To celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of its fashion collection, The Musée des Arts Décoratifs will display the exhibition “Fashion Forward, 3 Centuries of Fashion (1715-2016)” from April 7 to August 14, 2016.
Three hundred pieces of men’s, women’s and children’s fashion, selected from a collection constantly enriched by donations and acquisitions will highlight the key moments in fashion history from the very late 17th century to the most contemporary creation. Freeing itself from the dictates of the conservation of works and the stringent conditions of their display, the exhibition is conceived as an ideal museum of fashion, featuring the finest examples of three centuries of creation habitually illustrated in reference books. It also provides a fascinating new insight into fashion’s evolution via its designers, clients and periods, because now more than ever at Les Arts Décoratifs, fashion is treated as an artistic field that has wide-ranging echoes in the museum’s other collections. Fashion is a history of evolving techniques, materials and designs but also a history of changing times and attitudes, a reflection of the art of living. Fashion is even more fascinating when it is not self-generating but dialogues with the arts of its time, as did great figures of Couture such as Charles-Frederick Worth, Jacques Doucet, Paul Poiret, Jeanne Lanvin, Madeleine Vionnet, Gabrielle Chanel, Christian Dior and Yves Saint Laurent. The exhibition will also be an unique opportunity to showcase the jewels and highlight the particularities of a national fashion and textiles collection curated in full dialogue with the other departments of a museum dedicated to all the decorative arts.

For more information, please visit Les Arts Décoratifs. Browse also the museum marvellous fashion collection on Europeana Fashion!

Photo: Attributed to Jacques Doucet, jacket belonging to Cléo de Mérode, 1898-1900. © Les Arts Décoratifs, Paris / photo : Jean Tholance