art and Fashion: Statement Pieces” opened with more than 100 couture pieces from 45 of the world’s top fashion houses, including Chanel, Hermès, Christian Dior, Balenciaga, Jonathan Anderson, Versace, Yves Saint Laurent, Jean Paul Gaultier, John Galliano, and Iris van Herpen. This landmark event marks the first time the museum is hosting an exhibition on fashion.
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The exhibit, which runs until July 21, will see many of the creations “hidden” among the museum’s nearly 100,000 square feet of rooms and galleries, per CNN, in a nod to the convergence of and the many parallels between art and fashion.
Olivier Gabet, director of the Louvre Museum’s Department of Decorative Arts, invites visitors to take a fresh look at its collections, this time, through the prism of contemporary haute couture designers. “Museums house knowledge but also enjoyment and delight,” Gabet said in an interview with The Washington Post
“The Louvre is so much more than just the ‘Mona Lisa,” he enthused in a separate interview with CNN. “The exhibition is not here to say that fashion is or isn’t art. Fashion is about creation.”
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Iconic pieces await visitors
In consideration of the Louvre’s “encyclopedic” and mammoth scale, states a note on its website, the exhibition follows a “methodological approach geared towards exploring the history of decorative styles, art professions and ornamentation” through the galleries of the Department of Decorative Arts, where textiles are front and center, though mostly in tapestries and décor rather than in articles of clothing.
The “Louvre Couture” pays homage to major historical periods, with highlights including several iconic pieces, such as its opening piece, a Dior silhouette called “Musée du Louvre.” Gabet shared that, to his knowledge, it is the “only piece in the history of haute couture to be named after a museum.”
Other highlights include a crystal-embroidered Dolce & Gabbana dress inspired by 11th-century mosaics from Santa Maria Assunta in Venice. There’s also a magnificent silk Dior gown featuring a Sun King motif that stands before a baroque portrait of Louis XIV himself.
Then there’s Gianni Versace’s 1997 metal mesh gown, which was also showcased at the 2018 “Heavenly Bodies” Met Gala exhibition. The stunning piece took over 600 hours (about 25 days) to hand stitch and embellish with Swarovski crystals, golden embroidery featuring Byzantine crosses, and Versace’s signature draping inspired by Ancient Greek peplum dresses.
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Also on display is the gown that inspired both Kim Kardashian’s gold Versace dress at the 2018 Met Gala and Donatella Versace’s iconic “Tribute” collection the same year, which featured five of the OG supermodels: Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Claudia Schiffer, Helena Christensen, and Carla Bruni.
In the Napoleon III Apartments, visitors can behold John Galliano’s crimson embroidered moiré and velvet ball gown with ermine trim for Christian Dior’s fall-winter 2004 haute couture collection. There’s also Karl Lagerfeld’s 2019 collection for Chanel, featuring a striking embroidered jacket whose motif is drawn from an 18th-century blue and white chest by cabinet maker Mathieu Criaerd.
Who says fashion during the Middle Ages is drab and dreary? Striking armor-style dresses prove naysayers wrong. In the “Louvre Couture” exhibit, the 1967 Paco Rabanne chainmail tunic French actress Brigitte Bardot wore in a shoot, is featured next to a 3D-printed armor Balenciaga gown.
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“Louvre Couture” couldn’t have come at a better time with Paris Fashion Week just around the corner. And continuing the conversations on the inextricable connection between fashion and art, the Louvre will be hosting the Grand Dîner in March, an event touted by many as the first French Met Gala.
While the Louvre is known for its unparalleled collections from ancient civilizations to the mid-19th century, its power to inspire creative minds transcend time, just like how it influenced the fashion designers whose works are on display for every visitor to relish and reflect on. Quoting the great French impressionist and painter Paul Cézanne: “The Louvre is the book from which we learn to read.”
“It’s very important for the Louvre to continue to open itself up to new generations and to make its own small contribution to understanding today’s world,” said Laurence des Cars, the museum’s president, in an interview at the Louvre. “That is exactly what this exhibition does.”
Admission to the Louvre, including the “Louvre Couture” exhibition, is at €22. You can book your tickets here.
