Zémire et Azor
Opera-ballet presented at the National Theater of the Opéra-Comique in Paris from June 23 to July 1, 2023
Created in 1771 during the reign of Louis XV, “Zémire et Azor” by Grétry is an opera-ballet inspired by the mythical tale Beauty and the Beast. This new staging is the result of a collaboration between Louis Langrée, conductor and director of the Opéra-Comique, and Michel Fau, actor, and director.
Hubert Barrère sign and create the costumes and scenography, offering a contemporary and dreamlike vision: in a “surrealist” French garden setting, the costumes oscillate between the court of Louis XV, a fanciful Persia, and nods to the aesthetic trend of French fashion in the 1950s.
« Illusion : la mètis et l’artifice »
Artcurial, Paris.
For this exhibition, Hubert Barrère created illusions and aesthetic diversions with a corpus of a dozen pieces inspired by the Goddess Athena, combining sumptuous fabrics and an exceptional savoir-faire.
As in Greek theatre, these textile sculptures provide us with a dual reading: on one hand, like a mask, the interpretation of Athena’s attributes; on the other, the reverse side of the décor symbolised by the structure of the corsets.
A double game staging the duality between divinity and femininity, just like the goddess who endlessly twists and turns the destinies of men, in the purest tradition of the spirit of Metis.
Villa Noailles, Hyeres.
« B comme… », choreography Nicolas Le Riche, a world creation,
Opéra National de Bordeaux.
B is for ballet, for Bordeaux, for Bach, for Barrère…
A blissful jubilation of dance, revelling in the joy of motion, dancing, developing.
Hubert Barrère created the costumes for the eighteen dancers.
As fresh and colourful as boiled sweets, his tutus, corsets, and doublets create a line without ever hindering movement: an ode to joy and to freedom.
« Le Lien des mondes », 57th Venice Biennale.
A creative project by the artist Claudine Drai, that resulted from an encounter between contemporary art, poetry, culinary art and haute couture.
“Like a star-studded thought, like a desire to live in the same constellation.”
Along with the writer Olivier Kaeppelin and the Michelin-starred chef Guy Martin, Hubert Barrère presented here soft and ethereal silhouettes in pure white abstraction, resonating with the works of artist Claudine Drai.
« Conversation », A dialogue between Far Eastern Arts & Fashion
– Galerie Jacques Barrère, Paris and 18 on the Bund, Shanghai.
For this exhibition, Hubert Barrère created a series of ultra-contemporary silhouettes echoing the sumptuous artistic expressions of the Far East.
Hubert opens a dialogue, a conversation between yesterday and today, between faraway lands and here, between two disciplines: Art and Fashion.
Dance performance based on the work « la Renaissance» by Claudine Drai for the 50th anniversary of the Maeght Foundation in Saint Paul de Vence.
As part of a dance performance based on the work “La Renaissance” by Claudine Drai, Hubert Barrère draws a silhouette through the garment that reinterprets the artist’s creation.
The silhouette reveals the body of the dancer, a being made of flesh who, engaged with other impalpable materials, changes into another body composed of organza and paper. This other body plays with transparency, with opacity and light, vibrating in an infinity of whites.
Memory and imagination transect one another.
« The Virgin of Sèvres », Manufacture Royale de Sèvres
Reinterpreting heritage as a contemporary creation.
For this collaboration, Hubert Barrère created an extraordinary garment that makes reference to the legendary Marie-Antoinette “Bol Sein” [breast cup] and the famous Melun Diptych by Jean Fouquet, 15th century.
The Virgin of Sèvres aspires to be the sublime image of a radiant femininity with a bosom marvellously exposed beneath an undone corset.