Fashion is once again a creative force at the Louvre in Paris, drawing record crowds and challenging centuries-old hierarchies in the world’s most-visited museum.
When Olivier Gabet staged Louvre Couture in 2025 – the museum’s first fashion-led exhibition in its 230-year history – the curator ushered in new possibilities for the venerable institution. “Fashion is part of artistic creation,” he tells Monocle. “It’s a form of expression in the pursuit of beauty, just like art.”
That said, it has long been absent from the museum’s concerns. “Fashion has never been within the Louvre’s remit but, at the same time, fashion is central to the Louvre,” says Gabet, who is director of the department of decorative arts. “It’s a place of inspiration for many creators, including fashion designers.”
In the hierarchical world of art history, where art forms and even types of paintings are traditionally ranked in order of importance (a portrait, for example, trumps a landscape), such a statement is revolutionary. “This hierarchy is still powerful in museums, though it is being upturned by the demands of the public,” says Gabet. “Fashion is everywhere and therefore more accessible, especially in a city like Paris. This creates an affinity for visitors who come to a fashion exhibition but otherwise wouldn’t necessarily feel welcome in a museum.”
Though the Louvre only offers general-entry tickets, Louvre Couture is estimated to have drawn in more than a million visitors over a seven-month period. Now the exhibition is on show at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.
As a curator, Gabet demonstrates an ability to use fashion to draw connections with other forms of art and paint a broader picture by bringing in a wider context of history, literature and architecture. Before joining the Louvre, Gabet was director of Paris’s Musée des Arts Décoratifs, where he staged numerous exhibitions, including Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams in 2017 and Cartier and the Islamic Arts in 2021. A knack in creating conversations about historical topics in a contemporary context makes Gabet a curatorial force, as well as a champion of fashion’s place in museums.
As for what’s next, he hints that he has several ideas for exhibitions but finding the right moment is crucial. “There is no obligation to create a fashion-led exhibition every year and any future project needs to be fine-tuned to the Louvre’s collection, which is one of the most fabulous of its kind in the world,” he adds. “There’s a lot of negative talk about the Louvre since [the robbery that took place last] October but it remains the greatest – and most visited – museum worldwide. It’s a permanent source of inspiration.”