Louvre Couture

On the occasion of the Louvre's very first exhibition devoted to fashion: Louvre Couture. Objets d'art, objets de mode, Olivier Gabet, Director of the Department of Objets d'art at the Musée du Louvre and curator of the exhibition, explores the links that fashion houses forge with art history and museums.

Since its foundation in 1793, the Musée du Louvre has been open to almost every form of artistic expression and contemporary practice, but never before has it welcomed fashion, which, while sometimes controversial in the intellectual arena, is nonetheless a world of effervescent creativity today. The Louvre Couture exhibition is therefore an unprecedented exploration. Objects of art, objects of fashion: how does art play a part in the creative process of couturiers, designers and artistic directors of fashion houses? How do they approach art history? How do they use museums? From the most documented references to the most diffuse impressions, each fashion silhouette echoes a moment in the history of taste.

Olivier Gabet, Director of the Department of Works of Art from the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Modern Periods at the Musée du Louvre since 2022, is a graduate of the École nationale des Chartes, and joined the Musée d'Art moderne de Paris as Curator of Furniture. He then joined the Musée d'Orsay as head curator, while also teaching at the École du Louvre. From 2008 to 2013, he took part in the Louvre Abu Dhabi project as curator responsible for the decorative arts, then as deputy scientific director. He became Director of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in 2013, and Deputy Director General of the MAD in 2019. Author of several books on the decorative arts, including Japonismes in 2014, he has also curated several exhibitions, including Christian Dior in 2017 and Luxes in 2020.

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Photo credit: © 2022 Musée du Louvre / Audrey Viger