With Help From Sofia Coppola, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs Throws a Paris Ball for the Ages

Tucked in the western wing of the Louvre, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs has long been one of Paris’s most quietly magnificent cultural institutions. Since its “International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts” opened, in 1925, its mission has been to preserve and showcase the best of design and fashion, from medieval tapestries and 18th-century table settings to the radical silhouettes of Comme des Garçons; from the wallpapers of French kings and the jewels of India’s maharajas to Elsa Schiaparelli’s Surrealist hats. “This museum embodies a true art de vivre ,” says Jean-Victor Meyers, the Paris-based arts patron and vice chairman of the board of L’Oréal. (His great-grandfather was Eugène Schueller, who founded the beauty conglomerate in 1909.) “Art, design, culture—ever