In a list of art and fashion collaborations there is a bit of blurring
that happens. There are moments when designers becomes artists, artists
become designers, or both entities becomes something different entirely.
Both the genre of fine arts and fashion design not only bare the affect
of trend and social temperature, but their changing relationship to one
another is also reflective of society as a whole. Perhaps some
interventions and collaborations are more successful than others, but
what is primarily important is the dabbling, the mixing, and fantastic
results that come from the fanciful play of the privileged creatives.
50. Yves Saint Laurent x Andy Warhol
50. Andy Warhol
Label: Yves Saint Laurent
Year: 1974
The ongoing trend seems to be that fashion appropriates art. Most
recently, fashion labels have become the patrons of major artworks like
Francesco Vezzoli's
24 Hour Museum or the Prada Transformer
Building in Seoul, South Korea. As often as contemporary fashion houses
patronize work, they also appropriate it; Marni's use of Rop van Mierlo
and Brian Rea are easy examples.
However, in the particular case of Yves Saint Laurent and Andy Warhol
(two men who need no introduction), Saint Laurent is the subject, and
the product is a silkscreen image of a youthful Yves by Warhol himself.
The 1974 work is done in a style similar to Warhol's other works-an even
square divided into four equal quadrants. The portraits are paired
diagonally, but the paired images are painted in decidedly different and
fanciful ways. The painting stands today as a commemorative gesture to
the great fashion designer. Although the painting itself is not a
garment or accessory per se, the object stands a reflection of the
intimate ties between the culture of fashion and art.
49. Vanessa Beecroft x Helmut Lang (for Vanessa Beecroft's 2002 VB45)
49. Vanessa Beecroft
Label: Helmut Lang
Year: 2002
Artist Vanessa Beecroft's 2002 work,
VB45, is her largest to date, but it still takes on a similar format to her older works. The women of Beecroft's
VB45
work at Jeffrey Deitch's New York City gallery, Patrick Painter, in
video and photographic forms. A fleet of supermodel-like women stand
starkly in the nude (save for thigh high leather boots), designed
specially by Helmut Lang. The performance consists of the women
continuing to stand until each individual becomes tired of standing and
chooses to sit.
VB45 comes to a conclusion when the last woman concedes to sitting.
The entire interaction between audience and subject is an artistic
excuse for voyeurism, and Lang's boots not only add to that sentiment,
but provide the perfect costume for Beecroft's statuesque participants
to become characters that lie somewhere between objectified fetish and a
controlling dominatrix. The large grouping accompanied by Lang's
eroticizing costumes only add to the work as a "minimalist, military
type formation," originally created for the Kunsthalle Wien in February
of 2001.
48. Triumph in the Face of Absurdity - Charming Baker and Paul Smith
48. Charming Baker
Label: Paul Smith
Year: 2012
British designer, Sir Paul Smith, and UK artist, Charming Baker,
collaborated to make a sculpture that is sweetly optimistic and
inspired. The polished cast aluminum on a corten steel plinth is titled Triumph in the Face of Absurdity.
The sculpture is "about life and about how humble your start is in any
way. It's not linked with money or finance, it's to do with the fact
that if you try hard and dig deep, however small you start, you can do
great things...Effort is free of charge!" The aluminum cast bicycle is
based on the one ridden by British gold medalist, Sir Christ Hoy, and
had a timely connection to the arrival of the summer Olympics in London
that year. The most saccharine detail of the sculpture lies in the small
space between the bicycle and the plinth: a little life-size mouse.
From afar it is hard to tell, but upon closer investigation it's clear
that this tiny mouse is holding up this momentous bike—a feat for any
mouse, but especially for the collaborative sculptors.
47. Yves Saint Laurent x Piet Mondrian
47. Piet Mondrian
Label: Yves Saint Laurent
Year: 1965
No art and fashion collaboration list would be complete without the
classic and iconic Yves Saint Laurent dress inspired by artist Piet
Mondrian. Saint Laurent released the 1965 dress for the Autumn season;
its simple A-line, and tidy shift silhouette was typical of the
mid-sixties. What was perhaps less typical was the clear allusion Saint
Laurent was making to Mondrian in his uses of graphic black lines
(running both horizontally and vertically) and white and primary color
blocks. Its seamlessness is deceiving—the dress is made up of many of
individual pieces of wool jersey and was hand-assembled to hide obvious
seaming. This dress is not only an icon for Western fashion but also
records the importance of Mondrian's work during the period of the
1960s.
46. Jimmy Choo x Rob Pruitt
46. Rob Pruitt
Label: Jimmy Choo
Year: 2012
In 2012, internationally renowned footwear designer, Jimmy Choo,
collaborated with contemporary artist, Rob Pruitt, to create a capsule
collection. Pruitt is maybe best known for his seven-foot Soho
Andy Warhol Monument
commissioned by the Public Art Fund. The artist-footwear designer team
concocted a number of shoes, purses, scarves, and other accessories.
Pruitt and Choo's designs were all limited to the collaboration and
featured motifs like glittery zebras, cartoon pandas, and crystals using
over 11,000 hand-applied crystals. The duo created graphic interplays
between lace and snakeskin including graphic motifs of sprinkles and
zebra stripes.
The energetic and bold collection includes the Cayla clutch, which
has sprinkles on an ombré backdrop with a zebra pavè flap and a playful
panda lining. Daring zebra-print lace up stilettos with swirls of fiery
reds, oranges, and yellows trailing up the heels and soles also found
their way into the lineup. Pruitt said in an interview with Lili Rosboch
of New York's
Bloomberg News, "I think that my art really
comes alive when it's activated in these kinds of ways. I would feel
terribly sad if it only hand an existence on the wall of galleries, and
hopefully, museums."
45. Rolf Sachs x DeBeers
45. Rolf Sachs
Label: DeBeers
Year: 2012
Rolf Sachs is a Swiss-born multi-disciplinary artist, with a practice
that ranges from set design and furniture-making to ballet and
photography. DeBeers is a family of companies that is considered to be
the dominant force of diamond sales around the world. The DeBeers
company approached Sachs for a commission to dress their windows for the
2012 Holiday season. Sachs graciously accepted, excited at the chance
to investigate light in its primal, more organic form—the flame. He
says, "The candle is an everyday object, yet its light has soul and
radiates warmth."
The installation, titled
Breathing Light, emanates a warm
glow from the red display. The window's shimmering translucence recalled
frost-veiled panes amid a snowy winter. Small sections were swiped
clear, as if by a curious passerby, only to reveal flickering candles on
the face of a glowing iPad. Sachs contrasts and conflates highly
primitive light sources—like the flame—and innovative technological
light sources—like the iPad. Despite the wholly inaccessible
jewel-encrusted merchandise inside the vitrines, the window feels warm,
alluring, and nostalgic.
