The Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris brings back to life this memorable decade through an expansive exhibition, where design, fashion, and graphics are the standard-bearers of all fantasies.

The 1980s were tinged with paradox, but maintained an unparalleled level of creativity, energy, and audacity. After the economic boom of the Thirty Glorious, the decade resounds in France as “a turning point both political and artistic.” Revolutions took place, conventions were shaken up, and the means of expression multiplied. Make way for eccentricity, X-shaped silhouettes, and fluorescent, pop and acidulous colors. It’s not surprising that these years are still a source of inspiration for designers today. This is what the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris reminds us through this retrospective where fashion, design, and graphics have particularly distinguished themselves; from the election of Mitterrand in 1981 to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

Extravagance and emancipation

Seven hundred works (objects, furniture, posters, photographs, clips, record sleeves, and fanzines) will be presented to the rhythm of three themes: A New Political and Cultural Era, The Design in Effervescence and The Look of the 80s. The exhibition will focus on a new generation of designers (Olivier Gagnère, Elizabeth Garouste, Mattia Bonetti, Philippe Starck …) and “superstars” of fashion (Jean Paul Gaultier, Thierry Mugler …), advertising, graphic design, and audiovisual (Jean-Paul Goude, Jean-Baptiste Mondino and Étienne Robial). New wave, rock, and hip-hop music, which made the whole of Paris dance, will also find its place at the heart of the cultural space. The MAD thus puts the spotlight back on these years of “the pileup of styles, spontaneity, and freedom.”

The 80s. Fashion, design, graphics in France
Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris
October 13, 2022 to April 16, 2023

https://madparis.fr/Annees-80-Mode-design-graphisme-en-France

Nathalie Dassa