EXHIBITION – FASHION IN THE 18TH CENTURY

The very beautiful exhibition “Fashion in the 18th Century. A Fantasized Legacy” presented by the Parisian Galliera museum until July 12, 2026, is dedicated to French fashion of the Age of Enlightenment and to the imagined legacy it has continued to leave in the art of dress ever since.

Indeed, 18th-century fashion marks a very real break from the ceremonial fashion of the reign of King Louis XIV, which was a court fashion characterized by rigid, heavy, and restrictive garments. The fashion of the Enlightenment, imbued with the ideas of the Philosophers, becomes a means of individual and intimate expression, and flourishes from 1715 to 1789. Solemnity is abandoned in favor of lighter fabrics, less stiff patterns, and garments that are more flexible, lighter, and more comfortable.

Indeed, Enlightenment fashion is marked by an unprecedented extravagance, whether in the diversity of silhouettes, the richness of fabrics, the opulence of adornments, or the eccentricity of hairstyles. This extravagance – both ostentatious and intended, beyond personal expression, to reflect a firmly established social hierarchy – is, as one might expect, profoundly disrupted by the Revolution, as clothing naturally follows the upheavals affecting French society as a whole.

The abandonment of voluminous dresses and corsets, combined with the antique inspiration of garments, perfectly illustrates the rejection of aristocratic luxury and the hierarchical society of the past. A society eager for equality and simplicity turns toward a more pared-down wardrobe that fantasized an idealized Antiquity. Cotton or silk muslins, paired with Empire waistlines rising just under the bust, revive a modernized antique style.

Although the female silhouette gradually returns to corsets and fuller skirts during the first half of the 19th century, it is the French Second Empire that first idealizes the aesthetics of the 18th century and turns it into a major source of inspiration. The Second Empire replaces the fantasy of Antiquity with the fantasy of Enlightenment fashion. The most widespread expression of this fascination is the crinoline, which is essentially a reinterpretation of the 18th-century panniers.

In a society deeply shaken by major political and social changes – marked by the rise of the bourgeoisie and a relatively new and not entirely legitimate imperial nobility in the eyes of the old aristocracy, as well as by the early stages of the Industrial Revolution, which allows new fortunes to emerge – the 18th century comes to be seen as a world of aristocratic elegance, a lost paradise that inspires strong nostalgia. Referring to it – even through manners and clothing – allows imperial power and the dominant classes to construct a sense of continuity and legitimacy, however illusory, yet highly valorizing.

This fantasy resurfaces at every major moment of societal doubt. After WWII, French haute couture, seeking to assert its legitimacy on the international stage, also turns to the 18th century. Indeed, Enlightenment fashion offers a great source of inspiration, as the craftsmanship of royal manufactures of the time left a lasting imprint on French sartorial heritage.

The widespread diffusion of images through the press, cinema, and entertainment industries transforms this heritage into a visual code immediately recognizable within popular culture.

Gradually, Enlightenment fashion ceases to be merely a historical reference and becomes a full-fledged aesthetic, constantly reinvented, reinterpreted, and reappropriated according to the aspirations of each era.

The exhibition “Fashion in the 18th Century. A Fantasized Legacy” brings together, through more than seventy silhouettes (including the fragile corset of Queen Marie-Antoinette, exceptionally displayed to the public), confronting 18th-century fashion and the fashion of later centuries, which has never ceased to fantasize about the style of the Enlightenment.