It houses and displays furniture, interior design, altarpieces, religious paintings, objets d'arts, tapestries, wallpaper, ceramics and glassware, plus toys from the Middle Ages to the present day.

Today's collection is primarily composed of French furniture, tableware, carpets such as those from Aubusson, porcelain such as that by the Manufacture nationale de Sèvres, and many glass pieces by René Lalique, Émile Gallé and many others.

The period rooms are of interest to the public, with examples including part of Jeanne Lanvin's house (decorated by Albert-Armand Rateau [1884–1938] in the early 1920s) at 16 rue Barbet-de-Jouy in Paris.

Yvonne Brunhammer, a curator and then director of the museum for over four decades from the early 1950s, and the person who rediscovered Eileen Gray, organized the 1966 exhibition, "Les Années '25': Art Déco/Bauhaus/Stijl Esprit Nouveau".

However, due to many fine-art, publicity, fashion and design exhibitions mounted at the Paris museum, its focus has been diluted and caused its name, Musée des "Art décoratifs", to become a misnomer.