Louvre holds first fashion exhibition, eyeing new and younger audiences

PARIS – The Louvre in Paris opened its first fashion exhibition on Jan 24, seeking to draw new, younger audiences to the world’s most popular museum.

The show called Louvre Couture, which runs until July 21, welcomed its first visitors a day after a stark warning from the director of the famed museum about overcrowding inside the former royal palace.

The exhibition features about 100 items of clothing by 45 top fashion houses – including Chanel, Saint Laurent and Dior – that have been placed alongside objects from the Louvre’s vast collection of decorative artworks, from chests of drawers to armour, and from Ancient Greece to France’s Second Empire.

In one instance, a Dolce & Gabbana wool dress printed with a mosaic and embroidered with crystals, stones and sequins echoes the patterns of an 11th-century Italian mosaic from Torcello, near Venice.

A silk ball gown designed by John Galliano for Dior in 2006 sits in the centre of a room dedicated to Louis XIV, lined with ornate, gilded furniture and towering portraits of the Sun King.

In another room, Alexander McQueen’s platform Armadillo shoes from 2011 are displayed in a case next to a 17th-century plate featuring pond life.

Fashion houses have used the grounds of the Louvre for shows, but not the museum itself. And fashion designers, including Yves Saint Laurent, Hubert de Givenchy and Karl Lagerfeld, have long had an affinity for the museum and its collections.

Louvre director Laurence des Cars said the show demonstrated “a subtle and precise dialogue between creations from the 1960s to today and the collections of the decorative arts department, highlighting the deep connection between art and designers”.

“This embodies the core of our broader programming ambition: to continually reinterpret the Louvre’s collections for new generations of visitors with different cultural references,” she added.

The Louvre, which is looking for fresh sources of income, is hoping to emulate the success of fashion exhibitions hosted by New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and London’s Victoria and Albert in recent years.

A major 2017 retrospective about Christian Dior at the Museum of Decorative Arts, which occupies a wing of the Louvre Palace, led to huge queues and drew a string of A-listers.

The Louvre was in the headlines in France and internationally on Jan 23 after the publication of a confidential memo written by Ms des Cars to Culture Minister Rachida Dati warning about the deterioration of conditions inside the museum.

Ms des Cars said the world-famous art destination suffered from water leaks and extreme temperatures, and was a “physical ordeal” for some visitors because of a lack of relaxation areas among its more than 400 rooms.

“Food options and restroom facilities are insufficient in volume, falling well below international standards,” she wrote.

The museum received €96 million (S$136 million) in annual public subsidies in 2024, but is hoping for an extra €100 million to cover renovations, said a source close to the institution on condition of anonymity.

It welcomed 8.7 million people in 2024 – around twice the number it was designed for.

Asked on Jan 23 about conditions inside, Ms Dati said she wanted to increase prices for non-European visitors to help increase funding.

“The visiting and working conditions are not good enough for... the biggest museum in the world,” she told reporters. “We need to be innovative, including with financing.”

The Louvre is set to host a fund-raising gala during Paris Fashion Week in March when around 30 tables have been offered for sale, with more than €1 million raised already. AFP, REUTERS