The Louvre’s first couture exhibition, Louvre Couture: Objets d’Art, Objets de Mode (running Jan 24 – July 21, 2025), explores the intersection of the history of fashion and decorative arts, showcasing over 100 couture pieces from Balenciaga to Iris van Herpen alongside the museum’s masterpieces. With exceptional loans from 45 renowned designers, the display highlights the Louvre as an enduring source of creative inspiration set in the museum’s Department of Decorative Arts. Themes range from Byzantine opulence to the grandeur of Napoleon III’s era, with mirrored runways and period settings enhancing the dialogue between art and haute couture in 2025.
Ring a bell? Indeed, it sounds a lot like The Met Costume Institute, home to Vogue’s Met Gala, which is followed by months of themed exhibitions at the New York City museum. While fashion—especially textiles and tapestries—has always been intertwined with history, the Louvre has never displayed garments due to bureaucratic constraints. The difference? The Metropolitan Museum is a private institution, while the Louvre is state-owned.
The Louvre, as a state-owned institution, operates under the auspices of the French government, allowing it to prioritize cultural preservation, scholarly research, and exhibitions without the financial pressures faced by privately managed museums. This public backing enables the Louvre to acquire and showcase works and stage large-scale exhibitions that might be beyond the reach of donor-dependent institutions like The Met.
A prime example of the Louvre’s influence is its foray into fashion, a groundbreaking moment for the museum that solidifies its role in shaping not just art history, but also contemporary culture. Unlike The Met, where the Costume Institute’s exhibitions are driven by private sponsorships and ticketed galas, the Louvre’s involvement in haute couture signals a state-backed recognition of fashion as a fundamental pillar of artistic and cultural expression. At the same time, being state-owned also has its shortcomings. For example, despite being housed within the Louvre complex, France’s national textile collection isn’t even part of the Louvre, but belongs to the independent Musée des Arts Décoratifs.
The Louvre’s Met Gala
The Louvre will also be embracing fashion with a major exhibition and a fundraising gala, Le Grand Dîner du Louvre, set for Paris Fashion Week in March. Hosted in the glass-roofed Cour Marly among marble sculptures, the evening will include dinner and dancing beneath I. M. Pei’s iconic pyramid. More than 30 tables were put up for sale, and the museum has already surpassed its €1 million fundraising goal. This exhibit marks a game-changing moment for the state institution as it explores new ways to spotlight modern culture while embracing fresh initiatives within its walls.
What to Expect at the Louvre’s Fashion Exhibit
The exhibit itself offers an immersive experience, weaving fashion into major historical themes rather than following a conventional exhibition format. Picture this: a Jean Paul Gaultier couture gown from 2008 draped in the opulent Napoleon III apartments. A Versace ready-to-wear dress from 2018 juxtaposed with the ornate furniture and tapestries of Louis XVIII’s bedroom at the Tuileries Palace. A 2023 Balenciaga creation by Demna standing beside a meticulously crafted French suit of armor from 1560.
Think about the uncanny parallels between a pigeon-shaped handbag by JW Anderson and a Eucharistic dove from Limoges, dating back to 1210-1220. The fusion of fashion and history feels seamless here, as these masterpieces don’t merely sit among objets d’art; they animate them. And really, could John Galliano’s 2004 Dior silk and cut-velvet couture gown, trimmed in ermine, belong anywhere else but the grandeur of the Napoleon III apartments?
“As a universal museum, the Louvre is far too vast to be fully encompassed in a project of this scale. Yet the ambition remains immense: to reveal how, much like painting, photography, cinema, literature, sculpture, and dance, the decorative arts—defined within these walls since the 19th century as ‘objects of art from the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Modern Era’—continue to serve as a vibrant source of inspiration for contemporary fashion,” says Olivier Gabet, Curator of the Exhibition.
The chosen fashion houses are true representations of savoir-faire, in the city that is often considered the world’s fashion capital, and the exhibition features an impressive lineup of both legendary and emerging fashion houses. Among the most iconic names are Chanel, Dior, Givenchy, Balenciaga, Yves Saint Laurent, Hermès, Louis Vuitton, Versace, Prada, Gucci, and Fendi—all of which have played a defining role in shaping fashion history. Contemporary powerhouses such as Jean Paul Gaultier, Alexander McQueen, Maison Margiela, Alaïa, Schiaparelli, Bottega Veneta, and Dolce & Gabbana bring bold craftsmanship and innovation to the showcase. The exhibition also highlights avant-garde and experimental designers, including Iris van Herpen, Rick Owens, Marine Serre, Thom Browne, and Gareth Pugh, alongside rising talents like Jacquemus, Charles de Vilmorin, and Rabih Kayrouz. Additionally, the inclusion of brands such as JW Anderson, Undercover, Erdem, and Duro Olowu reflects a fresh and diverse perspective on global fashion dialogues, bringing the Louvre into 2025.
But the question still stands: Why fashion, and why now? With 8.7 million visitors in 2024, the Louvre doesn’t really need a new exhibit. In fact, it has limited daily attendance to 30,000 visitors to ease congestion. But still, just 23% of its visitors are French, while the majority are tourists. Specifically, 66% are first-time visitors—most of whom come to take a selfie with the Mona Lisa.
Laurence des Cars became director of the Louvre in 2021, and has since focused on drawing repeat visitors, a younger audience, and more Parisians to the museum. She has extended evening hours, hosted concerts and theatrical performances, and even experimented with a dance-and-exercise circuit. The new fashion exhibition fits into this vision. Some critics note that her admiration for the Met’s approach is so pronounced that curators jokingly call her “Met-obsessed.” Still, this move is a necessary step in modernizing the museum—perhaps a nod to current trends, but one that will surely attract a different audience and offer visitors more to see beyond da Vinci.
Fashion Exhibitions in Paris This Spring
Fashion has become a prominent trend in Paris’s museum scene, with a wave of fashion exhibitions opening across the city this spring. Visitors can start on a fashion history tour thanks to multiple exhibitions launching simultaneously. Dolce & Gabbana recently unveiled its own fashion spectacle, From the Heart to the Hands, at the newly renovated Grand Palais. The Musée du Quai Branly will present Golden Thread, an exhibition focused on using gold to adorn clothing and jewelry, drawing from African, Oceanic, American, and Asian traditions. In May, the Petit Palais will showcase Worth: The Birth of Haute Couture, a retrospective of the life and work of British designer Charles Frederick Worth (1825–1895).
Paris is also home to two iconic fashion museums with impressive permanent collections: the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, which houses a state-owned collection, and Palais Galliera, which is managed by the city. With the addition of the Louvre Couture exhibition, Paris now offers a comprehensive fashion journey, making it a must-see for anyone interested in the evolution of fashion.
