Mode et Sport, D’un Podium a À L’autre (Fashion & Sport, from one podium to another)

Looking forward to the 2024 Olympics, the Musée des Arts décoratifs (Paris) presents Fashion and Sports: From one Podium to Another (20 September 2023 – 7 April 2024), an exhibition on the fascinating interconnections between fashion and sports from the Ancient World to the present day.

This major exhibition illuminates the shared social concerns and focus on the body of the apparently unrelated worlds of fashion and sports. 450 items of clothing, accessories, photographs, sketches, magazines, posters, paintings, sculptures and videos illustrate the evolution of sportswear and its influence on contemporary fashions. Jean Patou, Jeanne Lanvin, Gabrielle Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli were some of the interwar fashion design pioneers who found inspiration in the world of sports. The exhibition shows how they made sportswear fashionable in a wider range of contexts, including in everyday wardrobes. The importance of comfortable clothes is a recurrent theme, explaining why tracksuits and sneakers are now ubiquitous on the streets and on the catwalk, from Balenciaga to Off- White.

The exhibition was curated by Sophie Lemahieu, Keeper of the museum’s post-1947 Fashion and Textiles Collections. The colourful and lively exhibition design is by BGC Studio.

Images courtesy of Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris.