Le Temps Des Collections Vii : Élégantes Et Dandys Romantiques (The Time Of Collections Vii: Elegant And Romantic Dandies)

The Metropolitans museums (RMM) organizes from December 7th to May 19th the seventh edition of Le Temps des Collections (“Collections’ time”) 

This programme launched in 2012 at Rouen’s Beaux-Arts Museum is one of the very first initiatives in France to put the collections back at the heart of the museums’ programming. Each time it is the occasion to reveal the richness and variety of the public collections, to unveil the other side of the scenery and the mysteries of the museum’s stores as well as to promote rediscoveries by opening the museums to new sights. Many guests have been invited: curators, historians, artists, personalities from the cultural world, or more recently the public with the Chambre des visiteurs (“Visitors’ chamber”) 

This seventh edition offers six exhibitions around the Fashion & Textile theme. Clothes, costumes, dresses, jewellery, and many more exceptional creations that are put into light. These exhibitions present the clothing specificities from emblematic periods throughout History. From Antiquity to contemporary times, many objects never presented are to discover! 

Leg sleeves or Beret, Giraffe hairstyle, Cathedral fans… 1820s-1840s fashion appears quite exotic nowadays, by both its denomination and its extravagant forms. 

This silhouette with the swollen bust and wasp size is the one of Balzac’s hero and dandies from the Hernani battle. Based on the collection from the Metropolitans museums and on many lending, this exhibition is the occasion to unveil unpublished objects to the audience. Putting next a rich iconography, made of portraits, miniatures, or even fashion engravings, this event puts lights on costumes, bags, fans, jewellery and other fashion accessories in order to highlight this exuberant period of the fashion history. 

Under the auspices of tutelary figures such as Balzac or Barbey d’Aurevilly, the visitor will meet the “fashionables” (ancestors of our “Fashion victims”) from the Restauration to the July’s Monarchy, ready to buy every new pieces of cloth sold in the “Magasins de nouveautés” (“Novelty shops”), the first “confections” or creations from the best Parisian dressmakers.