Louvre Opens Its First-Ever Fashion Exhibition, Bringing Together Art and Couture

The Louvre—perhaps the one museum on everyone’s bucket list—is, for the first time, presenting a multi-gallery exhibition: Louvre Couture: Art and Fashion – Statement Pieces. It’s surprising that a fashion exhibition has never before taken place at the Louvre, which stands in Paris, the fashion capital of the world.

Running until 21 July, 2025, the exhibition brings together more than 100 different looks and accessories from 45 maisons and designers. It features French labels such as Chanel, Dior, and Givenchy, and even international fashion houses including Prada, Erdem, Dries Van Noten, and Undercover.

“In consideration of the Louvre’s encyclopaedic immensity, this exhibition follows a methodological approach geared towards exploring the history of decorative styles, art professions, and ornamentation through the galleries of the Department of Decorative Arts, where textiles are omnipresent—though generally in tapestries and other décor items rather than in articles of clothing,” states Olivier Gabet, director of the Musée du Louvre and curator of the exhibition.

Calling it the world’s largest mood board would be an understatement. Sixty-five designs are displayed across nearly 9,000 square metres, “along with a number of accessories, newly illuminating 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 on special loan from the most iconic fashion houses, both long-standing and recent, in Paris and throughout the world,” says Gabet.

Some of the key pieces featured include a crystal-embroidered Dolce & Gabbana dress inspired by 11th-century mosaics from Santa Maria Assunta in Torcello, Venice; a silk Dior gown featuring a Sun King motif, staged before a baroque portrait of Louis XIV himself; and Nadège Vanhée’s Hermès Spring 2021 geometric bronze mesh-covered stretch silk minidress, which takes cues from medieval chainmail.

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