No one is quite sure how the Louvre, the world’s most-visited museum, got its name. One theory goes that the area was an ancient hunting ground for wolves (lupi in Latin), which used to roam near the Seine. Recently the museum has again become a hunting site, this time for more funds and new donors. To better accommodate the nearly 9m visitors who traipse through its galleries each year, it must raise around $800m for a renovation.
That may seem like a lot, but the museum is vast. According to one estimate, it would take 18 eight-hour days to see the more than 400 rooms of the Louvre if you were to stop at each work for 15 seconds. (Though that is rarely anyone’s ambition: 80% of visitors come primarily to see the “Mona Lisa”.) “It may well be the best-known and yet least understood museum in the world,” writes Elaine Sciolino, a journalist, in a forthcoming book, “Adventures in the Louvre”.
Against this backdrop, the museum has opened the first fashion exhibition in its 231-year history. It brings together around 100 outfits and accessories from 45 fashion houses and places them alongside the Louvre’s decorative-arts collection, which includes furniture, objects and more.
"As more cultural institutions 'link themselves with what is trendy and what society is doing', it is important to retain 'the critical voice' rather than just 'the Instagram factor and the spectacle', says Federica Carlotto of Sotheby’s Institute of Art."
"The Balance Between Trend and Critical Voice in Cultural Institutions." The Economist. Accessed February 24, 2025. www.economist.com/culture/2025/02/18/the-louvre-is-hosting-its-first-fashion-exhibition.