With the exhibition En volume ! Donner corps à la mode, the Palais Galliera explores the many ways of constructing, transforming or reinventing the silhouette, from the 17th century to the present day, placing the body at the heart of its approach.
Rich in more than 300 rarely shown works (garments, accessories, photographs, graphic arts, tools…), the exhibition reveals the diversity of cutting and volume-shaping techniques in fashion.
The route focuses on tailoring, flou and knitwear, which make it possible to create volume, shape a silhouette and adapt to the variety of body shapes of women, men and children across the ages. Thanks to a selection of emblematic pieces from the museum's collections and loans from historic houses as well as young designers, the exhibition decodes the specificities and challenges of these three major garment-construction techniques. It thus invites visitors to discover the different stages of making a fashion piece, from the preparatory drawing to its final realisation. The presentation of numerous accessories – hats, gloves, shoes – also helps to better understand their making and their anatomical dimension.
From a structured 19th-century men's frock coat to the virtuosity of a drape by Madame Grès, from a Second Empire crinoline dress to a supple, functional knitted ensemble by Sonia Rykiel, the exhibition explores the way clothing shapes, accompanies and reveals the body. Across nearly five centuries of fashion, the route questions the bodily standards that society shapes through fashion, as attested by the progressive standardisation of sizes. While made-to-measure clothing is the norm until the early 19th century, the rise of ready-to-wear, more accessible and democratic, favours the reproduction of models and the simplification of cuts. This evolution raises the question of how clothing adapts to the diversity of silhouettes, whether bodies that escape slim norms, bodies in situations of disability, or bodies that change over the course of life, such as pregnant women or children.
The museum also highlights the inventiveness of artisans, designers and manufacturers in dressing bodies from head to toe. Along the route, the exhibition reveals what is usually concealed: the stages of design and manufacture of the pieces, the patterns, the toiles, the prototypes… Some works shown flat, open, reveal the complexity of their construction and the ingenuity of certain hidden or invisible techniques.
Invited by the museum to carry out a research project around the collections using artificial intelligence, the artist Pierre Giner deploys an interactive device in the exhibition that turns the Palais Galliera collections into a giant wardrobe, where garments take shape again, eras mix and narratives are recomposed. Like a stylist disregarding chronologies, he imagines new silhouettes through AI simulations, an opportunity to embody a diversity of bodies and figures.
From traditional know-how to digital innovations and 3D, En volume ! shows how Paris has asserted itself as a fascinating laboratory of silhouettes, from yesterday to today.