San Francisco Frontiers - Louvre holds first fashion exhibition, eyeing new audiences

The show, called "Louvre Couture", welcomed its first visitors a day after a stark warning from the director of the famed museum about overcrowding inside the former royal palace.

The exhibition features around a hundred items of clothing by 45 top designers that have been placed alongside objects from the Louvre's vast collection of decorative artworks, from chests of drawers to armour.

In one instance, a Dolce & Gabbana wool dress printed with a mosaic and embroidered with crystals, stones, and sequins echoes the patterns of an 11th-century Italian mosaic from Torcello, near Venice.

Louvre director Laurence des Cars said the show demonstrated "a subtle and precise dialogue between creations from the 1960s to today and the collections of the decorative arts department, highlighting the deep connection between art and designers".

"This embodies the core of our broader programming ambition: to continually reinterpret the Louvre's collections for new generations of visitors with different cultural references," she added.

The Louvre, which is looking for fresh sources of income, is hoping to emulate the success of fashion exhibitions hosted by New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and London’s Victoria and Albert in recent years.

A major 2017 retrospective about Christian Dior at the Museum of Decorative Arts, which occupies a wing of the Louvre Palace, led to huge queues and drew a string of A-listers.

- 'Not good enough' -

The Louvre was in the headlines in France and internationally on Thursday after the publication of a confidential memo written by des Cars to Culture Minister Rachida Dati warning about the deterioration of conditions inside the museum.

Des Cars said the world-famous art destination suffered from water leaks and extreme temperatures, and was a "physical ordeal" for some visitors because of a lack of relaxation areas among its more than 400 rooms.

"Food options and restroom facilities are insufficient in volume, falling well below international standards," she wrote.

The museum received 96 million euros ($101 million) in annual public subsidies in 2024, but is hoping for an extra 100 million to cover renovations, a source close the institution told AFP on condition of anonymity.

It welcomed 8.7 million people last year -- around twice the number it was designed for.

Asked about conditions inside on Thursday, Dati said she wanted to increase prices for non-European visitors to help increase funding.

"The visiting and working conditions are not good enough for... the biggest museum in the world," she told reporters. "We need to be innovative, including with financing."

The Louvre is set to host a fundraising gala during Paris Women's Fashion Week in March when around 30 tables have been offered for sale, with more than one million euros raised already.

"Louvre Couture" runs until July 21.

D.Brown--SFF