Impressionism taken down runway instead of models

PARIS - The Associated Press

Fashion world combines with art in Paris Art Week. The new event in Musée d’Orsay uses famous works of art to explore how at the dawn of impressionism. AP photo

Paris Fashion Week will open up with an exhibit that puts impressionist art down the runway. The exhibit, called “Impressionism and Fashion,” which opens September 25 at the Musee d’Orsay, explores how the late 19th century Impressionists made fashion one of the great painting themes.

 In a spectacular touch, two of the exhibit’s nine rooms are presented as modern runways, with seating assignments for 19th century figures such as poet Charles Baudelaire. It uses famous works of art to explore how at the dawn of impressionism, and as an emblem of “modernite” fashion, and how people dressed, became one of the main themes in art. Instead of models on the mirrored catwalks, oil paintings by masters such as Manet and Monet are hanging. Co-curator Philippe Thiebaut said “strict crinoline had just been banished, liberating the woman’s silhouette.” He said the impressionists “used these new flowing fashions to capture the fleeting impressions of modern life.”