Louvre Couture is an exhibition featuring over 100 looks and accessories, including Chanel, Iris Van Herpen, Dior, Loewe and more.
By Laurence Benaïm (Assouline.com)
More than an exhibition, Louvre Couture is a fantastic experience through 9,000 square meters, a dialogue between masterworks from the Department of Decorative Arts and key pieces from the history of contemporary fashion from 1960 to 2025.
This exhibition features over a hundred different looks and accessories, from Chanel to Iris Van Herpen, Dior to Jonathan Anderson (Loewe). The pieces come from Paris, Amsterdam, London, Milan, Kyoto, this artistic journey is full of emotion and poetry, and celebrates craftsmanship through imagination, classicism through extravaganza, lines, colors, and dreams.
“LOUVRE COUTURE is an auteur’s exhibition that presents an argument. It has been curated to highlight the continuity between the history of fashion, the collection, art and changing tastes,” says Laurence des Cars, President of the Louvre. “It also offers an original reinterpretation of the museum and the works it holds, at the completely unprecedented scale of an entire department.”
There are a total of 71 silhouettes, accompanied by around 30 accessories, which take their place, as visitors, through endless rooms and galleries. Here we are. For the first time, forty-five of fashion’s most emblematic houses and designers have loaned pieces to the Louvre
The curation is signed by Olivier Gabet. General curator of heritage and art historian, the former deputy director of the MAD has been appointed director of the art objects department of the Louvre Museum in 2022. He is notably credited with having initiated the extraordinary Iris Van Herpen exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, having against all expectations triggered an attendance record: 370,000 visitors in 2024.
Standout items include a velvet sheath by Yves Saint Laurent, embroidered with a frieze in dialogue with the reliquary crown with eight rock crystal angels. A patinated brass mask by Daniel Roseberry for Schiaparelli, apostrophes a reliquary bust. This is not a retrospective, even less a fashion history, or even a static fashion show. It’s a refreshing experience full of memories. Paris-Versailles-Byzantium. Crosses and mosaics, cabochons, and copper wings. Post-surrealist details and neo-Pompadour allegories. Enjoy the show. Paris est une fête!
Louvre Couture, until July 25th, 2025
