Artists’ sartorial choices through history explored in new exhibit

A French exhibition explores the significance behind artists’ own clothing from the Renaissance to the present.

Running at the Louvre-Lens Museum, The Art of dressing “fill[s] a gap in the field,” despite its somewhat “catalog-like feel,” Le Monde wrote.

Sartorial choices can be political, like donning a plain smock to signal allegiance to the working class, or balancing the desire to signify status while still conforming to the style of one’s peers.

The exhibit highlights a tension that “confronts each of us when we get dressed,” the museum curator told Le Monde, “and one that artists make even more explicit.”