French Culture Minister Rachida Dati on Thursday unveiled a new plan for French fashion including financial support for young designers and residences for fledgling talent.

“Wherever you go, when you think of fashion, you think of Paris. And we are determined to guarantee that remains the case,” explained Dati, in what was billed as a media statement but turned into a scrum of French TV crews.
 
Before the self-assured minister revealed that the ministry will provide some €200,000 in annual financing for various aids to young designers.

Among the innovations, she promised access for young designers to the Quadrilatère des Archives, a series of grand palaces in the Marais. Even though these spaces have been used quite frequently in recent years by emerging designers to stage shows. 
 
The ministry will also provide a $10,000 grant and one-month residency in the Villa Medici, the French cultural center in Rome. A bourse of €20,000 to fund the creation of costumes for the Chaillot Theater working with a young choreographer; a Patrimony of the World bourse of €10,000 for three years for a research student in public fashion archives; and a further three years bourse of the same amount to study fashion prospective and innovation.
 
Dati made her remarks inside Sphere, the talent incubator of the Federation de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, French fashion’s governing body. Touring the space and chatting animatedly with young designers both French and foreign – from Arthur Robert of denim-driven Quest from Paris; to Spanish-born Marie Bernard of the label Les Fleurs.
 
Earlier in the day, she had visited the Louvre, where she helped unveil Louvre Couture, an unprecedented exhibition of the great museum’s rare couture archives, curated by fashion and applied art expert Olivier Gabet.
 
Dati, one of 11 children born into a family from a poor district in provincial France, studied law before entering politics. Rising to be Minister of Justice in the government of Nicolas Sarkozy. Last year, under the presidency of Emmanuel Macron, she was named Minister of Culture of France, the first country to have created such a position back under General de Gaulle.
 
At times, it felt as if a flash mob had descended around Dati into Sphere, as fashion honchos, a half-dozen French TV crews, a dozen political paparazzi, nervous ministry staff, designers and models vied for her attention.
 
In effect, despite the laudable initiatives, the confusing scramble and soi-disant presentation unintentionally mirrored the confusion in the greater political scene in France. 
 
One of the world’s great democracies, France managed to run through four different prime ministers in less than one year.