Timing is everything. Just as the formidable Editor-in-Chief of Harper’s Bazaar, Glenda Bailey, is stepping down after 19 years, the fashion galleries of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs are reopening  after an extensive renovation. These coinciding events led to the new exhibition Harper’s Bazaar: First in Fashion, which opens to the public in the City of Light today. In the era of digital first, it’s the perfect time to revel in iconic fashion imagery in print.

Curator Eric Pujalet-Plaà of the museum’s fashion department who worked alongside Bailey explained what ignited the project. “After we finished our Dior retrospective that examined how several creatives help build this big brand over several decades, we realized that many of the dresses first appeared in Harper’s Bazaar,” he said. “We had this idea and then Glenda asked us to do it.” It was indeed serendipitous.

While the museum’s shows tend to focus on just fashion, this exhibition also looks at the creative process. “The connection of the ‘materiality’ is quite interesting; paper versus fabric. Nowadays, paper is almost a luxury.”

In that vein, First in Fashion takes the visitor on a historical journey from Bazaar’s beginning in 1867 when suffragette/abolitionist Mary Booth Luce was editor. Originally called Harper’s Bazar with just one “a,” a cover from 1891 depicting a Charles Frederick-Worth gown is shown next to the actual garment. Many of the looks came out of the museum’s archives, although the Yves Saint Laurent Soirèe de Paris dress which was featured in Richard Avedon’s iconic “Dovima with Elephants” photograph, for example, was borrowed from the Denver Art Museum.

The multi-media exhibit depicts the changes in fashion, art direction and society that were reflected in the magazine’s pages both via photography and the written word. It demonstrates Bazaar’s progressive nature with a Sixties “what’s in” type of layout featuring plus-size Botticelli figures and a model of color in James Galanos looks. Of course, works (and images of them at work) appear from famed editors Carmel Snow and Diana Vreeland, and legendary art directors such as Alexey Brodovitch. Modern day pairings show Liz Tilberis and Fabien Baron, who, in the early 1990s, created the most beautiful magazines of its time with a focus on supermodels, black and white photography by Peter Lindbergh, and the HTF Didot typeface. Bailey’s tenure, meanwhile, was marked by her memorable work with Stephen Gan and Jean-Paul Goude, among others.

The exhibit also honors  great creatives whose work shaped Harper’s Bazaar, among them Man Ray, Salvador Dali,  Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Walker Evans, Hiro, Francesco Scavullo, Patrick DeMarchelier, Andy Warhol, and Truman Capote.

The exhibition drives home an important point: that powerful images like the ones in Harper’s Bazaar’s history stand the test of time – and digital.

The exhibition is open to the public at Musée des Arts Décoratifs Paris  through July 12, 2020.