Call it a happy accident that the exhibition “Worth, Inventing Haute Couture” opens at the Petit Palais in Paris two days after the Met Gala. Sure, stylistic freedom, celebrity status, and media coverage exist on a whole other level in 2025 versus 150 years ago. Yet the fashion pageantry that played out on the flower-patterned carpet on Monday can be traced back to lavish costume balls in New York, Boston, Paris, and London that were attended by empresses, princesses, countesses, duchesses, tsarinas, and wealthy socialites. And for several decades, there was one name recognized as the go-to creator for their exquisite gowns: Charles Frederick Worth.
Beautifully presented across the high-ceilinged and spacious galleries of the City of Paris Museum of Fine Arts (the majestic building that faces the Grand Palais), the exhibition in collaboration with the Palais Galliera (the city’s fashion museum) offers far more than a display of historic dresses. It also avoids any tempting recreation of Second Empire excess.
Instead, visitors will discover how an Englishman who moved to Paris in 1846 and opened a fashion house initially named “Worth Bobergh” in 1858, established certain practices that would give rise to haute couture as it lives on today. There is a chronological flow to the show, spanning the earliest ruffled, crinolined dresses in saturated shades of crisp silk faille; followed by Worth’s richly ornamented ‘upholstery style’ (think big bustles, tiers of tassels) and the embroidered ballgowns that epitomize opulence in the 1880s; onward to the linear silhouettes that were fashionable when his sons, Jean-Philippe and Gaston Worth took over; and the later sinuous and graphic Art Deco-era designs that defined the vision carried out by Gaston’s own sons, Jean-Charles and Jacques.
There are also contextual themes: how he procured the decadent fabrics from suppliers like Tassinari Chastel; the emergence of other couturiers including Paquin, Doucet, and, most notably, Poiret (who did a brief stint at Worth before launching his label in 1903); prestige neighbors such as Cartier and Louis Vuitton who become collaborators; and the atelier itself, where at one point, more than 1,200 people were employed. Although Worth has not operated since 1956, it was a multi-generational business that serviced a luxury clientele whose wardrobes had no limits.
The exhibition’s scientific curators, Sophie Grossiord, Marine Kisiel, and Raphaële Martin-Pigalle, gave Vogue an early visit once the dresses had been placed in vitrines that, in several instances, conjured a greater sense of Worth’s imagination for both daily dress and grandeur. In one panoramic-style staging, we see how a woman of Worth’s era would do the equivalent of several ’fit changes from morning to night, only these entailed frilly tea gowns for hosting and dramatic opera capes. Later on, extraordinary gowns with cascading trains are staggered on low steps with a glass box running the length of a long gallery. Swap Diana Ross’s arrival on Monday night for Lady Curzon in a court dress from 1900 embroidered with silver and gold and you get the idea.
To the visible eye, every dress is in incredible condition—luminous colors, embroideries from more than a century ago that shimmer anew, each silhouette fitted impeccably on the mannequin—and for some visitors, this will prove the most remarkable part of the show. For those unable to visit before it closes on September 7, here are some additional takeaways.
Now or Never
Two hundred years since Worth’s birth, this is the first retrospective of such scale dedicated to the house he founded… and it might be the last. Why? Grossiord began research on the exhibition more than three years ago and nearly every dress required restoration—very long and extremely costly restoration (Chanel is the title partner). Beyond the pieces in the collection of the Palais Galleria, loans came from Palazzo Pitti, Gallerie degla Uffizi in Florence, the Fashion Museum Bath, the Museum of the City of New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Costume Institute), and the Madrid Museo del Traje and since they are so fragile, the negotiations can be complicated. “Truly, it’s [an exhibition] that will never be made again, so it’s one to see,” said Kisiel.
Fast (High) Fashion
While it would seem that such elaborate gowns might take ages to create, Worth was actually known to produce dresses in relatively short order. The curators cite a ‘Spanish Infanta’ dress for the Bradley Martin ball in 1897 was made in 24 hours and there is press from the Second Empire noting how his ateliers would prepare ball gowns for clients in the span of 15 days. When Worth arrived in Paris, he worked as a clerk at Gagelin, a novelty store with an early “ready-made” approach to luxury fabrications, which he integrated into his practice by customizing existing models.
