The century of wigs and paniers, of silk brocade and robe à la française, has long been dismissed as dusty, decadent, distant. The Palais Galliera disagrees.
“18th-Century Fashion: A Fantasized Heritage” Exhibition traces how the silhouette of the Enlightenment has been continuously reinvented by Second Empire courtiers, postwar couturiers, and contemporary designers alike. Not as historical record. As aesthetic fantasy.
More than seventy silhouettes will be on view, spanning three centuries. A corset believed to have belonged to Marie-Antoinette appears for the first time in public, its fragility requiring exceptional conservation measures. It hangs in dialogue with a Christian Dior Bar jacket from 1947, its wasp waist and sculptural hips a direct inheritance from the 18th century. A Vivienne Westwood pirate boot stands near a Louis Vuitton pannier gown. A Christian Lacroix bride in gold brocade shares space with a Dries van Noten embroidered coat.
The curators, Émilie Hammen and Pascale Gorguet-Ballesteros, argue that the 18th century never really ended. It was memorialized, mythologized, and eventually queered. The Exhibition’s final galleries trace the century’s aesthetics through the lens of kitsch, camp, and contemporary queer visual culture.
Nostalgia as Industry
The Second Empire discovered the 18th century as a lost paradise. Under Empress Eugénie, the courts of Louis XV and Louis XVI became templates for a new imperial elegance. The exhibition opens with this moment: crinolines that echo paniers, lace that quotes Versailles, a portrait of Eugénie dressed as Marie-Antoinette.
After 1945, French couture turned again to the 18th century. Postwar legitimization required heritage. The savoir-faire developed under the monarchy, embroidery, featherwork, artificial flowers, became national treasures. Lesage, Lemarié, and Hurel were folded into the narrative of French cultural supremacy. Dior built an empire on the memory of the Ancien Régime.
The Corset Speaks
The Exhibition’s centerpiece is also its most fragile object. The corset of Marie-Antoinette is a rare loan, rarely displayed due to its condition. White silk, hand-stitched boning, modest by contemporary standards. Its power lies in proximity. This garment touched the body of the woman whose wardrobe became a political liability, whose silhouette was caricatured, whose name remains shorthand for excess.
It is shown beside a Chanel camellia and a Jean Paul Gaultier cone bra. The juxtaposition is genealogical.
