It wasn’t simply the top-notch garments that caught the attention at Dior’s spring 2026 menswear present in Paris final week. Eagle-eyed arty fashionistas noticed two delectable work by the underrated 18th-century French artist Jean Siméon Chardin hanging alongside the catwalk. In a room modelled on the Gemäldegalerie on the Kulturforum in Berlin, Jonathan Anderson, Dior’s new inventive designer, bedecked fashions in outfits drawing on 18th- and Nineteenth-century French menswear.
Chardin’s works—Basket of Wild Strawberries (1761) from the Louvre and A Vase of Flowers (round 1750) from the Nationwide Gallery of Trendy Artwork in Edinburgh—supplied an apt and chic backdrop. Andrew Bonacina, an impartial curator, says on-line that “at a time when artwork was typically involved with extra and spectacle, Chardin selected a unique path: certainly one of stillness, intimacy and reverence for the on a regular basis”.
The Louvre acquired the marvellous strawberry work final 12 months after 10,000 people donated greater than €1.6m to a fundraising marketing campaign to maintain the work in France. Notably the posh items conglomerate LVMH contributed virtually two-thirds to the Louvre’s buy (round €15m). LVMH additionally owns Dior.
