Luxembourg’s fashion story is told best through its museums, which trace how people dressed from medieval times to the modern day.
A walk through clothing history
The Luxembourg City Museum’s permanent exhibition, The Luxembourg Story, covers about 1,000 years of the city’s history. Its free app now includes a 32-stop audio tour on clothing, titled L’habit fait le moine, in French, German and English. It moves from merchants’ dress and knights’ armour in the Middle Ages to court nobility, uniforms, liturgical vestments, gloves, workers’ clothing and bourgeois portraits, and the way colour signalled social distinction. It closes with personal memories and stereotypes of national costume.
Put it on!
A 2024 exhibition, Put it on! Le Luxembourg s’habille, ran at the Ratskeller from 13 July to 15 September with free admission. Organised by the city’s photographic archive and curated by Christian Aschman and Gaby Sonnabend, it followed how fashion changed from the early twentieth century. It set formal and professional dress and upper-class portraits against the casual styles of 1970s youth, and drew on records of the many fashion shows held in the city and its shop windows and traditional boutiques.
On foot
Guided walks led by the historian Robert L. Philippart explored the stories of former fashion shops in the upper town, a reminder that style lives in streets as well as galleries.
Sources: Luxembourg City Museum: Fashion tour in the app, Luxembourg City Museum: The Luxembourg Story, Cercle Cité: Put it on! Le Luxembourg s’habille, Visit Luxembourg: Tour of the former fashion shops, Ville de Luxembourg: Put it on.
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