A Match Made in Heaven: Memorable Artist x Designer Collaborations

The longstanding love affair between artists and designers is nothing new, with iconic collaborations, like Piet Mondrian and Yves Saint Laurent’s graphic dresses from 1965 and Cindy Sherman and Comme des Garçons’ 1994 photo series, setting standards high. Investigating more recent examples of this tradition, Something Curated takes a look at some the most inspiring collaborations of the past five years.

Marc Quinn x Dior

Coinciding with the unveiling of the House of Dior earlier this month, the stately double-fronted townhouse on Bond Street redesigned by Peter Marino, and the staging of the label’s Cruise collection at Blenheim Palace, British artist, Marc Quinn created a vivid collection of handbags and accessories in collaboration with the French fashion house. The collection, which will only be sold at the new London store in limited editions, draws on his archive of flower canvases, created in the style of the Dutch still-life paintings popular in the 17th century.

Orchids have been a source of inspiration for the artist for nearly two decades. They have featured as giant glossy sculptures in bronze and ice, and on canvases, streaked with drippy rainbows of paint, so supersized that their floral contours are rendered alien. So it’s perhaps no surprise that these otherworldly blooms should find their way into Quinn’s latest collaboration with Dior.

Quinn notes: “The bag is a sculptural form that allows you to work with the imagery in a very different way than a flat surface because you can repeat, change the format or reverse it.”

Though Quinn’s work is often vested in complex sets of ideas, he’s clearly not averse to making art with a practical sense of purpose. The artist has conceived a ten piece line comprised of five Lady Dior bags, in an assortment of sizes, together with pouches, cardholders and a Croisière clutch, clad in his signature hyperreal prints. The artist enjoys the process of making a two-dimensional object in a three-dimensional way, applying his photorealist imagery to its calfskin and metallised lambskin surfaces. The structured, shapely lines of the renowned Lady Dior bag, which first launched in 1995 during the tenure of late Italian designer Gianfranco Ferré, proved an ideal canvas for Quinn.

 

Yayoi Kusama x Louis Vuitton

During his time at luxury fashion house Louis Vuitton, from 1997 to 2014, Marc Jacobs, a famously keen art collector, initiated collaborations with several contemporary artists, including Richard Prince and Takashi Murakami. But the partnership with Yayoi Kusama, launched in 2012, perhaps produced the most vibrant and varied collection of products to date.

Celebrating Kusama’s unique style with the Infinity Dots collection, Louis Vuitton presented a ready-to-wear and accessories line, inspired by the artist’s most representative works, designed in collaboration with creative director at the time, Jacobs. Bold, playful and not for the faint-hearted, the offering features the artist’s signature polka dots, which cover every item, from bags to dresses. The range remains the house’s most significant artist collaboration since it teamed up with Steven Sprouse in 2001 to create his now-iconic graffiti bags.

For the collection’s launch, Kusama designed theatrical window displays for Louis Vuitton’s Bond Street store, and a pumpkin pop-up shop for Selfridges on Oxford Street, which also devoted its windows to the collection.

In the 1970s Kusama created clothes stocked by outlets such as Bloomingdales, and proudly professes she could have moved into fashion. “I’ve been active in many different spheres of the arts, whether it be writing novels, creating fashion or pure art by itself. What I would like to put across through all of my art is, I suppose, questions of what human life is, what humans are about, what the earth is about, what the universe is about. And the single message is, really, “love forever”,” the artist says. These two words adorn much of the merchandise; though the slogan might seem initially trite we should consider that Kusama lived through a devastating war and saw nuclear bombs wipe out two Japanese cities. For her it is not mere branding but rather a message she has spent her life communicating.

 

Sterling Ruby x Raf Simons

Arguably Raf Simons is the most compelling menswear designer of his generation. In 2014 the designer put his own brand on sabbatical to create a one-season-only label with American artist Sterling Ruby. Simons’ interest in art is well documented: he has previously staged his catwalk at the Gagosian gallery on the outskirts of Paris with models weaving through artworks. In 2007, a sculpture by Conrad Shawcross was used as part of a show set. Since he set up his menswear label in 1995, Simons’ clothes have been explorations of youth culture, teenage rebellion and examinations of masculinity.

At the presentation of their collaboration, sculptures by Ruby hung from the ceiling and painted flags were draped on the catwalk. Models stepped over them as they walked to Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, wearing hand-painted coats swung over narrow trousers and oversized boots. The word ‘fathers’ appeared on coats and sweaters alongside images of open-mouthed sharks, and bleached matching shirt and trouser sets were paired with duffle bags. Long-time friends, Simons had referenced Ruby’s paintings in his debut haute-couture collection for Christian Dior in 2012.

Working in tandem, from conception to the creation of fabrics, the pair set out to create wearable clothes, not objects to hang in a gallery. If Simons is known for a precise eye with minimalist sci-fi tendencies, Ruby’s work is the opposite; spray-painted canvases that look like sprawling landscapes, ceramics that appear to drip and handcrafted mixed media collages. Stand the two side by side, Simons with his neat haircut and slim black trousers, Ruby with his dishevelled locks, boots and splattered denim shirt, and the aesthetic difference is palpable. But it is this tension, coupled with a shared interest in subcultures, music and art that has made their collection feel so alive and, vitally, new.

 

Olaf Breuning x Bally

At 2012’s Art Basel Miami Beach, Bally, the Swiss luxury goods maker, unveiled a playful collaboration with artist Olaf Breuning. The brand’s creative directors, Michael Herz and Graeme Fidler, worked closely with the Swiss-born artist, based in New York for the last decade, to produce a limited edition range of products. Staying true not only to Bally’s commitment to craftsmanship but also to Breuning’s tongue-in-cheek approach to art making, the collection is colourful, light-hearted and modern.

The artwork on vintage Bally posters reminded the artist of his 2010 project, “Marilyns”, where he juxtaposed black against bold colours, covering models’ bodies in black with the exception of their hair and faces, which he injected with a rainbow of ultra bright hues. Using the same concept to create a collaborative artwork presented alongside the collection, Breuning covered the bodies and faces of models in white paint, with the exception of gloves, shoes, wigs, and handbags, which he covered in an array of vivid shades, and photographed on a black background.

Taking inspiration from the playful aesthetic of his own artwork, along with Bally’s signature colours, Breuning developed the lively BallyLove #2 capsule collection, including women’s shoes, men’s loafers, handbags, scarves, iPad cases and key chains. The bright colours and motif of the Swiss-born artist’s illustration run through the line. The signature trademark of the Olaf Breuning BallyLove #2 collaboration is an embossed face, adding a notably whimsical touch to the luxury leather goods.

Text by Keshav Anand