'Ce Qui Se Trame' exhibition: a French-Indian partnership at the heart of textiles and crafts

From December 5 to January 7, 2026, the Mobilier National will present the exhibition “Ce Qui Se Trame – Histoires Tissées Entre l'Inde et la France”, a project dedicated to artistic and technical exchanges between France and India through textiles.

The event brings together several important actors: 19M, the cluster of art professionals founded by the Maison Chanel, the French embassy in India through the Villa Swagatam program and the designer Christian Louboutin, who is in charge of the artistic direction and set design based on his experience in India.

Guest curator Mayank Mansingh Kaul is responsible for the conceptual narrative, organization of sections and selection of works. Coinciding with the exhibition, Lesage Intérieurs, a resident house in 19M specialized in embroidery and textile decoration, organizes from December 4 to 7 a participatory workshop focused on the creation of an embroidered Indigo Tree of Life. Conceived as a collective project, it will allow visitors to discover embroidery techniques while contributing to a shared work of art inspired by historical exchanges between India and Europe.

The exhibition is organized around seven successive spaces: L'Antichambre, Toiles blanches, Modes indiennes, Le fil d'or, Le chic à l'indienne, Sculpter les corps and, finally, Un langage Universel.

The exhibition opens with L'Antichambre, a space that shows artistic and commercial exchanges between India and France. It is a reproduction of an 18th century French apartment, entirely covered with an Indian fabric. Louboutin will use this setting to immerse visitors in history through a traditional 18th century motif, created especially for the exhibition by artisans from the House of Kandadu. They worked entirely by hand, using ancient techniques such as block printing and natural dyes. The exterior of this room is inspired by Indian nomadic tents. It is covered with Toile de Jouy, a French fabric that originally emerged from Indian printing techniques.

The next section, Toiles Blanches, gets back to the essentials: fibers and threads. Shown without color, they evoke the different meanings of white in Indian and French cultures. On display are hand-spun and woven Indian cotton muslins, which transformed women's fashion in France in the 17th and 18th centuries, as well as French embroidery, ornaments and handmade lace.

With Modes Indiennes, the exhibition recalls the arrival in France, starting in the 17th century, of hand-painted and printed cotton fabrics. These fabrics, first called palampores or chintz, later inspired the creation of “indiennes”, a type of fabric that became very popular in France. Its floral and botanical motifs fuse the styles of both cultures. The works on display show how these fabrics were used in clothing and interiors of the time, and also explain the origin of the French paisley motif, inspired by Kashmiri shawls.

At Le Fil d'Or, visitors discover brocades, beautiful fabrics woven by hand with silk and metallic threads. Lyon was long the main French center for these textiles, and the invention of the Jacquard loom in the 19th century transformed their production throughout the world. The exhibition shows the influence of this innovation on Indian textiles, particularly in Varanasi, through works that combine tradition and contemporary creation.

Le Chic à l'Indienne begins at the foot of the gallery stairs, with a colorful textile installation inspired by the sari. This traditional garment, more than two thousand years old, is reinterpreted here by the Indian brand Raw Mango, known for modernizing the sari by working with numerous artisans. This section explores the interaction between French haute couture and Indian fashion and shows how textiles can shape the body. The large panels in the room come from The Flowers We Grew project, created by Chanakya School of Crafts with artist Rithika Merchant.

At Sculpter Les Corps, the exhibition focuses on artists using textile crafts within a contemporary practice. The works show how textiles can become sculptural and address social and political issues. The techniques used are varied and artists from India and France explore body, texture, volume and drape. On display are works by Mrinalini Mukherjee, Simone Pheulpin, Sheila Hicks, the Ateliers Chanakya collective and Jeanne Vicerial.

Finally, the exhibition closes with Un Langage Universel, a room inspired by India and entirely covered in denim. This fabric, developed in Nîmes in the 19th century from Indian indigo, is currently mainly produced there. This space invites visitors to reflect on the enduring ties between India and France. It includes Indian artist Viswanadhan's After Paris tapestry, woven into the Gobelins, and a reminder of Le Corbusier's work in India, especially in Chandigarh.