Creative Collaborations: On the History of Art-Fashion Collaborations

In many places in art and fashion, the signs are currently pointing to collaboration, or rather collaboration as it is called in the fashion world. A somewhat unwieldy term that one stumbles over again and again because it doesn't quite fit the idea itself - the fruitful, creative collaboration of contemporary artists with fashion brands. 

Art-fashion collaborations are not a new phenomenon. Their beginnings date back to the early 20th century, when artists such as the Belgian painter and architect Henry van de Velde first turned to designs for women's clothing. Probably the most famous collaboration is the one between Italian fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli and her artist friend Salvador Dalí. In Paris in the late 1930s, the duo shocked the couture world of the time with bizarre, surrealist designs: a hat in the shape of a shoe, for example, or a dress modelled on the human skeleton. Andy Warhol also turned fashion into art. His "Campbell's Soup" dress from 1960 went down in history and can be found today in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York. 

In addition to big brands like Louis Vuitton, which have been collaborating with famous artists for decades, smaller labels are increasingly entering into creative dialogue with the art world and creating exciting designs. We have summarised the most interesting collaborations of the new season.

For the second time, Louis Vuitton has teamed up with Swiss conceptual artist Urs Fischer. The eagerly awaited result is a playful reinterpretation of the iconic Louis Vuitton monogram, which was created by Georges Vuitton in 1896. Along with Jeff Koons and Yayoi Kusama, Fischer is now one of the few international artists who have been allowed to completely redesign the Monogram motif.

For the joint collection, Urs Fischer has redesigned the Monogram into hand-drawn, enlarged and distorted versions, which he calls "memory sketches".
"Given the ubiquitous status of the Monogram motif, I decided to hand-draw it quite spontaneously, almost as if I were sketching it from memory," he explains. The new line includes ready-to-wear, leather goods, shoes and accessories in the two contrasting colour combinations of black-red and black-white. 

Bottega Veneta's creative director Daniel Lee collaborated with German artist Rosemarie Trockel for the presentation of his 2021 summer collection. The fashion house has launched three illustrated books that give an insight into creative processes. The designer himself starts with pictures that inspired him to design the new collection. 

Book 02, entitled "The Importance of Wearing Clothes", was written by Rosemarie Trockel, who is best known for her knitting pictures. The artist uses them to explore traditional notions of femininity, feminist issues, and theories of sexuality. In the book, she looks at the process of making clothes in short stories, collages, and photographs and shows those pieces that did not make it into the collection. For the third book, Tyrone Lebon, Daniel Lee's long-time professional partner, photographed the looks of the new collection.

There are only a few bags that manage to join the ranks of timeless legends: the emblematic Lady Dior is one of them. For the fifth time, the fashion house has invited ten contemporary artists from around the world to give this classic a new look with the "Lady Dior Art" project. Among them are renowned greats such as the feminist US artist Judy Chicago or Claire Tabouret, who immortalised herself on the bag with a self-portrait as a vampire. The design by renowned conceptual artist Song Dong is particularly exciting.

One of China's most exhibited contemporary artists, Song Dong made a name for himself in the 1990s with imaginative installations, performances, and multimedia works. He transformed the Lady Dior into a minaudière-style "Windows Bag". Colourfully framed mirror elements are reminiscent of a kaleidoscope and are meant to symbolise the many facets of our personality that change through external influences - such as light and shadow. 

At Berluti, creative director Kris Van Assche has found new digital ways of creative collaboration in the wake of the Corona pandemic. Per Zoom, he has collaborated with an artist for the first time for his Ready-to-Wear Menswear Spring/Summer 2021 collection. Van Assche, who has been collecting ceramics for many years, chose Californian ceramic artist Brian Rochefort. 

In a behind-the-scenes video, we learn how Rochefort's colourful ceramic objects found their way into the collection - between the Berluti studio in Paris and the artist's studio in LA. Rochefort's sculptures are reminiscent of volcanic rock in futuristic rainbow colours. Van Assche had them photographed and then printed on shirts or transferred into knitting patterns.