The creative power of the Mediterranean has always fascinated me, nourished me and made me want to pass on this cultural identity. With this in mind, in 1994, Catherine Ormen, curator of the Musée de la Mode, and Nancy Racine, assistant curator, carried out a fundamental study of the origins of drapery, which led to an exhibition. Deciphering the power of a fabric that can be draped as a mantle, a loincloth, a cape, a veil... but which is also, from the very beginning of life, a diaper and, at its end, a shroud. They asked themselves: "What dress codes for what social classes? And here is Catherine Ormen's conclusion to this analysis:
"The aim of this exhibition was to explore the origins of fashion, its earliest manifestations, and the draped bodies of which only art history has preserved traces. It was also to ask once again, in an ingenuous way, an eternal question: what lies "beyond" and "behind" the drape? What is the real vocation of drapery: to hide or reveal the body?
