Colours of Fashion

From 16 June 2023 to 15 March 2024, as an extension of the collections exhibition in the Galerie Courbe on the garden floor, the Palais Galliera will be presenting “Les couleurs de la mode” [‘Colours of fashion’], an exhibition of works from the collection of autochromes kept at the Musée des Arts et Métiers (CNAM, Paris).

These exceptional images were created to showcase French luxury in a new type of event that ran from 1921 to 1923 in Paris: the Salon du Goût Français. The originality of the exhibition lay in its presentation: an ephemeral display of autochromes, backlit like «stained glass windows in a cathedral.»

The exhibition at the Palais Galliera of these previously unpublished colour photographs gives us a fresh perspective on early 1920s fashion. Presented as facsimiles, a corpus of around one hundred images reveals the subtle palette of the autochrome alongside the costumes, accessories and documents from the Museum.