PARIS - This May, the Fondation Maeght will bridge art and fashion with "The Era of Courrèges," an exhibition curated by photographer Peter Knapp. Its focus is André Courrèges's seismic spring 1965 haute couture collection, a moment that reshaped the female silhouette with its stark geometry, abbreviated hemlines, and signature white. For The Lingerie Museum, this recalls a foundational shift: Courrèges did not merely shorten skirts; he constructed a new body architecture. His precise tailoring and sculpted bodices often functioned as outerwear corsetry, reimagining structure without traditional underpinnings.
The exhibition's heart is Knapp's original photography from that collection, presented alongside archival garments. Courrèges, a brand born from its founder's engineering background, approached design with a technician's rigor. This ethos connects to lingerie history, where brands like Warner's - pioneers of the modern brassiere in the 1930s - also applied structural innovation to the female form. Courrèges translated that intimate engineering into a public, liberated uniform.
The show opens as the house transitions to a new artistic director, Drew Henry. It invites us to consider how Courrèges's minimalist vision, captured so potently by Knapp among the foundation's sculptures, permanently altered our understanding of where a garment's support and shape begin - often blurring the line between foundation garment and fashion itself. The exhibition runs from May 14 to November 1.
Originally reported by WWD