If it wasn’t already clear, culture is in its Antiquity era.

In London last week, the British Museum hosted its inaugural gala, drawing a constellation of stars to celebrate a new exhibition titled ‘Ancient India: Living Traditions’. In Paris, the month will close with the opening of Mythes, a new exhibition curated by Simon Porte Jacquemus, the fashion designer and marketing savant whose Instagram visuals routinely break the internet. For his curatorial debut, Jacquemus looks back to the classical geometry that forms the lineage of his own silhouettes: the masterpieces of Antiquity.

Mythes creates a dialogue between ancient sculptures and the works of Aristide Maillol, the celebrated French sculptor. Maillol, an ardent admirer of the ancients, drew on Egyptian art and archaic and classical Greek sculpture to shape his own vision of the female form – which is, in turn, said to have inspired Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Henry Moore. Maillol’s oeuvre has also become one of Jacquemus’ key reference points: a shared devotion to geometry and to the harmony between human presence and elemental form.

The exhibition opens this week at the Collège of Bernardins, a former Cistercian college at the historic University of Paris. It was created in collaboration with the Galerie Chenel on Quai Voltaire - a family business founded in 1999 and driven by a love of sculpture - and the Galerie Dina Vierny where it will be on view until late December. Dina Vierny was herself Maillol's last model, and her namesake gallery drew major attention for showcasing the great sculptor's works when it first opened in the 1940s.

With the modern world feeling ever more chaotic, it’s no wonder that creative visionaries are returning to long bygone eras: the ancient world offers enduring artistic solace. In its myths and materials, we find an order that transcends time. It’s this lineage of meaning and beauty that inspires 39BC – and the rituals we’re building around it.

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'Mythes' runs from October 20 to 24, 2025, at the Collège des Bernardins, Paris. After its initial showing, the exhibition will move to Galerie Dina Vierny from October 30 to December 20.