Fashion curator Olivier Saillard is staging daily performances at the newly renovated Fondation Cartier in Paris as part of the Living Museum of Fashion exhibition. The event revives historic fashion moments to counter the static nature of museum displays. It runs through March 21, featuring guests like Paloma Picasso and Tilda Swinton.
During Paris Fashion Week, Olivier Saillard has taken on the role of artist in residence at the Fondation Cartier, located at the Palais-Royal opposite the Louvre. The contemporary art center, following a renovation costing over €230 million by architect Jean Nouvel, invited Saillard to create a multi-faceted exhibition and installation centered on fashion. Saillard's theme addresses his view that “museums kill fashion,” explaining in an interview with Vogue, “Things look very beautiful under glass, like taxidermied animal trophies in a chateau... All those clothes on display or in the reserves are a bit like ghosts.”
To counteract this, Saillard choreographs performances to bring life to garments, focusing on the wearer's experience. He stated, “Clothing that’s on display no longer belongs to anybody, really, except the designer who made it... But the part that’s always fascinated me is the person who wore it, the space between animate and inanimate. Otherwise, it’s like gazing at a historic instrument without ever hearing its music.” He has collected items for “a museum of last chances, made up of forgotten, patched-up, anonymous things... And gestures, too, because those can’t be stored in a drawer.”
On March 13, Saillard presented Répertoire n°1: Yves Saint Laurent 1971, The Scandal Collection, starring Paloma Picasso, whose style inspired the original show. Saillard noted, “here is a collection inspired by war, and the name Paloma symbolizes peace. There was something in all of that that I find very joyful.” Picasso, speaking from Switzerland, recalled the backlash: “The press was so negative, I couldn’t understand why it would be so horrible... I saw it as something positive that French women were using dress as an act of resistance.” She shared that her red lipstick tradition began at age three with her mother, Françoise Gilot, and reflected on being a muse: “It’s because they do something different, because they evoke something special to you.” Her current style emphasizes black clothing and red lips to highlight her jewelry designs.
Next weekend, Tilda Swinton will join for Silent Models, their fifth collaboration, described by Saillard as their “strangest yet.” Props include handkerchiefs, French worker blues, and mannequins representing “a whole taxonomy of objects that have tried and failed to replace the human body since the 19th century.” In an email, Swinton described it as “a rich dialogue,” adding, “one’s sense of identity is a truly flexible and ever-evolving matter (…) clothes need us just as we need them.” She highlighted themes of absence in fashion archives and expressed fondness for “the labor of a necktie” and the handkerchief.
The Living Museum of Fashion by Olivier Saillard & guests continues at the Fondation Cartier through March 21.
