Inside the Arles Museum Reviving Centuries of Provençal Fashion

A decades-long family obsession with Arlesian costume has found a resplendent new home in the heart of Provence. After years devoted to collecting and preserving garments that trace the evolution of regional dress since the 17th century, fashion historian Magali Pascal, her daughter Odile, and sisters Anne, Agnès, and Françoise Costa of renowned perfume house Maison Fragonard have brought their vision for the Musée de la Mode et du Costume (Museum of Fashion and Costume) to life in Arles, France. Housed in the stately Hôtel Bouchaud de Bussy, a transformed 18th-century townhouse in the city’s historic center, the museum unites the region’s most significant private costume collections under one roof. Its inaugural exhibition, “Collections–Collection,” presents a sweeping display of more than 10,000 garments and accessories that chart the evolution of Provençal dress and identity. 

The collection itself may span centuries, but remains intimately tied to the families who assembled it. Pascal, a formidable researcher honored with the title of Knight of Arts and Letters in 2010, spent decades painstakingly cataloguing and acquiring pieces that reveal how Arlesian women conveyed status, tradition, and individuality through dress. Odile, a costume historian and former Queen of Arles, continued her late mother’s research with consummate enthusiasm. The Costa sisters, whose mother, Hélène Costa, established the Musée Provençal du Costume et du Bijou in Grasse in 1997, committed to acquiring the Pascal collection shortly before Magali’s death, ensuring it would have a permanent home. That pledge formed the basis of the new institution, which is dedicated to preservation and active scholarship.  

The building’s transformation carries a similarly thoughtful charge. Restored over five years in collaboration with heritage architect Nathalie d’Artigues, the Hôtel Bouchaud de Bussy has been returned to its 17th- and 18th-century volumes. Studio KO, the Paris and Marrakech firm of Karl Fournier and Olivier Marty, was tapped to reimagine the interiors and exhibition scenography. “We were dazzled by the potential of the place and the emotional weight it carried” Marty says—quite the statement from a duo notable for masterminding the Musée Yves Saint Laurent in Marrakech. “We also regretted its level of deterioration. The idea was immediately to restore its former glory and brilliance without falling into a false historical reconstruction.”  

To that end, Studio KO restored the building’s original volumes and layout, clearing away later interventions to let its historic structure reemerge. “We agreed there needed to be a moment of tension between the building and the clothing,” Fournier says. “Only a well-controlled touch of modernity could bring that.” A contemporary staircase discreetly anchors the museum’s three floors, its lines clean and unadorned. Materials do much of the storytelling: ochre-hued floors recall Marseille’s traditional glazed clay tiles; walls were treated to evoke the canvas sails that once glided up the Rhône. “We wanted colors that were not too strongly associated, neither with the building’s era nor with today,” he continues. “We hope to have made a timeless, and therefore enduring, choice.” 

That restraint heightens the presence of the garments themselves—embroidered caracos, silk velvet waistcoats, and other remnants of daily ritual made extraordinary by survival. In one room, a gilded brass door glints like Provençal jewelry. In another, patterned silk velvet headdress ribbons from the 19th century are displayed in a glass vitrine, carefully lit to preserve their delicate detail. A commissioned film by artist Charles Fréger captures backlit Arlésienne women dressing in traditional garments across the four seasons, revealing the layered rituals and gestures that define the region’s historical costume traditions.  

By assembling garments, accessories, and archival materials in their original regional context, the museum offers an immersive study of how dress shaped and reflected daily life in Provence. Each surface, object, and curatorial decision serves to reinforce the collection’s priceless value as a living document of Arlesian identity. “A collection is only justified if it serves to improve our knowledge, if it brings together enough items to reconstruct entire costumes and hence unveil and serve history,” Odile says. “The collection never ceases to surprise us. It demands interpretation. Today, the collection is enlightening us with the immense weight of humanity it harbors.”