While the crossover of fashion and art is not a new phenomenon, the nature of these partnerships have definitely changed and evolved over time. The marriage of art and fashion dates back to many years ago, when they were united through common goals of making their work accessible. “I remember the collaboration of Andy Warhol and Yves Saint Laurent that saw the marriage of fashion and art,” says Tina Tahiliani, executive director at Ensemble.
Be it Chanel, Celine, Raf Simons or Prada — designers are looking at Expressionism and Surrealism genres of art to give their creations a new energy. Recent runway shows have seen designers like Christopher Bailey of Burberry deriving inspiration from the artists of 20th century London and Thom Browne tying up with Stephen Jones to create exaggerated animal kingdom-inspired headgears. 2014 clearly seems to be the year of the arts.
A marriage of the art and fashion
“Vivan Sundaram’s show is also noteworthy in this context, specially his recent show where he worked with the genre of fashion and popular culture. His show used all kinds of reusable materials into garments on dummies. He even used tampons and garbage bags. It was stunning. Collaborating with artists brings a new kind of creative abundance to a brand. The Indian scenario definitely seems like a promising one. One example that comes to mind is Madhu Jain’s retrospective works which boasts of influences of Raja Ravi Varma’s paintings,” adds Tina.
Designer Hemant Sagar of Lecoanet Hemant says, “The trend of artistic collaborations has been dominant in the West with brands coming up with interesting concepts. However, in India it is still at a nascent stage and I see the trend growing in the future. At this point, I feel that both the artists and designers need to break the mould to come up with interesting concepts that will create a buzz within the industry. We tried to do something different by partnering with Bonjour India to create art installations with real light sculptures and projections.”
In Indian context
Shradha Murarka, Creative Director and Designer of Vizyon says, “This interrelation between art and fashion has been greatly explored in one of Vizyon’s collections called ‘The Golden Age’ that shows the direct influence that I draw from art in my creations. This collection was inspired by the beauty and intricacies of Art Deco jewellery, architecture and the paintings of Tamara de Lempicka and this was seen in its avant-garde silhouettes that played ingeniously with symmetry and geometry.”
Art and fashion closer than ever before
Designer Manish Arora says, “Art and fashion are more closely tied than ever before. There are some instances where a designer becomes an artist and an artist becomes a designer. As through my designs one can see that I have always been an apostle for art, however I stick to the beauty of visualisation. My upcoming Indian and Paris Autumn/Winter 14 line is an example of such. Even though they are poles apart there’s an ultra-artistic blend of fashion and various genres of art being put together. Also, there are a number of collaborations such as my continuous work with Amrapali jewellery for the fourth season in a row.”
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