44. Fabrizio Plessi's Molten Bag for Louis Vuitton
44. Fabrizio Plessi
Label: Louis Vuitton
Year: 2008
In April 2008, Louis Vuitton opened up their newest and largest
flagship store in Hong Kong. The luxury giant then invited Italian
artist, Fabrizio Plessi, to partake in the design of the boutique's
interior. Plessi, a pioneer in video art in Europe, was no stranger to
high stakes collaborations; his work is held in esteemed collections
around the world, and Plessi is well acquainted with the complicated
circumstances that go into the creation of a site-specific installation
work (like his monumental 2001 video sculpture installed on three sides
of San Marco Square, entitled
Waterfire, used to inaugurate the Venice Biennale that year).
The collaboration paid off in the form of
huge LED screens that featured molten gold cascading down golden walls and other fixtures at the
Hong Kong boutique. Vuitton also invited Plessi to create a bag of his
own design. Fabrizio Plessi then conjured the Molten bag, a tote made of
black EPI leather, with an incised LV logo that reveals an ultra-flat
TFT LCD screen showing the images of the same seductive, molten gold of
the Hong Kong boutique's LED screens. Plessi's purse is limited to an
edition of 88 and retails for $50,000.
43. K8 Hardy x Oscar Tuazon at the 2012 Whitney Biennial
43. Oscar Tuazon
Label: K8 Hardy
Year: 2012
Artist K8 Hardy's
Untitled Runway Show, 2012 continued in
the spirit of lukewarm crossover projects. The gesture appeared genuine;
in a New York Times interview Hardy said, "I want people to think of
the entire runway show as a work of art. It's...to interrupt its normal
and largely unquestioned flow." On the day of the show, models descended
the runway-cum-sculpture by fellow Whitney Biennial artist Oscar
Tuazon.
Tuazon's work frequently features the forms of the function—stairs,
walkways, and wall partitions—in an arrangement of dysfunction. However,
in the case of
Untitled Runway Show, Tuazon's style shone
through in his bare-bone use of industrial materials, permeable
boundaries, and rigid geometric modulation. And the procession of
Hardy's runway choreography challenged the repetitious conventions of
New York Fashion Week's innumerable shows; models walked backwards and
sideways, and some at especially painful, slow paces. Hardy openly
admits that the clothes were not the primary purpose of the
collaborative effort, and it shows. The garments looked more like cheap
costumes, some modeled after painting palettes, and others were made of
multicolored bras.
42. Zac Posen x Rosson Crow
42. Rosson Crow
Label: Zac Posen
Year: 2010
Enigmatic American painter, Rosson Crow, who's represented by gallery
Honor Fraser, found some initial notoriety from her art-world "bad boy"
friends: Dan Colen and Dash Snow of the downtown New York and Los
Angeles art scenes. But in more recent days, Crow has been forging
relations with members of the New York fashion circuit.
"I got a call [in 2009] from a stylist friend, a boy I hadn't talked
to in years," Crow said in an interview. "He said, 'My boyfriend wants
to work with you.' I said, 'Who are you dating now?" And he said, 'Zac
Posen.' I went, 'Oh my God. I'd love to!" And sometimes, apparently, it
is just as easy as saying "yes." Crow's agreement to work with Posen
resulted in her paintings as textiles for Posen's 2010 Autumn/Winter
collection.
41. 4 Mile Minute - Hussein Chalayan x Gavin Turk
41. Gavin Turk
Label: Hussein Chalayan
Year: 2012
It began when prestigious fashion designer, Hussein Chalayan,
interviewed British artist, Gavin Turk, about "his enduring
preoccupation with the mythical status and identity of the Artist." The
subsequent musical collaboration—inspired from the transcript of their
first meeting—resulted not only in an audio track, but a video
accompaniment made from the perspective of a needle traveling along the
surface of a vinyl record, created by Turk. The work was created as a
part of "Britain Creates 2012," a nationwide effort between visual art
and fashion design. The duo was inspired by artists, Marcel Duchamp and
Roger Bannister, and limited the production of the vinyl to 100 copies,
hand signed by both artists. Unfortunately, the unique "copper master"
was created to self-destruct after a full play on the turntable—the only
way to access it in the precious conversation between two artistic
icons of this generation is to destroy it.
40. Karl Lagerfeld at St. Mortiz's Galerie Gmurzynska "Fire Etchings"
40. Karl Lagerfeld
Label: Karl Lagerfeld
Year: 2013
Beginning on February 19, 2013, designer extraordinaire, Karl
Lagerfeld, will be exhibiting his latest body of work, "Fire Etchings."
The press release reads, in a "new body of artwork by one of the
greatest renaissance personalities of our time...work created from
backlit glass has had its image etched into the surface by fire." These
slick monumental portraits of Lagerfeld's muses (rapper, Theophilus
London, and models, Freja Beha Erichsen and Aymeline Valade) are framed
as Lagerfeld's confident response to contemporary portraiture. In this
particular collaboration, Fashion-Lagerfeld is working with
Art-Lagerfeld in order to form something of a Meta-Lagerfeld that knows
no boundaries between life and art, because all of it is within his
reach. Lagerfeld's
Fire Etchings will be on display at St. Moritz's Galerie Gmurzynska until March 23, 2012.
39. Celestial Bonnet - Stephen Jones and Cerith Wyn Evans
39. Cerith Wyn Evans
Label: Stephen Jones
Year: 2012
Stephen Jones is a respected and highly skilled British milliner, and
Cerith Wyn Evans is a Welsh multimedia artist, whose work ranges from
film and sculpture to more conceptual pieces.
These two fiercely talented men were brought together by the 2012
collaborative effort by the Victoria and Albert Museum, titled "Britain
Creates." Jones' background is in millinery work, but what he creates is
far more than just "a hat." His work is sculptural and has a whimsical
sense of dynamism—brims and swooping translucent crescents defy gravity
effortlessly. Evans' artwork finds itself similarly suspended and
controlled; his 2009 neon sculpture
I=N=V=O=C=A=T=I=O=N looks like the predecessor to Jones' and Evans' collaborative work,
Celestial Bonnet. But
Celestial
seems to have a more amicable quality than Evans' earlier work. The
soothing warm LED bulbs that encircle the center make this bonnet akin
to a multi-dimensional halo (especially when a woman like Florence Welsh
is seen singing in it).
38. Banjo and Matilda x Tracy Emin
38. Tracey Emin
Label: Banjo & Matilde
Year: 2011
Head designer, Bleynda Macpherson, of the Bondi-based cashmere
clothing line, Banjo & Matilde, tapped British Turner Prize nominee,
Tracey Emin, for the brand's annual charity sweater project. Emin's
past work has dealt extensively with sewing, embroidery, and other
traditional craft and textile work, so the pairing seemed quite fitting.
Emin's 2002 work,
Something I've Always Been Afraid Of, the blanket,
I Do Not Expect, and her 2004 appliqué blanket,
It's the Way We Think,
inspired three cashmere pullovers all available for purchase by the
public for a nominal fee of $399. Each cardigan sold contributed to a
$100 donation heading to the Terrence Higgins Trust to raise awareness
for HIV/AIDS. The black and ivory cashmere cardigans look quite
comfortable, and are certainly less expensive, less risqué, and more
philanthropic than Emin's usual artwork.
