Just in case you can’t afford the latest haute couture (the shows end today), Paris has the perfect quick fix for any fashion fanatic. Even if you have already drooled over the YSL retrospective, you’ll find yet more vintage style at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. There, until October 10, you can view the best of European fashion from the 1970s through ’80s. “The Ideal History of Contemporary Fashion” boasts such names as Yves Saint Laurent, Christian Lacroix, Jean Paul Gaultier, Sonia Rykiel, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, Kenzo, Thierry Mugler and Yohji Yamamoto.

This show is the first installment of an ambitious “complete history” that has been curated by the expert Olivier Saillard. (Part two, covering the years 1990–2010, will open on November 25.) Saillard, head of fashion exhibitions at the Arts Décoratifs since 2002, was recently appointed director of the formidable Musée Galliera, the fashion museum of Paris. Although closed for restoration until 2011, the Musée Galliera has made cameos in films like Sex and the City andThe Devil Wears Prada. This exhibition gives us a taste of what the talented Saillard will do there. In it, to outline the progress of modern style, he mobilizes “key pieces from twenty years of creation,” augmented by 200 documents, films and video.

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