Maghreb wedding jewellery and dress in paris

Vive la Mariée! Exhibition review

Published November 7, 2026

‘Long live the bride!’ is the title of a new exhibition in the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris. The exhibition showcases the rich wedding traditions of the Maghreb, and shows dress, adornment and art from Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. I was floored the moment I entered!

Maghreb wedding jewellery and dress from Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia

The exhibition opens with a bang: the first exposition space is filled with mannequins wearing traditional wedding garments from Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. For each country, bridal costume and adornment from various regions have been selected – there is so much to see that I could have spent hours in this space alone.

Bridal dress, jewellery and identity

What this achieves, is two things. Firstly, it shows both the cultural similarities between these countries as well as the distinctive traditions of their individual regions. Cultural traditions, after all, predate modern borders. But only too often, this transregional kinship seems to disappear from the collective memory. Vive la Mariée literally shows how traditions may stretch over regions and also explores wedding customs shared by Muslim and Jewish communities.

And secondly, it shows Maghrebi bridal splendour in almost all its glory by combining dress and jewellery on mannequins, so you get an idea of the absolute vision a North African bride is. Dazzling colours, an abundance of jewellery, and tons of it! I wrote ‘almost’ because even in this fabulous setup, we miss body aesthetic such as henna and tattoos, we miss the sound of jingling ornaments, of chatter and of singing, and of course, we miss the cloud of fragrance that would surely have filled this space when so many brides would have been together!

Those aspects are addressed later on in the exhibition, though, so keep reading!

Scented beads and more jewellery

The fragrant aspect is already visible in the jewellery on display: scented beads and perfume containers abound in the exhibition. More on those scented beads is here, and here you will find the perfume containers in more detail.

Around the central display, you’ll see more jewellery in showcases and large vintage photographs of brides wearing jewellery. Here, we see jewellery sets presented on busts, to give an idea of how jewellery was worn.

I did wonder, however, why the jewellery was dull and blackened in many cases, both on the mannequins and in the showcases: I would have cleaned it beforehand, as brides would be wearing new jewellery (it would be made for them, and thus be brand new on their wedding day). It always makes me a little sad to see such splendid jewellery lack its brilliance.

Wedding traditions in the Maghreb: intangible heritage and contemporary art

From the display on bridal dress and regional identity, the exhibition then continues and explores the intangible experience of weddings: those moments that are part and parcel of the wedding ritual, but that leave little material trace. You will find sections on the preparation of the bride, the importance of henna ceremonies, the conjugal chamber, the art of receptions and family participation, and the significance of many individual wedding rituals.

What I felt really enriched these topics is that archives, visual art, and multimedia help communicate these intangible traditions. Full wedding splendour in all its regional diversity is increasingly a thing of the past, but wedding splendour itself very much is a thing of the present.

Contemporary art and changing wedding traditions

That is also what the final section of the exhibition focuses on, the changing traditions and the new meanings they may take on, both in the Maghreb itself and in the diaspora communities.

The series of photographic art by Shouroukh Rhaiem presents wedding photos from her own family, colourized and embellished with fabric and crystals to convey the sense of abundance that irrevocably gets lost in an image. The historical costume from Nabeul, the Tunisian town her family is from, is on display in the first room, and so for me, this series of artworks brought the exhibition full circle. Both pieces are illustrated in the gallery above: click to enlarge them.

Throughout the exhibition, you move from a dazzling historical setup at the start to the vibrant wedding traditions of today, while learning a lot about the world of women, their passing on of knowledge and craftmanship, and the social cohesion and expectations of that world. Contemporary artists explore themes such as love and marriage, but also women’s autonomy, societal pressures, and changing relationships.

The series of photographs by Sabrina Belouaar, for example, addresses the position of divorcées and widows in Algeria, who have built a market around selling their own and other second-hand jewellery – the financial and social position of divorcées and widowed women is precarious, jewellery is a means for them to earn a meagre living, while society itself renders them invisible.

Vive la Mariée: is the exhibition worth visiting?

If you have the chance, do go and visit Vive la Mariée in the Institut du Monde Arabe. It is a joyful, vibrant and colourful exhibition that combines tangible and intangible elements of weddings in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, highlighting the festive nature of weddings, but also not shying away from the harder discussions about the position of women. The only drawback, if I have one, was that there was no separate publication in the IMA’s excellent bookshop: this is one of those exhibitions that brings all the essentials together so naturally, that you just want to take it home and learn more!

Vive la Mariée: dates and location

Vive la Mariée! is on view from September 29, 2026, to February 28, 2027 at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris.

I visited the exhibition on my own initiative.

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