Musée des Arts Décoratifs

My friends and I went to the Iris van Herpen exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs and were terribly jealous and annoyed by the idea of a retrospective for a designer born in 1984. Aside from this, though, the experience was quite wonderful.

We got timed entry tickets for 4:00 on a Friday. There was no wait to enter, but it was quite busy inside, with a line to check coats and a large crowd in each room of the main exhibition. It was a pretty diverse group, in age, race, and nationality, and I was surprised by the number of men in attendance. I can't imagine American men lining up for a fashion exhibition at home.

The security guard who admitted us into the show blatantly hit on one of my friends. That was kind of weird (though I'm guessing more acceptable in France, home of a particularly strong strain of #metoo backlash), but the experience was otherwise smooth and pleasant. The crowd was organized, and we flowed easily from room to room.

The exhibition was fantastic, beautiful and inspiring and well put together. Iris van Herpen makes exceptionally cool, sculptural clothes using a combination of innovative techniques and painstaking labor. The show highlighted some of the themes in her designs, bringing in relevant items from nature and complementary work by other artists. There were hundreds of garments on display, as well as accessories and sketchbooks and a whole room made up like an Iris van Herpen workshop, with fabrics and 3D-printed designs pinned to the walls in a giant mood board. I watched part of the looping video showing preparations for a fashion week, and wow, did that look intense. So much thought and time put into each piece.

After the Iris van Herpen show, we did a quick walk-through of the permanent jewelry collection and the Fashion and Sports exhibition (we also treated ourselves to an old lady interlude, sitting on a quiet bench on the highest floor--a very nice spot if you need a break). The jewelry was impressive, and I really enjoyed the quick education in athletic wear over the decades.

We stopped by the gift shop on our way out and ended up spending a good amount of time there, just browsing all of the eye-catching merchandise. (I guess it's no surprise that this museum has a worthwhile store.) There were tons of accessories and home goods and decorative items, as well as a huge selection of art books.

If you have any interest in the decorative arts, check out MAD while you're in Paris. It's a stellar museum right by the Louvre, and if you go in the next few months, you'll catch a spectacular show.

Loved this museum! So many museums concentrate on the art but this one is all about the home stuff.

Saw lots of furniture, bedroom sets, dishes, clocks, armories, and the like. It was really fun to see what wealthy people used to live on and use as part of their daily life.

It is part of the Louvre area so very easy to include in your trip to the Louvre.

I visited this museum with a friend in September 2020 on a Sunday afternoon. It is convenient to get here on the metro line 1, alighting at the station Palais-Royal - Musée du Louvre. Standard entry is 14€, but there are some reductions offered for youth, students, etc.

I really enjoyed the couple of hours we spent exploring this museum. The fashion installations and exhibits with fashion magazine covers through the decades were really interesting; it was especially neat to see side-by-side the images in the magazine and then the clothes themselves. The museum also had an extensive collection of jewelry and furniture from various eras. Compared to other art museums that focus more on beaux-arts, thé exhibitions on fashion and jewelry were very unique.

If you're already in the area (perhaps to visit the Louvre), definitely consider stopping by here too! You can definitely spend 2-3 stimulating hours here.

MAD is next to Louvre but smaller and much calmer.

The Napoleon's throne, and the exhibits of Chinoiserie - the Europeans' imagination, imitation and interpretation of Chinese and Eastern Asian. It is rare to see black porcelain. The western paintings with Chinese features.  

We were lucky: it poured while we were inside, that caused some light flood in the area.

My sister and I decided to check out the Dior exhibit of Musée des Arts Décoratifs Sept 2017. She is very knowledgeable about fashion and even took a study abroad course in Paris for 1 month for fun! It's a hobby of hers to learn more about the history and the artistic aspect of the high fashion houses so this was a great exhibit for her to spend some time (4 hours+, I was done in 1.5 lol).

I would suggest buying tickets ahead of time for the exhibit AND having it printed out. We still had to wait in line at 11:30 when the museum was open since 11:15, but within 10 mins we were in. I cannot say the same for the "need to purchase" line. It was drizzly and cold and there is no shelter from the elements. Inside, you'll find a historical narrative in picture and video form of Christian Dior, and briefly touching on his successors. The rest of the exhibit is samples of clothing and accessories worn on the runway from CD as well as all who followed leading house of Dior. I think I was able to have more artistic appreciation for the dresses and outfits being able to see them up close and wonder how someone was able to contruct/sew in such unique ways and with non traditional items. I especially loved the small models of each dress in tiny form.

To some, high fashion is just a way of throwing money into the trash can or bragging about status from a few emblems or symbols on your person. However, when you get the background on these fashion houses and see the hard work as art- it become a value for the artistic aesthetic. I left with a higher appreciation for the brand and the industry.

This review is only for the Dior exhibit. It was an endless parade of stunning pieces, but the exhibit was overcrowded, poorly ventilated, and poorly curated in some sections.

The second half of the exhibit was very well organized by theme and creative director, but the first half was a bit of a mess. The curation in the Colorama room was nonsensical: just a hodgepodge of items thrown into order by color (?!?!?!?) and I was unable to see what was what, especially with the crowds.

Boyfriend was able to score special untimed tickets through American Express concierge, so we were able to skip the lines, but had we only had regular tickets, we would have had to wait upwards of two hours in the rain outside to get in. And had we not had advance tickets, we would not have gotten in at all.

What a gem!

Transport yourself through years of different periods of decor in one glorious building!

Like so many museums one visit is never enough, one must approach with a plan, focus on a particular period or subject matter and repeat.

Every visit has proven over the years to be so relaxing and informative at the same time.

This place is a gem!

This museum sounded intriguing, but what they don't tell you is half the floors are under restoration.
Most of the furniture and glassware is from the 1800´s.
I would pass this until they have completed their
rénovation.

No joke, we waited 3 hours to get into the DIOR exhibit.

You know how hard it was to convince the two that i was with, that waiting in the 30 F degree weather, for an unknown amount of time, on the last day of our paris trip, was worth it!?!?! Friendships and family ties were tested!!

I'm super thankful they waited with me. And thankful we had an AMAZING time lol. (Think I would have had to hear about it forever if the exhibit flopped).

i thought the lights of the building in the lobby area was brilliant - it really set the tone for what we were about to experience.

I thought it was awesome they introduced the exhibit with the rainbow ombre collection of clothes and jewelry. That section though because the lights were off, and area was tight was extremely crowded.

Other highlight, was the room with all white pieces. Love the stories about how the dresses initially go from sketches to rough designs and pattern making.

Ofc the grand finale with the mirrors and towers of dresses was everything and more. I think that really made it magical was the lighting and projection of the scenery. How it changed from day to night to snow to glitter. the musical paring was also awesome. I just stood there watching the projections for 10 minutes. The video of different celebs wearing DIOR gowns was also entertaining.

Fashion Forward is a fashion exhibition at musee des arts decoratifs that spans 3 centuries from 1715 to 2016 and exhibits both modern and historical fashion pieces in their entirety.

My favorite is Yves Saint Laurent.