Food and fashion: Paris Louvre museum puts fine dining and haute couture on the table

“There’s a lot of noise here!” laughs Loïc Prigent, a journalist who has been attending the catwalks for 30 years. Italian fashion may well have been at the heart of Milan Fashion Week, but there was another event behind the scenes that had people talking: Le Grand Dîner du Louvre.**

For the first time, the world’s most visited museum is organising a prestigious philanthropic meal. Thirty pre-booked tables will be set up in the famous courtyardMarlygenerating to raise more than a million euros.** The money raised will go towards the cultural and heritage missions of the centuries-old building that’s in need of some tender loving care.

Over 300 hand-picked people are expected to turn up for the inaugural event, and some guests say it won’t just be the crème de la crème of the fashion, art and culture worlds in attendance.

“The aim of the operation is to have an echo that goes beyond fashion. You can expect anything,” says Loïc Prigent, who has already got his ticket. “This dinner is a way for the Louvre to open up to the world. The message to designers is: come to us, we’re an inexhaustible source of inspiration for your collections!

Money at the table

The operation also aims to attract patrons. The Musée d’Orsay’sacquisition in 2023 of a famous painting by Caillebotte, with the help of the luxury giant LVMH (the world’s number one in the sector), for the princely sum of €43 million, serves as a reminder.

Without private foundations, it is difficult for French museums to renew their collections and acquire new masterpieces. Especially in the face of competition from American and Middle Eastern institutions.** By way of example, Orsay’s annual acquisition budget has reached a ceiling of €3 million.

The Grand Dîner du Louvre is sponsored by Visa, a listed company and leader in digital payments, and a partner in the event.

The evening will serve as a test before the event is repeated and there is no doubt that the economic spin-offs will be closely watched by the Louvre’s French and European counterparts.

Compared somewhat caricaturally with the famous MET Gala in New York, which raised around $26 million last year, the Paris evening is intended to be less extravagant and more discreet. Only a handful of journalists and photographers have been invited, and the list sadly doesn’t include yours truly.

And while €70,000 (€325,000 for a table) is required to attend the MET, no information has been leaked by the Louvre, which is keeping a tight lid on its communications ahead of the dinner.

All our requests for interviews have been refused.

Art objects, fashion objects

Before sitting down to dinner, guests will visit the Louvre Coutureexhibition (until 21 July 2025), dedicated entirely to fashion, its sources and its inspirations.

In the vastness of the museum, it is the discreet Objets d’art department, devoted to goldsmiths’ and silversmiths’ work and tapestries, that has been chosen for this encounter between designer pieces and masterpieces.

This is a huge coup for these rooms, which are usually overlooked in favour of the Egyptian Antiquities or Paintings departments, where the Mona Lisa takes pride of place.

“I’ve never seen so many people here,” admits a slightly disconcerted security guard. This department, headed by Olivier Gabet, was not chosen at random. It shares a common history with fashion: that of craftsmanship and know-how.

In front of a collection of 16th-century tapestries, Dior, Chanel and Alexander McQueen dresses blend perfectly into the decor. Discovering the exhibition (and the Louvre!) for the first time, Simon Jacquemus, designer of the eponymous brand, was moved by these poetic confrontations across space and time.

On display are 65 outfits and around 30 fashion accessories with objects ranging from the Byzantium era to the Second Empire. Alongside Renaissance vases and clocks, a Dolce & Gabbana bag goes almost unnoticed.

“It’s impressive to see the extent to which fashion and art feed off each other. It encourages us to look at these objects differently,” says one young visitor.

Attracting a new audience

Spread over almost 9,000 square metres, the exhibition is part of a drive to broaden the Louvre’s audience.

“We’re seeing a real upsurge in fashion in museums,” says Camille de Foresta, auctioneer and vice-president ofChristie’s France. “Organising this Grand Dîner during the exhibition is an obvious choice”.

Already in 2022, the Yves Saint Laurent anniversary exhibition, held in six Paris museums, illustrated the continuity of the links between fashion and art, and in a way, began the possibility for the Louvre exhibition and its dinner.

“From Chile to Australia, more and more museums are buying and exhibiting haute-couture pieces,” says Camille de Foresta. Fashion exhibitions are breaking attendance records.

A victim of its own success, the Louvre Couture catalogue, which has sold more than 10,000 copies, has had to be reprinted.

“When we have a vintage Balenciaga piece, we sell it as we would a Claude Monet painting. We make no distinction. Sometimes fashion designers come to Christie’s just for inspiration.

Art may not need fashion, but all the experts agree that fashion needs art. Camille de Foresta adds enthusiastically: “This exhibition and this dinner are going to give rise to some creative sparks. What an opportunity!”

Macron at the Louvre’s bedside

This evening is being launched a month after Emmanuel Macron announced the “New Renaissance of the Louvre” .

In 2017, the French president celebrated his victory in front of the famous pyramid. In 2025, he promised a project to restore and modernise the site, which is considered to be dilapidated.

Much more than a museum, the Louvre is a symbol of France’s international influence. A tricolour showcase that needs to be maintained.

One of the main aims is to relieve the queues. The Louvre is the most visited museum in the world, with 9 million visitors in 2024,** or more than 30,000 a day. The project envisaged by the Elysée Palace is estimated to cost around €750 million over ten years, of which only a minority would be financed by the state.

At that figure, it will no doubt take a lot of Grand Dinners and after-parties under the pyramid to raise funds commensurate with these ambitions.