One of the Louvre’s many halls

Tonight, French accessories magazine Stiletto hosted a small cocktail party at the Louvre. Yes, that Louvre. Besides serving as a gorgeous backdrop for the fashion fete, the location allowed guests (like me) to take a tour—sans tourists—of the Christian Lacroix-curated exhibition that’s currently on view. While I’m a big fan of the French designer and his sublimely decadent taste, the show seemed, well…a little off.

Inside the Lacroix exhibition

According to press releases, Lacroix delved through the impressive Musée de la Mode et du Textile archives and sorted out the themes or techniques he admired most. But to the casual viewer, the 400+ garments—from the 18th century through today, including 80 of his own designs—seemed just categorized by color (white! brown!), pattern (flowers! polka-dots!), and embellishments (ribbons! rosettes!).

While it made for a pretty succulent dose of high-fashion, art history majors (like me) would wrinkle their noses (like I did) at this kind of curation. Would paintings every be show according to where they fell in the color spectrum? When’s the last time you saw a sculpture exhibition comprised exclusively of glass pieces? (If you were recently in Murano, you don’t count.) Where’s the insight!? Where’s the historical information!? But then, who am I to criticize: There was plenty of potentially-informative text on hand to read in the exhibition hall, but I didn’t read a word of it. Why read when there’s champagne to be had?

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