“Fashion folklore”, the fashion show in Marseille which reconnects the link between traditional costume and haute couture

We are used to seeing the Western fashion industry draw inspiration from distant lands, willingly exoticizing them, without always accrediting them, hence the accusation of cultural appropriation. But it also knows how to draw inspiration from its own folklore, as demonstrated by the new exhibition at the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations. From 12 July 2023 until 6 November 2023, Mucem proposes a dialogue between popular costumes and haute couture, to underline correspondences, forgotten, unconscious or misunderstood inspirations.

Because the “Fashion folklore” exhibition in Marseille is worth the detour

Throughout the 20th century, French haute couture designers drew on traditional clothing and the European popular imagination. The “Fashion folklore” exhibition draws from the textile collections of Mucem and other institutions or private collections to compare contemporary creations with traditional ones. There are almost 300 pieces, including illustrious houses such as Chanel, Dior, Balenciaga, but also young designers such as Simon Porte Jacquemus and Victor Weisanto. Marie-Charlotte Calafat and Aurélie Samuel, the curators of the exhibition, explain all the interest on the Mucem website:

“Aurélie Samuel: Designers collaborate with local embroiderers or weaving centers to create works together. Haute couture has always been the custodian of know-how and has contributed to safeguarding this ancestral technical heritage.

Marie-Charlotte Calafat: The dialogues between popular costumes and haute couture creations allow us to better understand how the other is perceived in society: while popular costumes disappear and are the object of study and collection by museums, haute couture was born and developed from Paris. It is therefore a transversal story that invites you to go back and forth between tradition and modernity, but also to travel between regions, Paris and elsewhere, to better understand the questions of circulation and influences at the heart of creation. »

This exhibition of the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations therefore has the immense merit of invite us to take a closer look at traditional European clothes, and to see them not as banal, dusty or kitschy elements of folklore, but as an invaluable heritage that deserves attention, preservation and celebration.

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