The Louvre creates a French-style Met Gala on March 4

If New York has its MET Gala, Paris now has its Grand Dinner at the Louvre. For the first time, the best-known Parisian museum will open its doors to the world of fashion. On March 4, an evening and a gala dinner will be organized in the Cour Marly, in the very heart of the Louvre, while the French capital will already be living to the rhythm of Women’s Fashion Week.

This event, which will bring together the biggest houses and renowned creators and benefits from the support of Visa Infinite, aims to raise funds to supplement the financing of the museum’s activities. It is part of the exhibition “Louvre Couture: Art objects, fashion objects” which begins on January 24 and will be visible until the end of July 2025.

“The Louvre will host for the first time in its history an exhibition entirely dedicated to fashion, its sources and its inspirations, specifies the museum in a press release. It is within the collections themselves, in direct and living dialogue with the notable works preserved in the Department of Objects of Art at the Louvre, this unique and historic exhibition will take place: 71 silhouettes and around thirty accessories loaned by 45 houses will punctuate this journey like no other among the most beautiful objects of art in the world.”

This exhibition at the Louvre, curated by Olivier Gabet, is part of a trend which is seeing a proliferation of monographs and exhibitions dedicated to brands and artistic directors. It will benefit from a 9,000 square meter installation within the galleries and rooms of the Objects of Art department with pieces loaned by the largest houses, many French but also Italian, English, Dutch, American and Japanese. Guided and thematic tours will also be set up, including on Wednesdays at 7 p.m. a historical overview of “Fashion faux pas” which could be full of anecdotes.

“It is not a question here of dotting the Art Objects department with fashion pieces, but of arousing or emphasizing proven connections, its collections having sometimes been modeled by the generosity of men and women of fashion, from Jacques Doucet to Madame Carven, specifies the museum in the exhibition presentation note. With regard to the history of art and fashion, the complicities are innumerable, they often embrace common methods, knowledge of. techniques older, visual culture, the subtle play of references, from the museum’s catalog raisonné to mood board fashion. Another way of looking at art objects through the prism of contemporary creators.”

A rapprochement between fashion and art to which those involved in luxury and creation are, as we know, increasingly sensitive. Proof of this is that according to the organization of this first Grand Louvre dinner associated with fashion, more than thirty tables were offered for sale and the fundraising objective of one million euros was exceeded.

Enough to consider a second edition even before this evening takes place under the emblematic pyramid?