Olivier Saillard Opens Le Musée Vivant de la Mode at Fondation Cartier

Tonight, fashion gets a pulse. On March 6, Historian and Performer Olivier Saillard opens Le Musée Vivant de la Mode at the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in Paris, a 15-day program of daily performances, installations and conferences that asks one radical question: what if fashion were alive?

Running until March 21 at Fondation Cartier's new home on the Place du Palais-Royal, the program is part exhibition, part performance art and entirely unlike anything a traditional fashion museum would dare to stage. And the location could not be more fitting. The building that now houses Fondation Cartier was once the Grands Magasins du Louvre, the very department store where the first ready-made dresses were sold to the public over a century ago.

What Historian Olivier Saillard Is Doing at Fondation Cartier

Saillard has spent over 20 years, since 2005 precisely, inventing performances around garments. Former Director of the Palais Galliera, current Director of the Fondation Alaïa and Artistic Director of J.M. Weston, he has long argued that fashion history lives in movement, gesture and the intimacy of wear. And for Le Musée Vivant de la Mode, he is putting that argument center stage. From March 8 to 21, every day at 5pm, Saillard presents a daily live performance included in the exhibition ticket. Nine models wear beige linen dresses to which garments are attached like mobile canvases. But these are no ordinary pieces. Saillard borrowed Designer Helmut Lang's hole-ridden T-shirt, Designer Christian Lacroix's 1990s patchwork jacket and Designer Azzedine Alaïa's signature black tunic and trousers. He also pulled garments from the street. Workwear beyond repair, archival pieces too fragile for official collections, garments that a traditional museum would lock away forever. Here, they move.

The Performances Not to Miss

Tonight and tomorrow, March 6 and 7 at 9pm, the programme opens in an expanded inauguration format with special guests and live fittings. But the two unmissable highlights come later. On March 13 and 14 at 9pm, Jewelry Designer Paloma Picasso joins Saillard for "Répertoire n°1: Yves Saint Laurent 1971", revisiting Designer Yves Saint Laurent's legendary and controversial Spring/Summer 1971 collection through memory, narrative and garments. And on March 20 and 21 at 9pm, Actress Tilda Swinton closes the programme with "Mannequins du Silence", a conceptual dialogue between a living body and the commercial mannequins that have displayed garments in stores and museums for centuries. Actress Swinton and Saillard have collaborated for over a decade and this promises to be one of their most poetic encounters yet.

Le Musée Vivant de la Mode Extends Into the Palais-Royal Metro

The program does not stop at Fondation Cartier's front door. In partnership with the RATP, Saillard extends Le Musée Vivant de la Mode into the Belle Époque wooden-framed display windows of the Galerie Valois in the Palais-Royal metro station, Exit 4. Fashion history, it turns out, runs underground too.

While You Are There: Discover the General Exhibition

If March 21 passes you by, Fondation Cartier is worth a visit regardless. Since relocating to the Place du Palais-Royal in October 2025, the institution has been running its General Exhibition, a celebration of 40 years of exhibitions and contemporary art that runs until August 23, 2026. Architect Jean Nouvel's iconic glass and steel building, the garden designed by Artist Lothar Baumgarten and the permanent collection make Fondation Cartier one of Paris's great cultural destinations year-round.

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