The world's most precious and noble metal, an object of envy, a symbol of wealth and splendour, a sign of elegance and refinement... Discovered nearly 7,000 years ago, gold has never ceased to fascinate mankind. The ultimate material for all kinds of expertise, experimentation and tradition, it has been used since antiquity to make jewellery, ornaments and weapons. As early as the fifth millennium B.C., it was used to embellish the first luxury fabrics for men of power. Over the centuries that followed, skilled weavers and craftsmen Roman, Byzantine, Chinese, Persian and then Muslim used the most ingenious techniques to create veritable fabrics of art where silk or linen fibres were intertwined with gold threads and strips.

From the first ornaments sewn onto the garments of the deceased to the flamboyant dresses of contemporary Chinese artist Guo Pei that are found throughout the exhibition, from the gold-woven silks of the Indian and Indonesian worlds to the glittering kimonos of the Edo era, this exhibition reveals the age-old history of gold in the textile arts. In a dialogue combining scientific discoveries and artistic perspectives, it unveils the dazzling beauty, diversity, richness and the technical nature of the outfits of a vast region from the Maghreb to Japan, including the countries of the Middle East, India, and China.