Steph C.
Yelp
My friends and I went to the Iris van Herpen exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs and were terribly jealous and annoyed by the idea of a retrospective for a designer born in 1984. Aside from this, though, the experience was quite wonderful.
We got timed entry tickets for 4:00 on a Friday. There was no wait to enter, but it was quite busy inside, with a line to check coats and a large crowd in each room of the main exhibition. It was a pretty diverse group, in age, race, and nationality, and I was surprised by the number of men in attendance. I can't imagine American men lining up for a fashion exhibition at home.
The security guard who admitted us into the show blatantly hit on one of my friends. That was kind of weird (though I'm guessing more acceptable in France, home of a particularly strong strain of #metoo backlash), but the experience was otherwise smooth and pleasant. The crowd was organized, and we flowed easily from room to room.
The exhibition was fantastic, beautiful and inspiring and well put together. Iris van Herpen makes exceptionally cool, sculptural clothes using a combination of innovative techniques and painstaking labor. The show highlighted some of the themes in her designs, bringing in relevant items from nature and complementary work by other artists. There were hundreds of garments on display, as well as accessories and sketchbooks and a whole room made up like an Iris van Herpen workshop, with fabrics and 3D-printed designs pinned to the walls in a giant mood board. I watched part of the looping video showing preparations for a fashion week, and wow, did that look intense. So much thought and time put into each piece.
After the Iris van Herpen show, we did a quick walk-through of the permanent jewelry collection and the Fashion and Sports exhibition (we also treated ourselves to an old lady interlude, sitting on a quiet bench on the highest floor--a very nice spot if you need a break). The jewelry was impressive, and I really enjoyed the quick education in athletic wear over the decades.
We stopped by the gift shop on our way out and ended up spending a good amount of time there, just browsing all of the eye-catching merchandise. (I guess it's no surprise that this museum has a worthwhile store.) There were tons of accessories and home goods and decorative items, as well as a huge selection of art books.
If you have any interest in the decorative arts, check out MAD while you're in Paris. It's a stellar museum right by the Louvre, and if you go in the next few months, you'll catch a spectacular show.