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Luxury Brands and Public Museums: From Anniversary Exhibitions to Co-branding

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Abstract

Chanel in Moscow, Valentino in Paris, Cartier in New York, and Bulgari in Tokyo: Whatever metropolis one makes a stop in nowadays, one may be sure to discover, at a metropolitan art museum, another splendid exhibition dedicated to a world-famous luxury brand. Why so? Why have brand exhibitions, which were quite rare until the 2000s, suddenly become a must for every more-or-less important art museum’s programming?

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Comité du Centenaire d’A.-L. Breguet (1823–1923). Letter from the Secretary to Mr. Clouzot, Curator of the Galliera Museum, September 27, 1923, 2–3. Exposition Breguet octobre 1923, 5 files, file ‘Correspondence’. The Palais Galliera Archives, Box 11, 1923.

  2. 2.

    Henri Clouzot was the first ar t historian to head the Galliera Museum of Industrial Art. Indeed, the museum’s first curator was journalist Charles Formentin (1895–1903), who was replaced in February 1903 by a man of letters, Eugène Delard. The latter remained at the Galliera Museum until the arrival of Henri Clouzot in October 1920 (Froissart-Pezone 1997, 103, note 42).

  3. 3.

    Although the exhibition refers to ‘a centenary exhibition of designs for dresses’, this is not accurate: In 1950, the House of Worth was acquired by the House of Paquin; the closure of the House of Paquin in 1956 naturally caused the closure of Worth, as well. Despite its title, The House of Worth: A Centenary Exhibition of Designs for Dresses (1858–1958) was not an exhibition of a still-active fashion house.

  4. 4.

    McClellan asserts that ‘…large-scale shows full of masterpieces and accompanied by extensive publicity were nothing new in the 1960s’ and provides examples of the Italian Renaissance exhibition at the Royal Academy in London in 1930 as well as the Van Gogh show at MoMA in 1935. However, McClellan argues, ‘if making money has become a fundamental goal of the blockbuster as we know it today, we can trace the origins of the phenomenon to the moment in the late 1960s and early 1970s when rising financial pressures made generating revenue a chief impetus for exhibition planning’ (McClellan 2008, p. 212).

  5. 5.

    For example, in 1988, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York hired a new public relations officer: Margery Rubin Cohen, who had been the Marketing Director of Bloomingdale’s department store and cultivated an ‘extensive background in marketing and publicity for the fashion and cosmetics industries’ (Wu 2003, p. 136).

  6. 6.

    Major Retrospective of Designs of Yves Saint Laurent to Open in Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute. Press release, October 1983, p. 1. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Archives.

  7. 7.

    The famous American businessman and philanthropist David Rockefeller listed as follows the advantages of corporate sponsorship: ‘It can provide a company with extensive publicity and advertising , a brighter public reputation, and an improved corporate image. It can build better customer relations, a readier acceptance of company products, and a superior appraisal of their quality. Promotion of the arts can improve the morale of employees and help attract qualified personnel’ (Quoted in Rectanus 2002, p. 26).

  8. 8.

    Luxury brands often call on the ‘professionals of culture’ as advisers or directors of artistic projects. For example, Jean-Jacques Aillagon, the former Minister of Culture, is now Advisor to François Pinault ; Suzanne Pagé, the former Director of the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris, is now Artistic Director of the Fondation Loui s Vuitton.

  9. 9.

    Two out of six foreign exhibitions focused on a leading LVMH brand, Dior : the Christian Dior retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1997 and the Dior Inspirations exhibition at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow in 2007.

  10. 10.

    According to Didier Grumbach, ‘Between 1966 and 1967, the number of haute couture house members of the Chambre Syndicale decreased from 39 to 17’ (Grumbach 2008, p. 252).

  11. 11.

    Examples include Le Temps Chanel (1979) by Edmonde Charles-Roux, Marcel Rochas: 30 ans d’élégance et de créations (1983) by Françoise Mohrt, Poiret (1986) by Yvonne Deslandres, Dior: Christian Dior, 1905–1957 (1987) by Françoise Giroud, and Cristóbal Balenciaga (1988) by Marie-Andrée Jouve (Jan 2011, p. 36).

  12. 12.

    Di or’s heritage department was established in 1987; at the same time, Marie-Andrée Jouve began to work on inventory and data collection at Balenciaga (Jan 2011, pp. 274–275).

