Exhibition “Infinitely Blue”

The new exhibition at the Borély Museum, centered around the color blue, showcases a collection of works from the Museum of Decorative Arts, Faience, and Fashion, drawn from its permanent collections, sometimes rarely exhibited, as well as those from the Grobet-Labadié Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts in Marseille.

This focus highlights the significance of blue from the 18th century to the present day, across various fields where this color and its shades appear prominently: faience, graphic arts, jewelry, and fashion.

Echoing the infinite variety of blues in the Haute Couture models from the museum’s collections (Chanel, Schiaparelli, Lanvin, Courrèges, Alaïa, Cardin, Balenciaga, Guy Laroche, Azzaro, etc.), presented in two phases for conservation reasons, recent creations by Marseille-based or broader Mediterranean labels, winners of the Maison Mode Méditerranée Endowment Fund, offer a particularly rich interpretation of this color, which remains inextricably linked to the shores of the sea and the history of the Mediterranean.

Through its representation in painting, decorative arts, literature, and clothing, the history of blue reflects the gradual shift in mindsets and tells a rich epic of symbols, stakes, and emotions. Once devalued and secondary within an ancient system organized around three primary colors—black, white, and red—blue was often associated with death. Its return to favor in the 12th century came through the arts and clothing. Now a primary color, celestial blue became fashionable and the new red. Worn in all its shades, at court and in the city, blue triumphed in the Age of Enlightenment: a blue vogue accelerated by the gradual decline of European pastel production in favor of exotic indigo.

With the German Romantics, blue acquired a poetic dimension and became the color of love, melancholy, and dreams. By the end of the 19th century, new artificial dyes replaced the old dye plants, while across the Atlantic, Oscar Levi Strauss created a garment that would soon become iconic: blue jeans. Today, blue is said to be one of the three most worn colors in the Western world.