Explore French fashion in your living room

Are you dreaming of exploring the behind-the-scenes of haute couture? While waiting for the next Paris Fashion Week, come along behind the curtain of French fashion from your sofa. From the secrets of the Dior "dream" to the mysteries of the iconic wardrobes of the Palace of Versailles to the art of sublimating stage costumes, dive with us into four centuries of audacity and French style!

Behind the scenes at the Dior exhibition, Designer of Dreams

Let's revisit the "Christian Dior, couturier du rêve" exibition—in 57 minutes of guided video tour, Dior takes us behind the scenes of this retrospective event organized in 2017 at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs (External link) in Paris. Between haute couture models and objets d'art, interviews with curators and seamstresses, archive photos and images of fashion shows created by the six artistic directors who succeeded each other in 70 years, we're diving into the universe of a man and a label who have never ceased to weave links between fashion and all forms of art. This is French fashion at its finest!

Christian Dior, Designer of Dreams (External link)

Cinema, theatre and music hall with Yves Saint Laurent

While waiting to visit the Yves Saint Laurent Museum in Paris (External link) , why not take a virtual tour in its collections? This is the perfect opportunity to discover a lesser-known side of the great couturier’s art: his work in cinema and show business. The original sketches, the outfits displayed on a mannequin, and finally the version worn by the performer: a series of triptychs retrace the process of creating stage costumes. The collections unveil works on beloved models: the embroidered sweater worn by Zizi Jeanmaire for Mon truc en plumes magazine or little black dress sported by Catherine Deneuve in the film Belle de jour directed by Luis Bunuel.

Yves Saint Laurent collection (External link)

In Marie-Antoinette’s iconic wardrobe at Versailles

Karl Lagerfeld, Nicolas Ghesquière and Dior—since the 18th century, Versailles' fashions have inspired the greatest designers. But do you know why Marie-Antoinette is considered as the first icon of French fashion? You'll find the answer thanks to the digital exhibition concocted by the Château de Versailles. Through the timeline of portraits, we see the emergence of new dress codes. On the female side, you can spot the emergence of robe en bergère (a relaxed "shepherd's dress") signalling a way back to nature or the "en gaulle" style symbolizing the revolutionary period. Both sheperd in a change from the voluminous panier-hooped dresses of Versailles' heydays. And on the male side, the style of the 1780s combines sophistication, elegance and fantasy. Costume drama fans, eat your heart out.

Fashion at Versailles (External link)

In the footsteps of dance couturiers with the "National Center of Stage Costume"

Tutus in green silk lined with small black pompoms created by Christian Lacroix for the ballet Les Anges ternis. Wolf costumes imagined by Jean-Paul Gaultier for the choreographer Régine Chopinot. There is a long list of great couturiers using their gifts for the world of dance, as evidenced by the exhibition "Couturiers de la danse, de Chanel à Versace", put online by the Conservatoire National du Costume de Scène de Moulins (CNCS). With 130 models, a formidable ballet of shapes, textures and materials reveals all the genius of these creators to sublimate bodies in motion.

Dance couturiers (External link)

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