37. Tint the pallid landscape (off to the wars in lace) - Mary Katranzou x Mark Titchner
37. Mark Titchner
Label: Mary Kantrantzou
Year: 2012
As a part of the "Britain Creates 2012" fashion and art
collaboration, fashion designer, Mary Katrantzou, and artist, Mark
Titchner, created a seven-minute digital video animation and a two part
lenticular print. Katrantzou is best known in the fashion world for her
sumptuous and highly detailed digital prints; her clothes become more
like wearable hi-res digital collages, with images ranging from picket
fences and Ticonderoga pencils to florals and decorative friezes.
Titchner's text-based work won him the prestigious Turner Prize in
2006, and his commitment to residencies in places like Toronto gave him
the opportunity to emblazon billboards with his graphically aggressive
phrases like "BE REAL" and "WE WANT TO ADMIT OUR MISTAKES." The
collaboration blossomed into a playful and densely layered world of
digital imagery. The skills of computer animators allowed the two
graphic worlds of Katrantzou and Titchner to fuse into one. Dizzying,
almost psychedelic patterns undulate behind a slow-moving script as
words like "STAMINA," "STRENGTH," and "AGILITY" float across the screen.
Although the digital video is almost painful to sit through, the
experience between the lenticular print and the video must have proved
for a very trippy afternoon of art.
36. Jeremy Deller for Louis Vuitton London
36. Jeremy Deller
Label: Louis Vuitton
Year: 2009
2004 Turner Prize-winning artist, Jeremy Deller, works a bit
differently than most artists of his generation. Deller is known for
filling institutions like the Tate Britain with bouquets, organizing
countryside concerts, and from February to May of 2012, Hayward Gallery
in London mounted a retrospective of his work entitled "Joy in People."
One could say that Deller's artistic practice is a social practice, and
in the case of his collaboration with Louis Vuitton, that label could
easily apply. Deller was commissioned by the French luxury label to
create an original installation of a garden for the opening of their
boutique in London's Shepherds Bush. Deller said the piece was "designed
as a contemporary symbol of sustainability and natural energy," a
sentiment which is uncannily similar to the feelings of Ebenezer Howard
and the Garden City. Regardless, the art piece was later donated to the
Hammersmith Community Gardens Project. In an interview Deller commented
on "London's love for a good garden,' but there must be a sort of
innocent excitement at seeing plots of dirt, hay, flowers, herbs and
Louis Vuitton merchandise all under the watchful eye of a scarecrow.
Deller installation remained in the boutique space from May 19 to May
26, 2009.
35. RCA Installations at Fendi: Meret Probst's window installation
35. Meret Probst
Label: Fendi
Year: 2011
The students of Britain's Royal College of Art were offered the
opportunity to create installations in the recently opened Sloane Street
Fendi boutique. The young artists were encouraged to incorporate
surplus materials (like dye, and off cuts of leather) for their
installations. Fendi's openness to the students paid off; particularly
in the case of Meret Probst's
Starting with a Blank Canvas that
resided in the front window the Fendi shop was inspired by the colored
leather goods of the legendary label. Probst's display begins in stark
white canvas, with Fendi purses hanging from the bottom. Then, slowly, a
stream of dye is released into a winding polygonal tour down the canvas
and subsequently drips onto the canvas, the bags and the display, and
transforms this peculiar intervention into a 'decorative and
ever-changing picture.'
via
34. Retna, Aiko, and Os Gemeos x Louis Vuitton
34. Retna, Aiko, and Os Gemeos
Label: Louis Vuitton
Year: 2013
Louis Vuitton is both wonderful and awful because the fashion house
knows no bounds. The luxury brand has dabbled into the world of fine
arts, and now with Street Art's ascension into to acceptance in the
'high art world' (think MOCA Los Angeles' "Art in the Streets," and
innumerable documentaries) a collaboration with the legendary brand was
imminent. Then came the exciting but mostly uninformative short film
from Vuitton announcing its collaboration with "three luminaries from
the world of street art" to, as Tokyo-born, Aiko says in the clip,
"break the tradition with wild style." Vuitton also invited Brasilian
twin-brother-team Os Gemeos, and Los Angeles-based graffiti artist Retna
to design a piece for the collection. In addition to the cashmere and
silk stole designed by Retna, he, and another artist by the name of Hox,
were commissioned to paint the façade of the Miami storefront – a North
American first for Louis Vuitton.
via
33. Fendi x Trevi Fountain
33. Trevi Fountain, Rome, Italy
Label: Fendi
Year: 2013 - 2014
Admittedly, this pairing is not such a clear relationship as others
on the list, but culturally, it is incontrovertible that this
collaboration deserves a spot on the list. Italian luxury fashion label
Fendi is the latest to foot the bill for the restoration of Rome's famed
Trevi Fountain. The treasured fountain passed its 250th anniversary
last year, but because of consistently poor management due to lack of
funding, the façade has fallen into disrepair. Creative head of Fendi,
Karl Lagerfeld, made a public statement promising €2.18 million (US$2.93
million) to the restoration of the Trevi Fountain. Fendi follows the
2012 announcement from Tod's (also an Italian fashion house) promise to
finance the restoration efforts to Rome's monumental Coliseum. Fendi's
CEO said the "deal was about reinforcing the brand's historic links with
Rome, where it started as a modest handbag and fur shop and 'giving
back to the city that has hosted us since 1925.'
34. Retna, Aiko, and Os Gemeos x Louis Vuitton
34. Retna, Aiko, and Os Gemeos
Label: Louis Vuitton
Year: 2013
Louis Vuitton is both wonderful and awful because the fashion house
knows no bounds. The luxury brand has dabbled into the world of fine
arts, and now with Street Art's ascension into to acceptance in the
'high art world' (think MOCA Los Angeles' "Art in the Streets," and
innumerable documentaries) a collaboration with the legendary brand was
imminent. Then came the exciting but mostly uninformative short film
from Vuitton announcing its collaboration with "three luminaries from
the world of street art" to, as Tokyo-born, Aiko says in the clip,
"break the tradition with wild style." Vuitton also invited Brasilian
twin-brother-team Os Gemeos, and Los Angeles-based graffiti artist Retna
to design a piece for the collection. In addition to the cashmere and
silk stole designed by Retna, he, and another artist by the name of Hox,
were commissioned to paint the façade of the Miami storefront – a North
American first for Louis Vuitton.
