Louvre Hosts First-Ever Haute Couture Exhibition Featuring Chanel, Versace, Dior, and Gaultier Treasures
The first-ever haute couture exhibition of designer masterpieces of clothing and accessories opened on 24 January at the Louvre in Paris under the title Louvre Couture, Art and Fashion: Famous Objects. It will run until 21 July. It features 45 legendary designers, from French leaders Chanel, Dior and Givenchy, to international houses such as Prada, Erdem, Dries Van Noten and Undercover, as well as cutting-edge talent such as Marine Serre and Charles de Villemoren.
The exhibition ‘reveals an unprecedented dialogue between art and fashion from the 1960s to the present day’.
Spread over an area of almost 9,000 square metres, the garments, along with a range of accessories, are set among the Louvre's famous paintings and marble sculptures.
‘It brings to new light 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 specially loaned from the most famous fashion houses, from ancient to contemporary, in Paris and around the world,’ the museum said in a statement.
This exhibition is a natural next step for the Louvre, which has already entered the fashion world. In 2022, it was one of six prestigious French museums that celebrated the 60th anniversary of the House of Saint Laurent by exhibiting 50 of his pieces in their permanent collections. In its gilded Apollo Gallery, the Louvre exhibited four of his embroidered and bejewelled jackets alongside the French crown jewels.
The Louvre had 8.7 million visitors in 2024 and doesn't need fashion to boost attendance. On the contrary, it has limited daily attendance to 30,000 to reduce overcrowding. Only 23% of the Louvre's visitors are French, and the rest are foreigners. At the same time, 66% of its visitors are first-time visitors, and almost all of them queue up to see the Mona Lisa.
As The Gaze previously reported, Leonardo da Vinci's famous Mona Lisa painting, which is currently on display at the Louvre Museum in Paris, will soon get its own space. According to French President Macron, the new space will be accessible separately from the rest of the museum and will have its own entrance ticket and conditions that will allow for ‘a different and more relaxed way of visiting’.
