Is it just us or are museums becoming even more engaging for design lovers lately? With Instagram photo ops aplenty, a swell of museums have been catering to the less culturally curious for the past decade. But recently, we’ve noticed that they’re trying new approaches for those who are already on the bandwagon.
Earlier this year, the Louvre mounted its first-ever fashion exhibition. The show, situated within the museum’s decorative arts department, invited guests to consider the relationship between artifacts like 16th-century French armor and an armor-like Balenciaga dress from 2023. The pairings throughout felt fresh and novel without distracting from the pieces’ craft and intrigue.
The V&A’s Order an Object program, at V&A South Kensington and the new V&A East Storehouse, offers more intimate connections with design history. The initiative, as W Magazine reports, invites members of the public to request up to five items from its collection of 71,000 fashion-related pieces and choose a time to see them. The options include Elsa Schiaparelli’s first design, 1990s pleated pieces by Issey Miyake and ’60s and ’70s frocks by Hubert de Givenchy, among many other garments and original sketches. At their appointments, participants can get up close and personal with the pieces they’ve selected — even touch them, in some cases. In contrast to events designed to be shared on social media, Order and Object is truly created with an in-person experience in mind. And you’ll probably get a great Instagram picture out of it, too.
