Fashion fever grips Arles and its Rencontres de la Photographie

Monday, July 7 marked the kick-off of the Rencontres de la Photographie in Arles, southern France. Open until October 5, the event is largely focused on engagement, and this edition of the Rencontres de Arles will showcase invisibilized populations around the world, from Australia to Brazil, and the Caribbean to North America, bearing witness to the still-open scars of colonization.

For its 56th edition, the festival brings together international photographic luminaries and enthusiasts but reserves a special place for fashion, through prizes, collaborations, and events, starting with the exhibitions.

Fashion in the exhibitions

Fashion is obviously present throughout the exhibitions, an essential part of the Rencontres. You’ll find it in the wedding outfits in the “Ancestral Futures, Brazilian Contemporary Scene” exhibition (Église des Trinitaires), in the costumes in Brandon Gercara’s “Magma in the Ocean” (Maison des peintres), and in the traditional and futuristic outfits worn by the women of Canada’s First Nations, in Caroline Monnet’s “Echoes of a Near Future” series.

Keisha Scarville will exhibit her series “Alma/Les Vêtements de Maman” in the Salle Henri Comte. The photographer invokes the presence of her deceased mother through the 3rd art, featuring her beloved clothes and objects. In “Elles Obliquent, Elles Obstinent, Elles Tempêtent” (Commanderie Sainte-Lucie) by Agnès Geoffray, the women photographed embody young girls considered “deviant” due to their behavior deviating from the social and moral norms governing their gender”, between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Fashion is omnipresent here, as a tool of resistance or rebellion by the characters. The skirt is lifted, flipped over the head, but so is the order and the straitjacket: all are dressed in the same way, in a last-ditch attempt to bring them into line.

Beyond these exhibitions, the Rencontres de la Photographie offers a privileged window of visibility for fashion brands and groups.

Luxury and culture, a marriage of convenience

And with good reason: a record 160,000 visitors took to the streets of Arles during the last edition of the Rencontres, so much so that Louis Vuitton is dedicating one of its City Guides to Arles. Priced at twenty-five euros, the little blue book stamped with the LV logo pays tribute to the city and its festival.

Other players in the fashion world are also interested in the Rencontres Photographiques and its host city. On a macro level, the Kering group is once again showing its participation in the festival with its Women In Motion 2025 award for photography, presented to American photographer Nan Goldin on July 8. In a press release, Nan Goldin confides: “It is a great honor to receive this award. I’m very proud to be associated with these exceptional women photographers, to whom I owe great respect and deep admiration.”

The photographer has made a name for herself through her work portraying women and marginal communities, denouncing domestic violence and deconstructing gender stereotypes. Her work “Syndrome de Stendhal” will be exhibited at the Saint-Blaise church in Arles.

Kering, for its part, has been a partner of Les Rencontres d’Arles since 2019, when the group inaugurated the Women In Motion Prize for Photography, while continuing to support emerging talent through the Prix de la Photo Madame Figaro Arles, which it has supported since 2016. Since 2024, the group has been a Grand Partner of the festival.

An exhibition dedicated to photography and Yves Saint Laurent

Co-produced by Les Rencontres d’Arles and the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris, in collaboration with the Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent, the exhibition “Yves Saint Laurent and Photography” highlights Yves Saint Laurent’s love of photography and the great photographers of the XXᵉ century. The exhibition is installed at Mécanique Générale, a refurbished former workshop, until October 5.

“Yves Saint Laurent et la Photographie” is structured around two itineraries. The first traces the evolution of fashion images and emblematic portraits of the couturier, with dozens of works by Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, and William Klein. The second, conceived as a cabinet of curiosities, will feature over 200 archival objects such as contact sheets, catalogs, magazines, and personal photographs, illustrating the central role of photography in the couturier’s work and in his fashion house.

Fragonard inaugurates its fashion museum in Arles

At the beginning of July, the city of Arles saw the opening of a fashion-related cultural institution, reinforcing its link with the industry. The Musée de la Mode et du Costume de l’Entreprise de Parfumerie Fragonard opened its doors on July 6, after five years of renovation work on the Hôtel Bouchaud de Bussy, located at 16 rue de la Calade in Arles.

The project was born of a meeting between Odile Pascal and her mother Magali, collectors of Arles costumes, and Anne, Agnès, and Françoise Costa, the directors of Fragonard. The collection of their mother, Hélène Costa, had initiated the creation of the Musée Provençal du Costume et du Bijou in Grasse in 1997. Shortly before Magali Pascal’s death, the Costa sisters committed themselves to acquiring the entire Arles collection and giving it a place of exhibition and conservation, to bring to life a life’s work focused on the history of Arles fashion.

The renovation of the Hôtel Bouchaud de Bussy was carried out by the Studio architectural duo, known for their work on the Yves Saint Laurent museum in Marrakech, and thanks to the expertise of heritage architect Nathalie d’Artigues.It hosts its first exhibition combining pieces from the Pascal and Costa collections, aptly titled “Collections-Collection”, which invites visitors to understand how items, on their arrival in a collection, occupy an isolated place before entering into dialogue with the objects around them.