Discovering (seven) new talents between Art and Fashion

16 Apr 2018

We live in a historic moment that has seen the emergence of ""projects"" that see art and business intertwined. The Louis Vuitton Foundation and the Abu Dhabi Louvre projects are recent examples. We should reflect on the exceptional numbers who attended the Christian Dior Paris exhibition, the media relevance given to the Musée Yves Saint Laurent opening in Paris and Marrakech. Then we have the sell-out Caravaggio exhibition at Palazzo Reale, in Milan, the endless queues outside the Uffizi and the flourishing of art-related shows and publications. In an era when fashion shows become entertainment and are placed in historic venues, it makes us wonder what the link between Art and Fashion is.

After all, fashion has an intrinsic need to be functional, temporary, ephemeral and to refer to real life practically. It is closely linked to the world of crafts and industry.

Seen from this perspective, it seems to be far from the ideal of art pour l’art. Art and fashion have faced off, often peering suspiciously at one another.

If artists were fascinated by clothing as an essential tool to give realism to their depictions, the great tailors, the couturiers and the creative people of our millennium, have drawn their inspirations from the art world and assumed attitudes that made them like artists.

We have faced the theme of this "complicated" relationship that is close to our heart and we debate daily within the walls of our company. So, we have created a challenge which we have assigned to seven young students from the prestigious Brera Academy in Milan. They are students who by choice and vocation are married to a purely artistic path, attending the School of Painting and Decoration.

It is a choice apparently far from the fashion business, with its timing, commercial dynamics and distribution logic. We invited them to look at three broad themes. They were close, but not too close, to our textile designers who daily adapt their creativity to the fashion diktats. We left them free to create their works on silk, using mixed techniques.

Emotional rhythms, unfolding of thoughts and marking the time in their imagination were their only rules. Extraordinary works were created. Works without a commercial function but that could still work commercially – amazing imaginative and brilliant designs that could become the basis for a 1001 fabrics. Ideas. Some more conceptual, others more decorative, many extremely "complete", others left deliberately unfinished. Paths, possibilities, pure creativity.

We would have liked to reward them all, these fabulous young people, millennials armed with brush and ink. We had to choose and reward only one who could express themselves, unfortunately within certain parameters, and give a personal answer to the question: what is the relationship between Art and Fashion?

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Discovering (seven) new talents between Art and Fashion