 Paris' fashion season is over for another few months. For two weeks twice a year, the most secluded part of the complex under Paris' most visited museum becomes a bustle of activity: After a walk through a long hall (that itself would take a stadium of fans to fill) that itself used to be the the Louvre's moat when it was a fortress, a fact made evident by the vestiges of stone defences lining one side of its length, we come to a room filled with lines and crowds of people waiting, chatting, gossiping, most of them showcasing the latest trends, and a few with "designs" of their own. It's odd to find two of the things I love most about Paris in the same spot: History and Fashion.
Located between the Louvre and Tuileries palace, the land above this complex was, until the late 17th century, a no-man's land around the city walls from the time of Charles V, and from the late 16th-century construction of the Tuileries Palace outside these, an ornamental garden. Louis XIV would destroy the last of the Charles V ramparts (the city had expanded further west by the time of his reign) and transform the land between the Tuileries, Louvre and their interconnecting riverside "Grande Galerie" wing into a parade ground.
In 1662 this newly-created place was the stage of a "Carrousel" (or "sun-chariot"), a dazzling and iconoclastic display of military, equestrian, theatrical designs, and a major source of inspiration for the fashion of the times. Louis XIV was the "sun" centrepiece for this display (he was costumed as Apollo that day - the origins of his his "Sun King" title) of horseback parades and races involving the kingdom's military heroes, princes and nobility.
 La Place du Carrousel as a square ceased to exist from the early 18th century, as, left to abandon after the Crown's move to Versailles, it was eventually filled with city growth, but from the mid-19th century it regained its form upon Napoleon III's Louvre renovations. The square's underground remained largely unexplored until the Carrousel du Louvre underground complex construction began from 1983: inaugurated ten years later, the shopping mall's lesser-trodden halls today hold united the area's name and origins: a foundation in fashion.
J.M. Schomburg,
October 25, 2006,
Paris, France
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