FASHION HERITAGE: Olivier Saillard had been questioning the relevance of his Moda Povera project throughout the fashion ecosystem. Not intended on the market, the concept was to spotlight “extraordinary” clothes by reinterpreting them using the techniques and fabrications of high fashion.

When the style historian lost his mother two years ago, an idea took hold. Should he send her wardrobe, of no inherent value, to charity? Or should he give it a recent life, befitting of his cherished parent? Renée, a mother of six and a taxi driver, had bought her clothes through the years from out-of-town superstores near her home within the east of France after town center boutiques were shuttered, but she loved and cared for them, he explained.

“When my mother died, I kept all her clothes because I assumed it was incongruous, as a fashion curator who had inventoried hundreds of fashion collections from various eras, to do nothing along with her wardrobe,” he said. “In the future it occurred to me this was what we should always do with Moda Povera.”

He continued, “We realized as we were doing it, nobody works on the intimate side, the memory of clothing. Fashion is a model based on newness.”

In an hourlong presentation that was really more of a performance, Saillard helped his model and friend Axelle Doué placed on each look one after the other, delicately smoothing down the folds and thoroughly brushing hair loosened from her chignon back into place.

A narrator read out Saillard’s written description of every, in French, a type of poetry that played on nostalgia for the pieces transformed, with humble T-shirts was evening gowns, winter coats tailored into structured jackets and handkerchiefs made into delicate gloves. At the identical time, the text (abbreviated English translations aside) was like a lesson in couture vocabulary, echoing the tutorial vocation of Moda Povera, which goals to assist keep couture knowhow alive for future generations.

There was barely a dry eye within the oval salon of the National Archives — where 14 centuries of historic documents including the Trial of the Templars and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen are stored — at the tip of the presentation.

“I’m completely happy that everybody has come to see this performance, because we’ve nothing to sell and nothing to supply except a moment of introspection,” Saillard said.