33. Fendi x Trevi Fountain
33. Trevi Fountain, Rome, Italy
Label: Fendi
Year: 2013 - 2014
Admittedly, this pairing is not such a clear relationship as others
on the list, but culturally, it is incontrovertible that this
collaboration deserves a spot on the list. Italian luxury fashion label
Fendi is the latest to foot the bill for the restoration of Rome's famed
Trevi Fountain. The treasured fountain passed its 250th anniversary
last year, but because of consistently poor management due to lack of
funding, the façade has fallen into disrepair. Creative head of Fendi,
Karl Lagerfeld, made a public statement promising €2.18 million (US$2.93
million) to the restoration of the Trevi Fountain. Fendi follows the
2012 announcement from Tod's (also an Italian fashion house) promise to
finance the restoration efforts to Rome's monumental Coliseum. Fendi's
CEO said the "deal was about reinforcing the brand's historic links with
Rome, where it started as a modest handbag and fur shop and 'giving
back to the city that has hosted us since 1925.'
32. Stuart Semple, Cult of Denim, 2008
32. Stuart Semple
Label: 7 For All Mankind, Diesel, JBrand, Levi's and others
Year: 2008
28-year old British artist Stuart Semple teamed up with Selfridge's
department store in London, as well as several popular denim labels
including, 7 For All Mankind, Diesel, JBrand and Levi's among others.
For the in-house exhibition, Semple produced a series of limited-edition
paintings and an installation that reflected on Britain's unwavering
affection for denim, as well denim's continuing role in shaping popular
culture. Semple was given access to the archives of each brand to imbue
each work with the history of the respective brands. Semple was also
invited to design a small line of original merchandise of printed denim,
graphic tees and eight pairs of hand-painted jeans to retail during his
residency at Selfridge's; each one with a 20% proceed going to Refuge, a
campaign to stop domestic violence. And although Semple's exhibition is
about fashion and mass appeal, Stuart is clear "that it's about art,
and not an exercise in brand PR." Semple's
Cult of Denim remained at Selfridge's from October 17 to November 15, 2008.
31. Zaha Hadid x Chanel
31. Zaha Hadid
Label: Chanel
Year: 2008
The London-based architect, Zaha Hadid, designed the mobile Chanel
Pavilion gallery that spent the bulk of 2008 traveling the world. It
began its journey in Hong Kong in February, and then spent time in Tokyo
until the end of July. After the Pavilion's close in Japan, it arrived
in New York City's Central Park—and to much criticism. Amidst the grip
of the recession, Chanel paid a fee of $400,000 to rent the space in the
park and the additional donation to the Central Park Conservancy felt
frivolous. And according to
New York Times' Nicolai Ouroussoff
the whole thing is a "black hole of bad art and superficial
temptations." But criticism aside, Hadid's homage to Chanel's iconic
quilted purse finds the graceful shape of the nautilus-like form that
coils around a central courtyard. Despite the exhibition featuring
internationally renowned artists such as Sophie Calle, Nobuyoshi Araki,
Daniel Buren and Subodh Gupta, the structure holding the artwork steals
the show with its seamless beauty. The hundreds of fiberglass panels and
steel skeleton pieces were designed build the structure in less than a
week; a turnover time that gives Fashion a run for its money.
30. Isaora Artist Series
30. Rostarr, Kenzo Minami, Hisham Akira Bharoocha and others
Label: Isaora
Year: 2012
New York-based clothing brand, Isaora, is a self-proclaimed
"forward-thinking brand," that is engineering clothes to protect the
wearer from the harshest elements. Their clothes are simultaneously
functional and fashionable—even in times of poor weather—when being
fashionable can be a low priority. In perfect step with their
philosophy, Isaora has worked to hold an auction to benefit Waves 4
Water—a foundation that provides assistance to those affected by 2012's
Hurricane Sandy. Isaora distributed one of their riding shell to 13
artists, and requested that each customize the jacket to their liking.
Artists such as Rostarr, KATSU, Craig Redman, Kenzo Minami, Hisham Akira
Bharoocha and others each created an original winter jacket that was
set to be auctioned online. And, in an uncommon (but certainly
appreciated) gesture, 100% of the proceeds to go to Waves 4 Water. After
all, there are few better things than looking good and doing good at
the same time.
29. James Nares x Coach
29. James Nares
Label: Coach
Year: 2012
Although Louis Vuitton may have pioneered the painted monogram in
collaboration with artists like Stephen Sprouse, Coach has taken painted
purses in a different direction. They approached New York-based
abstract painter, James Nares, to collaborate in creating a line of tote
bags to debut in late April of 2012. Nares' signature style of wide,
swirling, spontaneous strokes were translated into a series of six totes
bags, each in limited to editions of 175 in each color: bright pink,
persimmon orange, deep navy blue, cadmium red and vivid green streaks on
a white canvas ground, and a series of a pearlescent-metallic paint
stroke across a black ground. One of these Nares x Coach totes will
retail at about $800, which is by no means the cost of a typical canvas
tote bag, but is far less expensive than the large-scale painted
canvases Nares is used to selling.
28. Matt Groening x Comme des Garcons
28. Matt Groening
Label: Comme des Garcons
Year: 2011
Creative director of Comme des Garcons, Rei Kawakubo, is known for
her unexpected decisions and impeccably unpredictable style. However
this 2011 collaboration with famed animator, Matt Groening (of the
Simpsons and
Futurama) and a slightly more obscure project
Life in Hell,
came as a large surprise to just about everyone. Kawakubo's business
partner and husband, Adrian Joffe, told Style.com that after he had
discovered
Life in Hell, "I told Rei about it, because [as a
fashion designer] your life is hell; to do a new collection every six
months is hell." The collaboration at a glance does not take on as
disenchanted a tone as the comic, but even if it did wouldn't you still
wear it?
27. Keith Haring Foundation x Tommy Hilfiger
27. Keith Haring
Label: Tommy Hilfiger
Year: 2010
Tommy Hilfiger created a limited-edition footwear collection in
collaboration with the Keith Haring Foundation, not only in a gesture of
creative expression, but also of philanthropy. The infamous Haring was
well known for his animated and figurative line drawings, his social and
political activism, as well as other legendary gestures like the "CRACK
IS WACK" mural on 128th Street and 2nd Avenue in New York City—a
response inspired by the crack epidemic of mid-1980s New York. The
artist was diagnosed with AIDS in 1988, and established the Keith Haring
Foundation the year following his diagnosis to provide "funding and
imagery to AIDS organizations." Haring's fashion counterpart in this
collaboration, Tommy Hilfiger, founded the Tommy Hilfiger Corporate
Foundation in 1995 to help to empower America's youth. The collaborative
collection with Hilfiger is being sold at Colette in Paris – one of the
most reputably styled boutiques in the world! Keith Haring has also
found his way to musical artist Beyonce and Lil Wayne, to fashion labels
like Levi Jeans, Joy Rich, Nicholas Kirkwood, Reebok, Zara Urban
Outfitters, and even Kanye West's haircut. Haring's work has always done
the work of blurring the boundary between the visual arts, and even 23
years after his death, his work is continuing to disseminate across the
globe and become more a part of our visual vocabulary.
