What’s Happening: As the Paris 2024 Olympics near, a pivotal show at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs about fashion’s relationship with sports offers a fresh perspective and historical links that haven’t really been proffered elsewhere.

The Download: “Mode et Sport” at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs features Paris’s great couture houses, but it also dives deep into the historical ties between what’s shown on the runway, how we dress today, and the centuries-long role that movement has played in shaping both. Rather than rehashing Googleable fodder like which couturiers have designed Olympic uniforms over the years, the show begins outside of modern Paris and back to Ancient Greece, the Renaissance, and the Middle Ages.

Monied classes during these times transformed survival mechanisms like hunting and combat into entertainment or opportunities to peacock and prove themselves. Period manuscripts, garments, and artworks illustrate how these times eventually spurred on the likes of textile innovation and even women’s liberation through the rise of bifurcated trousers. While armchair art historians are likely well-versed in the scandal caused by Elisabeth Vigée le Brun’s portrait of Marie Antoinette en chemise, they likely don’t know about the uproar caused by Louis-Auguste Brun’s masculinized hunting portrait of the royal. In it, she’s easily mistaken for an anonymous nobleman as she rides astride the horse (instead of sidesaddle) in men’s hunting clothes. Each of these elements was unheard of for the time, and together they caused such a sensation that the artist created a second, more socially acceptable version of the image.

It’s this deft use of surprise that curator Sophie Lemahieu deploys to striking effect. For example: Europe’s interwar years are often credited with propelling women into modernity, and the garments on view emphasize just how quickly those changes came to pass. Within the span of 40 years, ankle-grazing poplin wading dresses from the Victorian era were replaced by prototypical bikinis. Bathing ensembles from the 1930s, like a cotton-linen Hermès shorts suit, a knit jersey pantsuit that looks fresh from a Chanel resort collection, and a two-piece high waist swimsuit seem shockingly contemporary. Speaking of Chanel, her knitted jersey suits from the 1920s and breezy dresses from the ‘30s boldly position her as a godmother of athleisure.

The unending buzz of the fashion industry’s news cycle can make five years of industry goings-on feel like a lifetime. The final few galleries, which are dotted with the neon lycra Gym-Tonic getups from the ‘80s, and ‘90s tracksuits by Juicy Couture and Sonia Rykiel, the minute nature of the industry’s present moment is cast into sharp relief. For the finale, visitors walk laps around vintage and contemporary sports-inspired couture—newly contextualized by centuries of art, history, and cultural changes.

In Their Own Words: In a show brimming with moments of discovery, one stands out above the rest. Like René Lacoste, the forefather of the namesake brand as it exists today, Lemahieu shares that designers Emilio Pucci, Ottavio Missoni, André Courrèges were also accomplished and impassioned athletes who considered comfort and mobility in their ready-to-wear. “It’s not enough to play and win,” Lacoste is quoted as saying by Lemahieu. “Style also matters.”

Surface Says: We never thought we’d see a Juicy Couture tracksuit shown in a museum alongside actual couture.

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From April 16–21, Salone del Mobile returns to Milan’s Rho Fiera along with EuroCucina, its industry-leading kitchen and bath biennials. The themes of this year’s fair are rooted in innovation and the human experience, which manifests most directly in a newly reworked fair layout and schedule of ancillary installations and panels. Chief among them is “Interiors by David Lynch. A Thinking Room,” curated by Antonio Monda, which presents two identical Lynch-designed rooms that foster convening with oneself. Get your ticket now and don’t miss out.

In 1992, when John Pawson was designing his private home in Notting Hill, the British architect was seeking muted Douglas Fir flooring planks to complement the rigorously simple architecture that was making his name. He quickly found common ground in Dinesen, the family-run Danish manufacturer of handcrafted wooden joinery, and employed the planks not only on his floors but to create custom furniture inspired by Japanese architect Shiro Kuramata’s clean-lined minimalism. The collection was an exercise in subtlety—each plank replicated the dimensions of the floorboards, forging the appearance of being lifted right off the ground. It sparked a thriving partnership between the two parties, with Pawson using Dinesen planks as his not-so-secret weapon in such career-defining projects as the remodeling of London’s Design Museum and Jil Sander’s Paris flagship.

Their partnership is reaching yet another high with the newly debuted Pawson Furniture Collection, which makes the custom Dinesen furniture created for his Notting Hill home available for purchase along with never-before-seen pieces. It includes the Dining Series, comprising Pawson’s original table, bench, and stool from 1992 but slightly updated to appeal to modern sensibilities. Complementing it is the Lounge Collection, featuring a chair, table, sofa, and daybed built by Danish cabinet makers in poetic proportions that speak to the character of Solid Douglas wood. Each piece is made to order and can be customized with Kvadrat upholstery. The collection will officially debut at 3daysofdesign in Dinesen’s Copenhagen showroom, which Pawson will transform into an apartment fully furnished with the new pieces.

“The New Look” isn’t the only show untangling the threads of fashion history. A new miniseries about the life and legend of Karl Lagerfeld, the late creative director of Chanel and Fendi, will stream on Hulu starting June 7. Besides charting the German couturier’s rise to fame in the ‘70s and chronicling how he revitalized Coco Chanel’s financially imperiled label, the six-episode “Becoming Karl Lagerfeld” will also dive into his rivalry with Yves Saint Laurent and romance with French socialite Jacques de Bascher. Loosely based on Raphaëlle Bacque’s 2020 biography “Kaiser Karl,” the series was filmed in France, Monaco, and Italy, and will feature around 3,000 costumes. There’s also a star-studded cast: Daniel Brühl will portray Lagerfeld, co-starring with Arnaud Valois as Saint Laurent and Théodore Pellerin as de Bascher.

When: Until Jan. 6

Where: Palazzo Grassi, Venice

What: Over the past four years, the Pinault Collection has become synonymous with its stunning Parisian home at the Bourse de Commerce. But its latest exhibition brings the focus over to the Pinault Collection’s Venice museum set in a canal-front palazzo. The 50-work group show centers Julie Mehretu’s practice, along with the art of her close friends, and the ways in which their collective practices influence each other. Shared experiences of self-sufficiency, displacement, and valuable relationships with fellow artists whose livelihoods have persisted and flourished in the wake of such challenges resonate throughout.

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The Shah Garg Collection features works by 80 women artists from the past eight decades, including Rina Banerjee, Cecily Brown, Judy Chicago, Charline von Heyl, Jacqueline Humphries, Joan Semmel, and more. Curated by Cecilia Alemani, “Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection” marks the first public viewing of a groundbreaking body of work by women collected by Komal Shah and her husband Gaurav Garg.

Surface Says: The debut exhibition of the groundbreaking collection establishes invaluable takeaways, like historical impact and significant breakthroughs across the careers of the collection’s intergenerational roster of women artists.

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