Fashion in motion, part three: the exhibition that blends sport and fashion at the Palais Galliera

The Palais Galliera explores the relationship between fashion and sport in a chronological exhibition. The third part runs from February 8 to October 12, 2025.

Are fashion and sport really such opposites? In the wake of the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Palais Galliera looks back at the historical links between these two elements. The third part of the Fashion in Motion exhibition is on view from February 8 to October 12, 2025 in the museum's garden-floor galleries.

Around 200 works are brought together in this unique exhibition, which presents the history of fashion since the 18th century. Silhouettes and outfits, accessories, posters, photographs and audiovisual documents are highlighted. Some of these pieces are on loan from the Musée national du Sport (Nice), the Bibliothèque Forney (Paris), the CHANEL Heritage Collection, the Emile Hermès Collection, Rykiel Création and Yohji Yamamoto.

Of course, fashion and the body are closely linked: fashion is designed to dress and enhance the body, without restricting movement. But sports require a particular kind of freedom. What's more, depending on the sport, designers have different constraints. How can we reconcile this taste for beauty with the support and freedom afforded by sports equipment? The Palais Galliera offers some food for thought.

Sport has contributed to changes in society, and in particular towomen's independence. Fashion also reflects these changes in concrete terms: bathing suits, jogging or riding outfits, sports shoes... Little by little, bulky clothes were replaced by more supple outfits, revealing the body. With these sporting practices, beauty standards are also evolving, as is the image of sportswear and more underground styles.

In this way, the exhibition makes the link between body image and accepted health standards, between women's emancipation and the clothes created over the centuries, between trends and the cultural and sporting events that have run through societies.

The exhibition takes a look at fashion over the centuries, its trends and silhouettes, but also at the democratization of sport. We move from walking tohorse riding, then to motor sports and cycling, before arriving at golf, soccer, water sports, tennis... The shapes and colors of these garments, sometimes surprising, reveal the trends of our societies. These magnificently preserved silhouettes reveal the control of bodies and images, and the customs of the times.

Theimportance of sports in different decades is reflected in the attention paid to clothing and the way it is presented. The jogging suits, sneakers and sportswear of the 1990s-2000s have a different significance and are not used in the same way as the sportswear of the 1890s or 1920s.

Don't hesitate to return to this exhibition several times: three successive hangings are programmed, renewing many of the works exhibited in this itinerary. For the third and final part of the exhibition, the Palais Galliera focuses on winter sports.

More than 180 new works trace the birth and growing popularity of these seasonal activities. Skiing, skating, tobogganing, ice hockey, sledding... Specialized companies and fashion houses are gradually taking over these sports, sometimes collaborating to satisfy the desires of enthusiasts.