At the Palais Galliera in Paris, the exhibition Un vestiaire à soi. Dissident femininities in the 19th century explores how women's clothing challenged traditional gender roles, offering a broader perspective on fashion that includes queer and racially diverse experiences. In the 11th arrondissement of Paris, curator Marine Kisiel has arranged a dozen black and white photographs on a café table. These images, depicting anonymous women from the late 19th century wearing sailor jackets, pants, and suits, reveal how ordinary women lived outside the rigid boundaries of the era’s gender norms. The exhibition showcases more than 150 vernacular photographs, highlighting the everyday lives of women who defied the era’s expectations of femininity. Marine Kisiel has had a varied career, including a prize-winning thesis, a role as a curator at the Musée d'Orsay, and a position as chief editor of the journal Perspective (Inha). Her research focuses on uncovering overlooked stories within larger historical narratives, emphasizing the significance of the "minor" within the "major." Her recent work has centered on clothing, a space where personal identity and social norms intersect. This shift began when Émilie Hammen, director of the Palais Galliera, edited a special issue of Perspective on fashion, leading Kisiel to explore new areas of study. Over time, her focus expanded from dandyism to what she now calls "the right to masculinize one's wardrobe." The exhibition begins with images of notable figures like Marie-Antoinette in a hunting costume, George Sand, and Rosa Bonheur, but quickly shifts to focus on lesser-known women. These images tell a more diffuse story of how individuals negotiated gender roles in their daily lives. By centering the history of the margins, the exhibition allows queer audiences to engage with new narratives about their own histories, moving away from the idea that these stories are mere footnotes in the larger historical record. Marine Kisiel acknowledges that many people believe "we have nothing" when it comes to these histories, but the exhibition was built through extensive research rather than a single archive. It highlights the silences in historical collections and the invisibility of certain experiences, such as a men's hat mistakenly recorded as belonging to a man. Over four years, Kisiel worked to piece together this history, drawing on resources like the Lesbian Herstory Archives in Brooklyn, which lent images to a French institution for the first time. In the United States, she also uncovered archives focused on Black women, helping to expand a narrative that had long been centered on white and European perspectives. The exhibition introduces the concept of "vestimentary blackness," though Kisiel notes that the topic is still in its early stages, opening the door for further discussion and research. Un vestiaire à soi. Dissident femininities in the 19th century will be on display at the Palais Galliera in Paris from September 26, 2024, to February 14, 2027.