Agnès B x The Louvre: Reframing Old Masters in Haute Couture

There’s something indescribably thrilling about the clashing of old masters and ferociously forward-thinking fashion designers; of the iconoclastic urge to both pay homage to historic beauty and heritage while ripping up the rulebook, casting new light on time-honoured classics through bold new silhouettes and an unwavering commitment to the contemporary. 

That’s the essence of the groundbreaking collaboration between French fashion icon Agnès B and the veritable temple of high art that is The Louvre – a meeting of haute couture and curated culture that’s blurring boundaries and igniting imaginations across the continent and beyond.

Old Masters, New Interpretations. Agnes B x The Louvre

It’s an unprecedented move; The Louvre has never before invited a designer to unleash a capsule collection inspired by their permanent collection of treasures, and it’s one that has resulted in Agnès B transforming a series of 400-year-old landscapes into 2025’s most beguiling aesthetic vision. 

Agnès B is perhaps best known in popular culture for being the designer behind the frankly revolutionary costuming in Pulp Fiction – a series of outfits and sharp, 50’s-inspired looks that dominated runways and dancefloors through the latter half of the 1990s. Designer Agnès Troublé’s collaboration with The Louvre is driven by a similarly irreverent and irresistible attitude, and she was given carte blanche to wander through the labyrinthine galleries of Paris’ iconic museum, and select artworks that aligned with her instantly-recognisable yet always surprising artistic vision. 

Her searching eyes settled on the works of Claude Lorrain - a renowned 17th century landscapist in whose soft-focused and dreamlike pastel-hued skies she uncovered a latent psychedelia, and whose work she first fell in love with as a small child. In particular, Agnès selected a pair of complementary masterpieces – Landscape with Shepherd and Seaport at Sunset – both of which showcase landscapes which extend beyond what the viewer can see, reaching out into an essence of otherness. 

Uncovering latent psychedelia, Agnes B x The Louvre

With the artworks chosen, Agnès set about creating a collection that includes an array of beautiful garments, leather accessories and ephemeral, diaphanous scarves, each printed with Lorrain’s imagery. The items integrate the paintings’ gently-shifting colour palettes, bringing movement and dreamy, hazy fascination to the garments. Typical to her style and ongoing quest to both define eras while breaking the mold, the collection is imbued with a sense of timelessness. The classic meets the contemporary. The vintage intersects with the avant-garde. Beauty and style is proven as something which transcends the ebb and flow of trends. 

With this collection, Agnès B is reframing and re-establishing an important conversation: one of how art must live and breathe outside of time in order to survive. 

It’s been a busy year for Agnès B, but one can argue she’s had nothing but busy years. With a new perfume range launched for AW 2025 – which includes the stunning Le Parfum Agnès B, featured in our latest gift guide – her collaboration with The Louvre comes on the back of a wave of renewed interest and creative joie de vivre that’s impossible not to be swept along by. 

Indeed, the timing of this collaboration with Paris’ most iconic museum is truly significant. Across the globe, museums and galleries – as well as the artists, both present and past – are facing an existential crisis as we step boldly into a new digital age. Agnès B offers a new narrative; one which invites new interpretations, discards any sense of stuffiness or elitist gatekeeping, and weaves new threads between the realms of fashion, fine art and visual culture as a whole. She reiterates an important message: that Old Masters have endured the ages for good reason, and that there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be liberated from hallowed frames and allowed to feel bracingly contemporary.

The Agnès B x Louvre capsule collection is available from Agnès B boutiques across the globe, as well as in situ at The Louvre, Paris.