From the first sketch and fabric sample to the runway, museum storage and restoration workshop, Look! 40 Years of Fashion at the Museum traces the many lives of a garment. On view at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris from September 30th, 2026 to April 4th, 2027, the exhibition marks the 40th anniversary of the Musée des Arts de la Mode with 40 iconic silhouettes and around 220 works from the collections of the Union Française des Arts du Costume (UFAC) and the museum.
The exhibition follows fashion beyond the finished garment, tracing its journey from creation and display to preservation. Drawings, moodboards, textile samples, patterns, photographs and archival documents reveal the skills and decisions behind each piece, while conservation and restoration become part of the narrative.
From sketch to garment: the language of couture techniques
The exhibition opens with the energy of the fashion atelier. In the Tuileries gallery, projections of contemporary runway shows introduce fashion as performance before leading into a space inspired by couture workshops.
Worktables and display cases trace the path from idea to silhouette through sketches, moodboards, fabric samples, toiles, patterns and model archives. Pierre Balmain captured ideas through drawing; Madeleine Vionnet worked directly with fabric on the mannequin; Maria Grazia Chiuri develops collections through richly layered moodboards.
Textile albums reveal how fabric shapes a garment’s fall and appearance, while toiles give volume to two-dimensional ideas and patterns expose the architecture and precision of cutting. Together, these elements reveal the couture techniques usually hidden within the finished look.
Among the silhouettes glimpsed from the museum’s grand staircase are an 18th-century hoop skirt, John Galliano’s kimono and Guy Laroche’s iconic backless dress worn by Mireille Darc in Le Grand Blond avec une chaussure noire in 1972. Highlights also include a Saint Laurent jacket embroidered by Brossin de Méré and Roger Vivier silk twill shoes embroidered by Rébé.
From iconic exhibitions to fashion archives
The 40 silhouettes also condense the history of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs’ fashion programme. Works associated with landmark exhibitions such as Moments de Mode, Christian Dior, Couturier of Dreams, Shocking! The Surrealist Worlds of Elsa Schiaparelli and The Mechanics of Lingerie recall the museum’s role in shaping public understanding of fashion as both creative practice and cultural heritage.
Among the archival highlights is the Petit Théâtre de la Mode, the celebrated 1945 miniature theatre featuring fashion dolls. Pleating machines from the Lognon house and contemporary printing techniques point to the technologies that have supported fashion creation across generations.
The exhibition draws heavily on the UFAC collections, whose holdings, alongside those of the Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs, helped establish the Musée des Arts de la Mode. These archives preserve not only garments but the evidence surrounding them: photographs, invitations, acquisition files, press cuttings and restoration records.
Behind the museum: preserving fashion for the future
The Rivoli gallery shifts from creation to the preservation of fashion heritage, introducing the people who document, store, restore and display garments.
Textile conservation reveals a hidden side of museum work: garments rest in boxes or on padded “morphological” hangers designed to support their individual shapes, while the archives can also inspire designers such as Dries Van Noten. In the restoration workshops, specialists combine handcraft with scientific analysis, using techniques such as radiography to study historic and contemporary textiles.
Mannequin-making is equally essential. Custom forms give garments their correct shape while protecting their structure, with one sculpture-like mannequin displayed without clothing to reveal the modelling normally concealed beneath it.
Forty years of fashion, preserved in memory
The final room focuses on the museum’s graphic identity, gathering posters and catalogues from exhibitions organised over four decades. Fashion history survives not only through garments, but also through the images, publications and visual languages that carry them into collective memory.
Across its galleries, Look! 40 Years of Fashion at the Museum connects the energy of the atelier with the patience of conservation. The exhibition regards each garment as both a creative achievement and an archival object, revealing the techniques, knowledge and countless hands that allow fashion to outlive its original moment.
Images courtesy of MUSÉE DES ARTS DÉCORATIFS
