When museums flounce and follow fashion

Are Museums Wearing Thin? In any case, they are seduced by the fake, the frills and the frippery. There is no doubt that fashion is in vogue, and to celebrate it, exhibitions are multiplying far beyond the institutions officially reserved for them, such as the Palais Galliera and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. You only have to glance at the Paris cultural calendar for spring 2025 to see the phenomenon: after Dolce & Gabbana at the Grand Palais, the House of Worth is taking over the Petit Palais; the Quai Branly is enticing visitors with an exhibition devoted to gold in textiles from the Orient to the Land of the Rising Sun, while the Louvre is trying to attract visitors to its decorative arts department by displaying dresses by Chanel, Jean-Paul Gautier and Balenciaga...
Why this invasion of sequins and frills? Because the coffers need to be filled. Museums are now required to be profitable, so they seek to please the greatest number of people by offering easy and spectacular exhibitions at the expense – perhaps? – of more demanding and therefore less marketable projects. The Petit Palais does at least have the wisdom to alternate subjects: the sparkle of satin and the sheen of velvet follow the darkness of Ribera.

Social media undoubtedly plays a role in this craze for the arts of appearance. By widely disseminating images of fashion weeks and red carpets, they fuel the myths of haute couture, and museums go one better by making it tangible. They give their visitors the privileged feeling of being in the front row of a fashion show, admiring extraordinary clothes up close... so that they can take better photos and share them online. The icing on the cake – or rather the feather in the fascinator – is that fashion exhibitions are wonderfully Instagrammable; the publicity is free and goes viral. It remains to be seen whether…