Fashion as a field of knowledge, a form of heritage and a living archive of society. This is the idea at the heart of the 2026 Festival de l’Histoire de l’Art, held at the Château de Fontainebleau with Morocco as its guest country.
Historians, curators, artists and designers come together at the Festival de l’Histoire de l’Art, organised by the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art and held from 5 to 7 June at the Château de Fontainebleau. Alongside figures such as Valerie Steele, Marine Kisiel and Laurence Benaïm, and institutions including Palais Galliera, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, the Louvre, Hermès, Mucem and the Institut Français de la Mode, the programme explores fashion from multiple perspectives.
The festival presents clothing as a meeting point for cinema, photography, anthropology, gender studies and museum practice. Throughout the programme, discussions connect topics as varied as Marcel Duchamp, queer aesthetics, textile conservation, Moroccan craftsmanship and fashion photography, reflecting the growing place of fashion within contemporary cultural and historical research.
Fashion as a tool for reading society
Discussions on lesbian fashion histories, homosexual activism and queer aesthetics place questions of identity and visibility at the centre of the programme. In a session dedicated to the emergence of lesbian fashion before the term itself existed, Marine Kisiel examines how clothing can help reconstruct lives and communities that often escaped traditional historical records. Other talks explore dress and homosexual struggles in France, while a session dedicated to Marcel Duchamp considers fashion through queer aesthetics and self-representation.
Fashion as a bridge between cultures
Morocco’s role as guest country places cultural exchange at the centre of the programme. Throughout the festival, textiles, craftsmanship and dress traditions connect North Africa and Europe through shared histories and influences. Conversations around the caftan, Moroccan textile heritage, artisan knowledge and the influence of Morocco on figures such as Yves Saint Laurent highlight how fashion circulates across borders, carrying ideas, techniques and identities with it.
Fashion as heritage
Museums, archives and cultural institutions take centre stage in discussions about conservation, collecting and exhibition-making. Sessions on fashion archives, photography, museum collections and textile restoration examine how garments, images and artisanal knowledge are preserved and transmitted. Hermès also appears through its Fil Rouge collection, a project revisiting one hundred years of fashion through the house’s archives and conservatoire.
The 2026 Festival de l’Histoire de l’Art takes place from 5 to 7 June.
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