“LA MODE EN MOUVEMENT”(FASHION ON THE MOVE) EXHIBITION AT THE PALAIS GALLIERA, PARIS

This new major exhibition has just opened and lasts until September 2025.

In resonance with the Olympic and Paralympic Games Paris 2024, the museum examines what clothes brought in physical and sporting activities and the social consequences of its development. This exhibition, featuring some 200 pieces, refers to the history of sports wear, their evolution chronologically and their influence to free the body, the beauty, etc. It also develops a transversal theme on the body in movement.

Extending this idea, in the curved gallery on the ground floor, it also offers "Les Couleurs de la mode" (Colours of fashion). This is a sub-exhibition of the collection of autochromes, exceptional images displayed in a new type of event that ran from 1921 to 1923 in Paris: the Salon du Goût Français (French Taste Exhibition).

Its delicate lighting design (limited to 50 lux but not only) required close collaboration with the curators in an atmosphere of availability and listening, especially for historical part from the 18th century collection and fragile or even damaged objects (cracked leather, crease dresses etc).

While, for preventive conservation reasons, the contents of this exhibition will rotate three times displays in a year and a half, each requiring new lighting settings.

Discover a very beautiful collection including the first feminine apron skirt for riding, the first swimsuit of the 19^th c., the fashion sneakers of the 90s etc. Echoing Sandra Courtine and Ania Martchenko’s scenography, the light sometimes accentuates the theme of movement through asymmetrical shooting, taking care not to alter shape and color.

In the curved gallery, the visitors find a reproduction series of very precious autochromes, which surprised people at that time with its backlighting “like staind glasses in a cathedral”. Based on testimonials, this exhibition represented the original lighting effect. This great idea but quite complex it required prototyping, optimization, then calibration of the light effects several times for these black and white photos colored by hand.