Paris’s Musée des Arts Décoratifs explores the dialogue between three creative categories in its permanent collection galleries dedicated to modern design.
Transdisciplinary exhibitions are an exciting way to learn about shared ideas across categories. A recent model juxtaposing two disciplines, fashion and art, is Traveling Shows – When fashion entered the National Museum of Modern Art, at the Center Pompidou in Paris until April 22. However, the dialogue between three is obviously much more complex. The bold embrace of this “trio” formula is Fashion, design, jewelry exhibitionwhich is now on display at the city’s Musée des Arts Décoratifs.
The museum, which boasts a vast collection of applied arts from the medieval period to the present day, has experience in organizing two-dimensional performances. For example, shortly after Karl Lagerfeld’s death in 2019, several of the designer’s looks were added to the modern period section of the permanent collection galleries, including his creation for Chloé from the 1980s on display at Mid-Memphis Furniture . The site’s extensive costume archives are always a great resource for choosing the right pieces to illustrate the relevant themes. The institution’s jewelry gallery is also expanding with new acquisitions.
Jewelry in the exhibition
(Image credit: Courtesy of Musée des Arts Décoratifs)
For Fashion, design, jewelry exhibition, Mathieu Rousset-Perrier, who is in charge of the Musée des Arts Decoratifs’ medieval, Renaissance and jewelery collection, was one of six curators from different departments of the museum. “We were looking for a way to pay tribute to the donations of the last fifteen years, alongside the regular route of the design section,” he says. “Creatives in any discipline are curious and look at what others are doing. Very often they build a stable friendship, not to mention Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparel. They were surrounded by artists, writers, poets and musicians respectively. Designers and creatives are influenced by everyone and everything interesting,” Rousse-Perrier explains, how creative threads expand endlessly and sometimes develop into an artistic movement.
Spread over five floors (levels 5 to 9 of the museum’s Pavillon de Marsan), thirty-something costumes and around one hundred pieces of jewelry enrich the design collection, spanning from the 20th century to the present day. The selection is free of hierarchy: haute couture or ready-to-wear, as well as fine jewelry or costume jewelry, is not the important criterion, which is rare from the point of view of museology. Twenty groups were formed around the same inspiration or style, or simply a period, or through interactive influence or coincidence.
(Image credit: Courtesy of Musée des Arts Décoratifs)
The first projected design of the show is by Mark Newson Floor with drawers cabinet. It is accompanied by two gorgeously embroidered jackets, one of which is paired with the bustier dress created by Olivier Rousteing for his first Balmain collection in 2012. Finishing off are a dozen Art Deco jewels by iconic French jeweler Jean Depré. the installation. Here the inspirations were not quite the same, nor was the period. Instead, parallels are found in the metallic light and geometric lines, reminiscent of the Streamline Modern style. Another highlight includes Charlotte Periand.