26. Levi Jeans x Damien Hirst x the Andy Warhol Foundation
26. Damien Hirst
Label: Levi's Jeans
Year: 2008
Notorious British artist, Damien Hirst, is perhaps most recognizable
as the author of the Gagosian dot paintings, or the man who suspends
sharks and bisected calves in formaldehyde tanks, or the artist of the
obnoxiously expensive diamond and platinum skull. The launch of the
collaboration between Hirst, Levi Jeans and the Andy Warhol Foundation
debuted in the bare 'gallery atmosphere' of Levi's Berlin flagship
store. The garments themselves are bold and wild, and defy logical
categorization or commonality, save for their author—Mr. Hirst. Denim
pants and jackets look like they have been run through a hyperactive
spin-paint machine, kaleidoscopic reflections of butterflies make for a
dizzying and hypnotic patterns, and blue jean pockets encrusted with
crystals skulls are nostalgic of Hirst's 2007 piece
For the Love of God.
The exclusive line was sold at retailers like Barneys, New York, Union,
and Fred Segal and American Rag in Los Angeles. As for the
"collaborative" effort—Levi's just seems to have provided Hirst with a
blank canvas and access to a broader commercial reach.
25. Marni x Rop van Mierlo
25. Rop van Mierlo
Label: Marni
Year: 2013
Italian-based brand, Marni, continues its playful collaborations with
artist and illustrators from around the globe. Perhaps one of the most
successful choices has been with Dutch artist, Rop van Mierlo. Mierlo,
based out of Amsterdam, is best known for his recently published
children's book
Wild Animals, which won the Best Dutch Design
Award in 2011. The book features pages of blotchy, watery-diffused
animals: a snake, a rabbit, a lion, a pig, and a squirrel to name a few.
He describes his process as interested in "creating animals he could
not control"—how romantic. Though the entirety of Mierlo's aqueous
menagerie is not featured in Marni's collection—released in mid-January
of 2013—his donkey, parrot, ostrich and tiger don the tops, purses, and
scarves of many of the most popular looks. In a recent interview with
SSENSE
Mierlo was asked, "Your animals seem soft, gentle and sweet. In the
world of the wild animals you paint, would a tiger ever eat a pig? Would
a dog ever bite an ear?" In response he said, "I sure hope so.
Otherwise the pig bites the tiger in the rear."
24. Rodarte x Darren Aronofsky
24. Darren Aronofsky
Label: Rodarte
Year: 2010
During Darren Aronofsky's latest film
Black Swan some audience members fawned over Tchaikovsky's music of
Swan Lake,
others were entranced by the peculiar relationship between Natalie
Portman and Mila Kunis. Amid the drama, the music, and the ballet were
costumes designed by sisters Kate and Laura Mulleavy—also known as
Rodarte. The techniques used by the Mulleavy sisters are more akin to
one of a kind garments, than ready to wear fashion; their hand
treatments involve dying, burning, sanding and weaving to name a few.
And though the sisters have shown at New York's Fashion Week, earned
numerous prestigious awards, their work created for Aronofsky's film
reaches a new level of sumptuous detail. The costumes worn by Portman
and Kunis were later displayed at MOCA Los Angeles' Pacific Design Space
alongside garments from their previous collections. And although
Aronofsky didn't have a direct hand in the making of the costumes for
Black Swan
his input and strong direction was imperative to making the costumes
believable, completely unique to the film, and the experience.
23. Cindy Sherman x Comme des Garcons
23. Cindy Sherman
Label: Comme des Garcons
Year: 1994
This 1994 collaboration with internationally acclaimed photographer,
Cindy Sherman, and avant-garde Japanese fashion designer, Rei Kawakubo,
still holds an edge over a lot of the more recent fashion photography
campaigns. Sherman is best known for her self-portrait series
Untitled Film Stills
that feature a number of typified feminine characters. Sherman,
inspired by Kawakubo's already pointedly unconventional fashion sense is
driven to create a campaign equally unique. The coquettish
personalities of her
Film Stills are replaced by the slumped,
unhappy and imperfect female persona. These photographs confront the
consumer with a model that isn't particularly ideal at all; she floats
in isolated contemplation, caught forever pensive in the frame of
Sherman's photograph. Cindy Sherman would go on to a number of other
fashion-related collaborations moving forward with names like Marc
Jacobs and Balenciaga.
22. Tom Sachs x Nike
22. Tom Sachs
Label: Nike
Year: 2012
New York-based artist, Tom Sachs, introduced the world to his
Space Program 2.0: MARS in May of 2012. Sachs' most recent
Space Program
incarnation was a fully embodied work. Fleets of workers inhabited the
Park Avenue Armory space in New York City from May 16 to June 17. Men
and women were dressed in full astronaut garb, and models of Mars
Rovers, and extraterrestrial artifacts spanned the faux-NASA-headquarter
space. In addition to living out a childhood fantasy of being an
astronaut (especially without any chance of deep space death), Sachs
took his collaborative creation a step further by having Nike join the
league of forces propelling this dream of Space-on-Earth into reality.
And thus NikeCRAFT was born, the line boasted original designs such as
the "Mars Yard Shoe" and specially designed bags and outerwear for the
collaboration. Product descriptions are littered with both clinical and
far-out, playful language. One tote bag for sale by NikeCRAFT is
described as "For everyday superheroes" and comes equipped with a thirty
foot paracord, a grappling hooker, a pry bar and AAA batteries "(or
drugs case)." Fanciful gestures like the latter butt up against
scientific allusions to "JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory)," and "vectran
fabric from the Mars Excursion Rover airbags," and at times fail to
describe anything to most civilians, but are still quirky and fun.
21. Nick Knight and Gareth Pugh (Insensate)
21. Ruth Hogben and Nick Knight
Label: Gareth Pugh
Year: 2008
The team of directors, Ruth Hogben and Nick Knight, at SHOWStudio
brought the world Gareth Pugh's 2008 and 2009 Autumn/Winter
presentation. The team's film "Insensate" took on the indulgent darkness
and kaleidoscopic opulence with a freedom of wandering aimlessness. The
film is accompanied by a soundtrack by composer Matthew Stone, that can
somehow be described as both ambient and thunderous. Myth has it that
this short film, described as a "sinister but beautiful bloom," began
with inspiration from Predator and The Wizard of Oz. And despite the
hypnotic mirrored movements of the images on camera, model Abbey
Lee—featured in the film— remains still for most of her time, moving
only slightly as the titling implies (insensate – meaning to lack
physical sensation). "Insensate" proved to be something of a Rorschach
test for the fashion world, begging the question: "What is a fashion
show? How are clothes meant to be shown?" And while some only saw
meaningless inky blots of black and white, some saw a rather bright and
glittering future.