Worth It
If L’Oréal gets all the credit for its famous 1973 hair color slogan, “Because I’m worth it,” Worth gets credit, starting in the 1880s, for adding a label to his creations that featured his signature, much the way a painter would sign a painting. That it was simply “Worth” versus his full name was deliberate, as he planned for his sons to carry on the business after his death.
More Is More
To look at Worth creations from the 1870s through 1900 is to notice tiny pleats of lace around the cuffs or décolleté, frothy bits of tulle encircling collars, dimensional fabric flowers, lashings of pearls and embroidered borders, and, in the case of ‘Byzantine,’ a thick ring of rabbit fur encircling a fully beaded gown that Countess Greffulhe wore to her daughter’s wedding. The Zenobia costume for the Duchess of Chatsworth attending the Devonshire Ball in 1897 is the kind of showstopper that would make Alessandro Michele swoon. One senses Worth delighted in the extravagance proposed to clients and savoir faire made possible by his petites mains (still a term used in haute couture). But let’s not forget, every trim added to what would have already been an exorbitant price.
Transatlantic Clients
While two all-important patrons, Princess Metternich and Empress Eugénie, attracted attention and contributed to his cachet, the provenance of dresses as donations to American and British institutions reveal how his clientele were often British and American, mainly from New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. The exhibition ends with projections of The Gilded Age series, in which the costumes took cues from Worth designs.
Presidential Tariffs
Long before Trump’s ever-changing tariff threats, President McKinley raised duties on imports in 1890, which drastically impacted the cost of fashion coming from Europe. Kisiel pointed to a part of the exhibition explaining how one of the consequences was that Worth dresses would be copied in America at a fraction of the cost, and that Worth’s sons came up with a solution to reduce the incidence by labeling dresses with their season—an antecedent to the industry’s seasonal collections today.
Rue de la Paix
Today, we walk down shopping streets with all the familiar brand names, not pausing to consider when and how they came into being. From the start, the Worth headquarters was located at 7 rue de la Paix, the street that leads off the upper part of Place Vendome. Black and white photos from 1927 delightfully capture the people and activities across its eight stories, from the salons to the ateliers to the refectory and staff kitchen—even a photo studio. The exhibition also points out how Louis Vuitton, with its trunkmaking shop just around the corner, became an important collaborator. Not only is there a trunk that was used to ship a dress to America in 1883, but there are even sales receipts between the two businesses. Cartier, opening up at no. 13 rue de la Paix, was an obvious partner. A 1930 portrait of Andrée Joséphine Carron, the wife of Prince Mohamed Aga Khan III, shows her wearing a dress from Worth and jewels from Cartier. The Maison Paquin eventually moved into no. 3 and Jacques Doucet set up at no. 21 in 1908.
The Family
What about Worth himself? Portraits of him at different points of his life show two signatures: a well-groomed moustache and a poufy bowtie. A full-length painting projects an urbane stature with a coat draped across his shoulders, polished shoes and a cane. His wife, Marie Venet, was his right-hand in corresponding with clients and curator Martin-Pigalle noted how the duo structure extended to his sons and grandsons working together. A curious detail about Jean-Charles is the series of photographs by Man Ray—some that show him with his family and others in which he poses entirely nude; it is unclear whether they are meant to be artistic or erotic.
Late-stage Worth
Indeed, grandsons Jean-Charles and Jacques were especially attuned to art and design forces beyond fashion and how they could apply these back to their collections. Jean Dunand, renowned for his Art Deco screens, created a striking gold and green fish motif that was patterned across an evening gown worn by the Princess Murat in 1926, while a 1925 flapper dress, on loan from Louis Vuitton, named ‘Charleston’ couldn’t appear more different than the first tea gowns. It was also during this time that Worth launched a perfume, Dans la Nuit, with bottles later designed by Lalique. The exhibition worked with The International Perfume Conservatory Osmothèque to authentically recreate a later fragrance. Its name: Je reviens (I’ll return).
