A sumptous exhibition in Paris showcases beautiful gowns made over the past century, many of them embellished with Swarovski crystals – and it won't cost you a centime to visit
Reading this on mobile? Click here to view the video
In Paris, for the next four months, you can get haute couture for free.
Well, almost. An exhibition at the Hotel de Ville, opening on 2 March, brings together 100 dresses from the 118-year history of haute couture – and there is no entry fee. The frocks include prize pieces from Worth, Coco Chanel, Paul Poiret, Christian Dior and Madame Gres, as well as contemporary looks by Alexander McQueen, John Galliano and Riccardo Tisci.
It's a lively and thought-provoking selection, with gowns made a century apart juxtaposed to draw out common themes – as you'd expect, since the curator is Olivier Saillard, newly appointed director of the Musee Galliera (the Paris equivalent of the V&A fashion galleries) whose recent work includes The Impossible Wardrobe, a 40-minute one-woman fashion-show-meets-avant-garde-theatre-piece, starring Tilda Swinton.
The exhibition is made possible by the support of Swarovski, whose crystals embellish many (although not all) of the dresses, and Nadja Swarovski was in attendance at Thursday's opening. "I grew up listening to my grandfather tell stories about driving two days to get to Paris, to see Coco Chanel about a dress," said Nadja. "Or about how Christian Dior wanted a stone that represented the Northern Lights, and that was how that particular crystal came into being." She hopes this show will celebrate the longstanding relationship between haute couture and Swarovski, one which lapsed in the 1970s – "crystal figurines", she says crisply, with a roll of her eyes – but was reignited when, through Isabella Blow, the company made contact with Alexander McQueen and Philip Treacy, and "the fashion industry remembered Swarovski". Pushed to pick a favourite out of this century of dresses, Swarovski plumps for an elegant white halterneck gown made by Christian Dior for the Duchess of Windsor.
The message of the exhibition, Saillard says, is twofold. "That there is something precious about haute couture – but also that it is part of our world, our culture." The free admission is, he says, a terrific symbol of that. "Haute couture is special," says Saillard. "In ready-to-wear, designers must always be trying to predict the future. But in haute couture, it can be more relaxed, and more about the present."
The looks are presented in pairs or trios, to tease out similarities. So a rich green Worth gown from 1895 is placed beside a Christian Lacroix catwalk look from 1991 that uses the same devore technique. A burnt orange, funnel-neck evening coat by John Galliano for Dior (1998) stands next to a Paul Poiret version – same silhouette, same shade, similar embroidery – from seven decades earlier. A navy mousseline Coco Chanel shift from 1923 is presented alongside a navy mousseline shift dress from Bouchra Jarrar's current collection.
Swarovski is a generous benefactor of the fashion industry. Nadja Swarovski readily admits that this is intended "to position ourselves as a fashion authority," but insists also that the family is keen to support an industry that, through good fortune, has helped to make the Swarovski fortune. Daniel Swarovski moved the Swarovski headquarters from deep in Austria to Bohemia, in order to be close to road and rail links to Paris. As a result, when the iron curtain fell, Swarovski was the only Austrian crystal company able to work with Paris and with Hollywood, gifting it a virtual monopoly.