20. Olaf Breuning x Bally
20. Olaf Breuning
Label: Bally
Year: 2011 - 2012
The Swiss artist, Olaf Breuning, is known for his—and his work's
sense of humor. Breuning is also the second in an ongoing number of
collaboration for the BallyLove series. The Bally—Breuning collaboration
launched on November 30, in conjunction with the opening of Art Basel
Miami Beach's 2011 festivities. The capsule collection designed along
with Bally's Creative Directors Michael Herz and Graeme Fidler, features
everything from women's rubber ballet slippers to men's loafers with
neon lining, to a number of brightly colored satchels, and other
accessories. The pop-up shop was available to the public in the Art
Collectors Lounge of the fair. And alongside the originally-designed
merchandise, are several still-life photographs (created and directed by
Breuning) to re-imagine the late Andy Warhol's iconic Marilyn Monroe
portraits. In an interview with
Interview magazine, Breuning
explained, "It seems so many great things are already done in the past,
and as a contemporary artist, it is more and more difficult to be a
pioneer. I always loved Andy's Marilyn's and...I want to honor them in
my own language." Following the debut of the collection at Art Basel
Miami Beach, the collection was available online from April 2012, then
in select Bally flagship stores worldwide.
19. Francesco Vezzoli x Prada - 24 Hour Museum
19. Francesco Vezzoli
Label: Prada
Year: 2012
Why try to make an object to put in a museum, when you could make a
museum of your own? Italian "super team," artist, Francesco Vezzoli, and
fashion designer, Miuccia Prada, decided that perhaps an entire museum
was too extreme, but maybe a 24-hour occupation of the Palais d'lena in
Paris was enough. The museum opened on January 24, 2012 to much public
excitement. The day was filled with student tours, press conferences and
eventually, a celebratory dinner. The halls were lit by garish pink
neon, and the galleries were filled with neo-classical sculptures and
light-up busts of recognizable celebrities. Vezzoli and Prada are no
strangers to sensationalism; Vezzoli has created faux film trailers with
big names such as Roman Polanski, and commercials for non-existent
designer products with the likes of Natalie Portman. A
Huffington Post article about the
24 Hour Museum
collaboration spoke of Vezzoli's ability to "create unabashed kitsch
monsterpieces," which on first glance sounds harsh, but perhaps it is
both Vezzoli and Prada's unique ability to create playful, seductive,
kitschy and wholly-consuming commercial monsters that makes their
collaboration all the more undeniably wonderful.
18. Anselm Reyle x Christian Dior
18. Anselm Reyle
Label: Christian Dior
Year: 2012
In the tradition of the designer Christian Dior, a professed
art-lover and the founding father of the iconic fashion label, the brand
sought out Berlin painter and sculptor, Anselm Reyle, in hopes of a
collaboration for the 2012 Spring/Summer season. What came as a result
were flats, wedges, clutches and classic Dior handbags emblazoned in
metallic lambskin and ombré neon camouflage, that do anything but blend
in. The jewelry wore the same boldness in cobalt and hot pink. The
chunky leather and metal detailing of the jewelry created a quirky
tension with the pearlescent baubles that hung between them. As the
New York Times
review of the collection put it: Reyle "didn't turn the house on its
head so much as on its side." The article refers to Reyle's 45-degree
tilt to the classic Dior quilting that is featured on a number of the
totes and handbags in the limited-edition collection. The Reyle x Dior
effort debuted at Dior's pop-up shop at Art Basel Miami on November 28
and remained open until mid-December. The collection was also released
to six boutiques around the globe including Los Angeles, Tokyo, London
and Paris, until the end of March.
17. Pringle of Scotland and Liam Gillick Pop-up Shop at Miami Basel
17. Liam Gillick
Label: Pringle of Scotland
Year: 2011
British artist, Liam Gillick, and Pringle of Scotland design
director, Alistair Carr, came together and created an accessories and
knitwear capsule collection aptly named
'liamgillickforpringleofscotland'. The collection's aesthetic
inspiration began with Gillick's paintings; his tendency towards color
blocking of bold and often unusual chromatic pairings rings clear
throughout the line. As a part of a preview for the collaboration,
Gillick also created runway benches for Pringle's women's show at London
Fashion Week in September 2011. The benches were inscribed with text
fragments from his then unpublished book titled Construction of One.
Gillick described the collaboration with Carr as a game of
"Ping-Pong"—as Gillick generated the color palette, Carr created the
silhouettes. In a Dazed Digital interview regarding the
collaboration, Gillick said, "I have always been interested in Pringle
making wearable things that cross-over class structures." And when asked
what exactly the fashion-collaboration qualified as, Gillick simply
replied, "it is intended to operate as an integrated aspect of my work
for Pringle—meaning that it is not entirely one thing or another."
16. David Lynch x Christian Louboutin
16. David Lynch
Label: Christian Louboutin
Year: 2007
This 2007 collaboration between filmmaker, David Lynch, and French
footwear designer, Christian Louboutin, produced photographs and
artifacts expected of such an auspicious pairing. The designs produced
by Louboutin go beyond footwear—most brink on complete dysfunction in
terms of their walkability—and take on a more sculptural aura. The
tallest heel among the bunch measures at 26 centimeters, but Louboutin's
noted favorite in the collection was the pair of fused Siamese heels.
But sculpture was not enough for Louboutin; "I find there's more emotion
with cinematic images. I wanted Lynch' style...it was natural for me to
ask him." The photographs directed and shot by Lynch reinforce the
relic-like quality of the five pairs of shoes on display, and elicit the
same dark theatrics of Lynch's filmic work.
15. Liu Bolin x Missoni, Valentino, Lanvin & Jean Paul Gaultier
15. Liu Bolin
Label: Missoni, Lanvin, Jean Paul Gaultier and Valentino
Year: 2012
Liu Bolin may be painting every fashionista's favorite designer, but
the origins of his art are by no means glamorous. Up until the
demolition in 2005, Bolin worked in an artists' village in Beijing; he
was forced to stand helpless as his studio was leveled by a decision of
the Chinese government. In reaction, he created the work
Hiding in the City,
which showed—or obscured showing—Bolin in a series of portraits that
begin at the rubble of the artists' village. In an interview with
Harper's Bazaar he reminds readers, "It is very difficult for Chinese
artists to earn their living; we are all martyrs of art." Although the
initial intentions of his work are in the vein of protest, Bolin's
latest works with fashion designers: Angela Missoni (of knitwear label
Missoni), Jean Paul Gaultier, Alber Elbaz (of Lanvin) and Maria Grazia
Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli (of Valentino), take on a more
lighthearted tone. In the same Harper's Bazaar article Bolin explains
that it takes hours to stage one photograph and innumerable additional
hours to paint the subject into place—sometimes allegedly up to five
days. In a gesture of bridging Chinese culture's infatuation with
'Western brands' he "hid each designer in his or her own designs. You
think about the relationship between the world we create and ourselves."
14. Keith Haring x Nicholas Kirkwood
14. Keith Haring
Label: Nicholas Kirkwood
Year: 2011
For men, women and everyone in between there are shoes—and then there
are "shoes." The latter is capped in quotation marks to imply that all
footwear is (and was) not created equal. And footwear designer Nicholas
Kirkwood is on-trend with high quality shoes as usual; this time with
his collaboration with the Keith Haring Foundation. While the collection
was only available exclusive to the Joyce boutique in Hong Kong, the
full collection was released at Mr. Kirkwood's newly opened retail space
on Mount Street in London beginning in July of 2011. Kirkwood has used
Haring's classics like Safe Sex and Radiant Baby in a
bold and playful way that not only points to Haring's genius as a
legible illustrator but also to Kirkwood's clever and elegant
appropriation of Haring's imagery.
