Objets d’art, objets de mode
If we have known since Paul Cézanne that “the Louvre is a book in which we learn to read”, this inexhaustible source of inspiration has not escaped one of the most vibrant worlds of contemporary creation, that of fashion. Increasingly, studies and monographs devoted to the great names of fashion do not hesitate to trace aesthetic genealogies that place these personalities in a historical and artistic perspective.
The rhythm is not only that of ruptures, more or less radical, nor of seasonal change, it is also that of echoes and reminders. The threads that are woven between their work and the world of art are almost infinite, and the history of art as expressed by the Louvre, in the depth of its collections and the reflections of taste, is a terrain of influence and sources just as vast.
Faced with the encyclopedic immensity of the Louvre, the method proposed here is to place this multiple subject in the light of the history of decorative styles, crafts and ornament, through the galleries and rooms of the Department of Decorative Arts. The textile presence is fundamental, but more focused on decorations and tapestries than on clothing itself.
On nearly 9,000 square meters, 65 contemporary silhouettes, accompanied by around thirty accessories, are displayed in a close, unprecedented, historical and poetic dialogue with the masterpieces of the department, from Byzantium to the Second Empire. So many remarkable loans, granted by the most emblematic houses, from the oldest to the most recent, from Paris and elsewhere.
The aim here is not to sprinkle the Department of Decorative Arts with fashion pieces, but to arouse or highlight proven connections, its collections having sometimes been shaped by the generosity of men and women of fashion, from Jacques Doucet to Madame Carven.
In terms of the history of art and fashion, there are countless complicities, often adopting common methods, knowledge of the oldest techniques, visual culture, the subtle play of references, from the museum’s catalogue raisonné to the fashion moodboard. Another way of looking at art objects through the prism of contemporary designers.
