Museum of Art and Industry of Saint-Étienne: the chic underwear is revealed
Culture © City of Saint-Etienne – Pierre Grasset
The Saint-Étienne Museum of Art and Industry traces the uses of ribbon in underwear from the 19th century to the present day and reveals how their manufacture has contributed to the development of chic underwear.
Based on an intimate and fashion-oriented scenography, the exhibition Les Rubans de l'intime recalls the importance of the production of ribbons for body linen from Saint-Etienne from 1841 until today and presents pieces exceptional, historical and contemporary.
A certain number of them come from big houses, such as the corsets of Chantal Thomass – godmother of the exhibition –, the corseted dress of Jean-Paul Gaultier or even the bras and lingerie of Lise Charmel and Dior.
Punctuated with paintings, engravings, iconographies, advertising posters and film excerpts where people express themselves on their relationship to these intimate undersides, the route allows visitors to discover many samples of ribbons , their materials but also the artistic approach developed by the ribbon makers and trimmings makers.
The retrospective also shows, in a dedicated room, looms and new machines with their technical innovations in the weaving of ribbon, the use of which has become more complex with the evolution of women's and men's underwear.
The exhibition goes further than pure demonstration and offers a reflection on the historical and cultural context of underwear by posing our relationship to the body but also that of society. Designed to hide, protect, embellish, maintain, corset, inflate, veil, reveal the body or certain parts, they tell the intimate story of men and women while recalling the standards of their uses, whether those of a community or an era, revealing them as vectors of emancipation but also shaped by moral, political and aesthetic dictates.
Intimate Ribbons – Exhibition extended until January 2, 2022 – Museum of Art and Industry of Saint-Étienne – www.mai.saint-etienne.fr
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