13. Josef Albers, Daniel Buren and Hiroshi Sugimoto x Hermes
13. Josef Albers, Daniel Buren, and Hiroshi Sugimoto
Label: Hermes
Year: 2012
Some people can't have too many scarves, and if the brand Hermès was a
person, they would be one of them. The company continues in its
tradition of seeking out the most innovative prints for the iconic
Hermès scarf by extending invitations to contemporary artists to
collaborate in their creation. The continuing collaborative project is
called Hermès Editeur, and consists (thus far) of three
collaborations: German artist, Josef Albers, French artist, Daniel Buren
and Japanese photographer, Hiroshi Sugimoto. The (extremely) limited
edition scarves range from ones resembling Albers' most well known
square-shaped studies of color, to Sugimoto's polaroids of prismatically
reflected and diffracted light, and 365 originally designed scarves by
Buren—one for each day of the year.
12. Hugo Guinness x Coach
12. Hugo Guiness
Label: Coach
Year: 2012
Leather goods brand, Coach, has a knack for picking
artist-collaborators. Continuing their trendy trajectory, they tapped
New York-based printmaker and illustrator, Hugo Guinness, to design a
line of limited edition leather totes, laptop cases, wallets and other
satchels embossed with his simple and charming illustrations. There are
few critiques, and seeing as any of the Coach x Guinness merchandise
would instantly up the fashion quotient for any man, woman or child,
others probably don't have any either.
11. Dinos and Jake Chapman x Louis Vuitton
11. Dinos and Jake Chapman
Label: Louis Vuitton
Year: 2013
The handsomely utilitarian Autumn/Winter 2013 menswear collection for
Louis Vuitton was designed by Kim Jones. Jones' inspiration led him to
the Himalayas for research, and he came back with a particular affection
for the mysterious Kingdom of Bhutan. It is from Jones' sights and
travels that the snow leopard and the tigers paths, both in the
mountains of the Himalayas as well as the collection. Jones went out on
another limb and commissioned the notorious Anglo-Greek Chapman Brothers
(Jake and Dinos) to design a print for the collection—one fittingly
based on the 'Garden in Hell.' In an interview Jones' said "This was the
phrase Diana Vreeland famously used to describe her apartment. It was
something we both responded to, that and all of the unusual animals to
be found in the Himalayas." Their illustrious print was the Chapman
Brothers' take on the French baroque floral print, and features
"surprising elements to the creeping floral design" like hybridized
creatures like oversized bloodshot eyeballs, feathered with bird's feet,
strange looking owls and mélange of offbeat blossoms. The textile made
its debut (in red and blue, respectively) in the eveningwear portion of
the show, first as a blazer, then as a coat, pants, and bag, then
culminating in a head-to-toe print finale.
10. Roger Hiorns x Raf Simons
10. Roger Hiorns
Label: Raf Simons
Year: 2008
In 2008, the Belgian fashion designer, Raf Simons, invited British
artist, Roger Hiorns, to alter the interior of his retail space in
Osaka, Japan. After its transformation the view was simultaneously
confusing and breathtaking. The floors glimmered with the warmth of
copper and the walls disappeared into multi-faceted reflections of
Simons' chic menswear offerings. Simons invited Los Angeles-based
artist, Sterling Ruby, and Hiorns to take over his respective flagship
boutiques in Tokyo (for Ruby), and in Osaka (for Hiorns) in the same
year. The Tokyo interior is at times chaotic, each square inch of space
firmly rooted and almost leading to the next. The Osaka interior seems
to dissolve into itself; the floors into the walls, the walls into
themselves, and eventually the customer into the space spiraling into
what Hiorns calls "the consumer's search for self-affirmation." Although
Hiorns speaks of 'self-affirmation' it feels like all of the dizzying
reflections might make a consumer more self-conscious—so, hopefully the
lighting is flattering. Regardless of flattery or not—the space is
beautiful, and quite the foil to Simon's Tokyo counterpart.
9. Richard Prince x Louis Vuitton
9. Richard Prince
Label: Louis Vuitton
Year: 2008
In 2007, Marc Jacobs approached American artist, Richard Prince, and
asked him if he was interested in collaboration for one of Louis
Vuitton's upcoming collections. As Jacobs recalls, Richard Prince "asked
me, what about Louis Vuitton after dark?" From that question something
crazy and beautiful was born. Their collaboration proved fruitful: the
collections (from clothing to accessories) were well received, and
Prince's nurse paintings came to life on Paris' runway and beyond.
Vuitton's accessory line seemed to expand exponentially with all the
iterations of Prince-inspired merchandise. Prince's Joke painting texts
made their way to side panels of hand bags with snakeskin handles; the
infamous Vuitton monogram was scaled up and down, woven into denim,
embroidered onto multicolored fabric, and printed on vinyl in humming
pinks and teals. The shoes and jewelry felt haphazard and
glamorous—almost like Jacobs and Prince made something from all the
leftovers, but something enviable and still oozing with confidence.
8. Raf Simons x Sterling Ruby
8. Sterling Ruby
Label: Raf Simons
Year: 2008 - 2009
The internationally acclaimed Belgian fashion designer, Raf Simons,
invited German-born, Los Angeles-based artist, Sterling Ruby, in 2008 to
use his "Tokyo boutique as a canvas." Sterling's intervention
transformed the store's interior from a clinical white space into
something that in some ways is hard to describe. The walls were left
white by Ruby, and in his typical style, appears to have haphazardly
thrown paint everywhere and ended up with something beautiful,
simultaneously minimal, and chaotically expressive. The plinths used to
display the clothing are black with bleach splashed across them (a
technique favored by Ruby in his textile manipulation work), which
creates a seductive and unifying tension between the architecture
holding the clothes, and the greater structure holding the entirety of
the shop. The slight tonal varieties and organic veins of color converts
what appears to be drywall into a material more akin to marble in a
gesture of a sort of beguiling decadence. The collaboration between the
two creatives was so copacetic that Simons brought on Ruby to create a
unique capsule collection following the same aesthetic theme of Tokyo
boutique installation the following year. Simons and Ruby have continued
their collaborative relationship as recently as 2012, when Simons
created fabric with images of four of Ruby's recent works. The textiles
debuted as a part of Simon's premiere haute couture collection with
design house Christian Dior.