  13. 13.

    Beijing (1985), Paris (1986), Moscow (1986), Leningrad (1987), Sydney (1987), and Tokyo (1990). Retrieved from http://www.fondation-pb-ysl.net/fr/Art-70.html# on August 20, 2015.

  14. 14.

    Homage to Christian Dior: 1947–1957 (1987), Louis Vuitton. A Unique Way to Design Travel Instruments (1987), Shoes by Roger Vivier (1987–1988), and A UN: Issey Miyake (1988).

  15. 15.

    Pierre Balmain: 40 Years of Creation (1985–1986), Gianni Versace: Fashion Dialogues, Pictures of One Creation (1986–1987), Cristóbal Balenciaga (1987), Givenchy: 40 Years of Creation (1991–1992), and Van Cleef & Arpels (1992).

  16. 16.

    Chanel, a Fashion Opening in Marseille (1989), Yves Saint Laurent: Exoticisms (1993–1994), and Paco Rabanne (1995).

  17. 17.

    Boucheron. 130 Years of Creation and Emotion (1988).

  18. 18.

    Art by Cartier (1989–1990).

  19. 19.

    Micheline Kanoui, Director of Jewellery Creation at Cartier at that time, confirmed: ‘There are 200 [jewellery customers] today compared to 2000, ten years ago. These are the same’ (Jalou 1997, p. 86).

  20. 20.

    The exhibition was sponsored by Cartier and curated by J. Stewart Johnson, Department of 20th Century Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Judy Rudoe, Department of Medieval and Later Antiquities at the British Museum. (‘Cartier: 1900–1930’ traces influence and innovation of celebrated jeweler. Press release, October 29, 1996, p. 6. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Archives).

  21. 21.

    Informal interview with Renée Frank, Director of Exhibition Projects, Heritage Department, Cartier International, conducted on April 14, 2014.

  22. 22.

    As observed by Michel Chevalier and Gérald Mazzalovo, ‘If one day perfumes by Gucci, Prada and Versace reach the [sales] level of perfumes by Chanel, Dior and Yves Sain t Laurent, then Italy will become the world’s number one producer of luxury goods’ (Chevalier, Mazzalovo 2008, pp. 34–35, 45–49).

  23. 23.

    The Baccarat Museum (1966) in Meurthe-et-Moselle in France , Salvatore Ferragamo Museum (1995) in Florence , and Porsche Museum (1996) in Stuttgart.

  24. 24.

    The Christian Dior Museum in Granville is not, strictly speaking, a corporate museum. Created by the City of Granville in 1991, it is a public museum managed by Christian Dior Presence Association, benefiting from public (City of Granville) and private (LV MH) funding. Although the Association is chaired by Jean-Paul Claverie, Bernard Arnault’s Adviser for Communication, the museum remains property of the City of Granville and is labelled a ‘museum of Fra nce’ (Pronitcheva 2016, 246–250).

  25. 25.

    Émile Hermès’ study is not a museum of Hermès brand goods nor less still a large audience museum (Chaudun 2014).

  26. 26.

    Until very recently, the Louis Vuitton brand had been a part of them. On July 4, 2015, however, the company opened La Galerie, its corporate large audience museum in Asnières-sur-Seine, next to the Louis Vuitton workshop for special orders (Viguié-Desplaces 2015).

  27. 27.

    For example, Cartier organised 19 exhibitions worldwide between 2000 and 2013 (compared with 8 exhibitions between 1989 and 1999), including 9 in Asia (China , Japan , South Korea , Singapore, and Taiwan), 8 in Europe (Berlin, Milan , Lisbon , Moscow, Zurich, Prague, Madrid, and Paris ) and 2 in America (Houston and San Francisco).

  28. 28.

    As observed by Karl Lagerfeld, ‘[t]here are too many young designers today, who, after five years, want a retrospective, museums, an homage’ (Quoted in Jan 2011, p. 303).

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  1. Fabergé Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Karina Pronitcheva

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  1. Osaka University, Toyonaka, Osaka, Japan

    Pierre-Yves Donzé

  2. Kansai University, Suita, Osaka, Japan

    Rika Fujioka

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Pronitcheva, K. (2018). Luxury Brands and Public Museums: From Anniversary Exhibitions to Co-branding. In: Donzé, PY., Fujioka, R. (eds) Global Luxury. Palgrave, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5236-1_11

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