7. Merce Cunningham x Rei Kawakubo
7. Merce Cunningham
Label: Comme des Garcons
Year: 1997
Rei Kawakubo first started designing under the name Comme des Garçons
in 1969, and since then she has been making her name known as one of
the foremost avant-garde fashion designers in the world. Merce
Cunningham was making himself known under similar terms, but within the
dance context. Kawakubo had always "shared similar creative philosophies
with Merce Cunningham, including interests in engaging multiple
artistic disciplines and aggressively pushing the boundaries of the
unknown." After Cunningham's initial offer to give her complete freedom
in designing the costumes and the set, Kawakubo declined. As myth has
it, while working on her notorious spring collection of 1997, titled
"Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body," she changed her mind. The
collection was an aggressive response to her feelings of boredom with
fashion. She padded the dresses in a way to reshape the body under new
circumstances—her own circumstances. Similarly to the "Body Meets Dress"
collection, the costumes Kawakubo designed for her collaborative work
with Cunningham (tilted Scenario) featured the same "irregular
bulges on the dancers' hips, shoulders, chests, and backs." Wearing
these costumes altered the dancers' proportions, their balance, sense of
space, and even their fundamental extent of movement. This experimental
collaboration between Cunningham and Kawakubo transcends boundaries of
art, fashion, costumes design, set design, dance and performance; their
partnership should stand to remind us that there really isn't that much
of a difference between those categories at all.
6. Juergen Teller x Marc Jacobs
6. Juergen Teller
Label: Marc Jacobs
Year: 1998 - Present
It all began in 1998, and many of us can't even remember what Marc Jacobs (the brand) looked like
before
Juergen Teller. Teller's overexposed and slightly rosy tint make his
photographs feel more like adventurous polaroids between friends than
esoteric fashion photography. His imagery is playful but always with a
little tinge of deflation, grunge or raunchiness—like Jacobs' clothing.
Since the auspicious beginnings of the Teller-Jacobs collaboration in
1998, Marc Jacobs' ads have become a celebrity fashion yearbook with
notable subjects like Winona Ryder, Sofia Coppola, Helen Bonham Cater,
Dakota Fanning and photographer Cindy Sherman.
5. Daniel Buren x Louis Vuitton
5. Daniel Buren
Label: Louis Vuitton
Year: 2012
2012 brought the collaboration between the legendary French artist,
Daniel Buren (known for his striped posters and conceptual art work),
and the legendary fashion house, Louis Vuitton (with Marc Jacobs serving
as the creative head). Jacobs sought out Buren to offer his
collaboration in the coming season and to extend gratitude for Buren's
installation of the controversial work Les Deux Plateux; a work that
served as a point of great inspiration for Jacobs and the Spring/Summer
collection. Buren created the extravagant set of the highly anticipated
Louis Vuitton runway show as a site-specific installation. Everything
from the escalators to the immaculate yellow and white checked floor was
a result of Buren's design and Jacobs' enabling. The work of Buren
seemed to fit in seamlessly with Jacobs' collection for Louis Vuitton;
stripes and the grid were frequent motifs in Buren's work, but also
within the graphic culture of Louis Vuitton (as in the Damier check).
Apparently the co-mingling of these two creative powers was so
invigorating that Buren lent his time and talents to working on the
advertising campaign and storefronts for Louis Vuitton after the close
of the show. In a December 2012 interview with
Vogue, Buren said of Jacobs' work: "And I must say I found it very, very beautiful, very strict, very strongly architectural."
4. Björk x Alexander McQueen
4. Björk
Label: Alexander McQueen
Year: 1997 - 2010
This epic relationship began when Icelandic native Björk released her fourth record,
Homogenic
in 1997 – and the image that held the album cover got nearly as much
press as the music. The "elfin chanteuse" her fans had come to love had
transformed into a different almost unrecognizable creature; a creature
that, today we know was borne from her collaborative conversations with
then, 26-year old Alexander McQueen. "When I went to Alexander McQueen, I
explained to him the person who wrote these songs—someone who was put
into an impossible situation, so impossible that she had to become a
warrior...a warrior who had to fight not with weapons but with love."
The respective work of these two creative geniuses seemed to discuss
similar themes of man, nature and machine. The two went on to
collaborate several times: McQueen directed Björk's video for "Alarm
Call," and in 2003, the pair reunited for a Fashion Rocks! performance,
where she sported a McQueen gown and crystal mask for the finale of her
performance. McQueen was also responsible for Björk's fantastical
bell-covered dress worn in the 2004 video "Who Is It?" And in a 2003
conversation between Björk and McQueen with
Index magazine, he
said of his own designs that sound like it could have come from either
virtuoso, "my work is always in some way directed by nature. It needs to
connect with the earth. Things that are processed and reprocessed lose
their substance."
3. Ed Ruscha x Stella McCartney
3. Ed Ruscha
Label: Stella McCartney
Year: Hopefully 2013
Successful fashion designer, Stella McCartney, and legendary artist,
Ed Ruscha, participated in a recorded conversation for the Sundance
Channel program "Iconoclasts" and pitched each other ideas for a
potential collaboration. So, this entry is here because perhaps if we
all wish hard enough, this seductive and timely pairing will materialize
sooner.
2. Yayoi Kusama x Louis Vuitton
2. Yayoi Kusama
Label: Louis Vuitton
Year: 2012
2012 was a good year for Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. She is best
known for her use of polka dots, and a retrospective exhibition of her
artwork was shown at two major international museums over the course of
one year. If you don't recognize her name, you may have seen the dotted
flower sculpture of Beverly Hills or the
Yellow Trees that enveloped the Whitney Museum development in the Meatpacking District of Manhattan. Kusama told
Women's Wear Daily,
"Marc Jacobs came to see me in Tokyo in 2006, and he asked me if I
wanted to come to the States and do fashion. That sort of encouraged me
because...Fashion has always attracted me." From this 2006 encounter,
blossomed a series of garments, window fronts and shop designs
that—thanks to Jacobs' collaboration—made Kusama's artistic visions come
alive across the globe. Unfortunately, the clothes paled in comparison
to the graphic and hypnotic storefronts. Most notable was London's
Selfridge department store that featured Kusama's favored giant
pumpkins—and subsequently, a completely sold out collection. Printemps
in Paris donned mirrored window fronts with polka dotted mannequins and
silver baubles reminiscent of Kusama's 1966
Narcissus Garden work.
1. Takashi Murakami x Louis Vuitton x MOCA Los Angeles
1. Takashi Murakami
Label: Louis Vuitton
Year: 2007
Amidst the millions of anime eyes and smiling flowers of Tokyo-born
pop-artist Takashi Murakami's 2007 exhibition "Superflat," was the
world's most indulgent museum shop. Monographs, posters, and key chains
were reserved for MOCA's actual in-house store, a Louis Vuitton
pop-up establishment with thousand-dollar totes. The monogrammed
merchandise featured familiar characters and motifs of Murakami's and
was specially designed for the in-situ boutique. The gesture was an
unprecedented one for any American art museum, and in an interview at
the opening of the exhibition, supermodel Linda Evangelista was asked by
a reporter, "What do you think of this synergy of art and fashion?" Her
response, "Well, it certainly makes fashion more interesting." The
collaboration that began in 2003 as multicolored L's and V's had evolved
into so much more. The cultural titans of 'high art' and 'high fashion'
collided, and found their clash to be mutually beneficial; although it
seems that there has yet to be as confident a move since.
