Jeremy Scott has taken the Moschino brand into a very interesting place since he took over as creative director in 2013. My impression of Moschino in the past was that it was, well, a rather trashy line to put it indelicately. But Scott's imagination, inspirations, and bravado have made the house interesting to me. And for the Fall-Winter '16-'17 collection shown at London Collections: Men, Scott's inspiration proved to be a fruitful collaboration with the legendary modern artists Gilbert and George. That they would work with a fashion house to create works of art seems completely in keeping with their oeuvre...their slogan is "Art for all!" And given their honored place in the art world (The Tate Modern organized a marvelous career-spanning retrospective I was lucky enough to see in San Francisco), it's a wonder it didn't happen sooner. Fashion designers are always using inspiration from art and artists, and now we have a proper representation for Gilbert and George.
Their photo/paint works are saturated with color, figures--humans and shapes--and are presented on a flat plain within a grid system that can invoke the idea of stained glass. But Gilbert and George's subject matters are not really stained glass material. They mostly use themselves but other models as well as springboards to comment on social issues, inequality, justice, freedom, and sexuality, despite the fact that they politically identify themselves as conservatives. Gilbert and George met in 1968 as art students and have lived their lives together as artists and life partners ever since and have been vocal--er, I mean, visual supporters of gay rights as well as human rights in general.
Gilbert and George opened up their archives to Scott so he could incorporate faces, crosses, flowers, and random designs into this dynamic collection that really and truly does look like a Gilbert and George painting come to life. The pieces are presented in saturated jewel tones along with models faces and hair. And the additional touch of dark shading and motion/fabric folds in white or black lines actually drawn on the garments make it seem like a living cartoon!
And if you are unfamiliar with Gilbert and George's work, here are a few examples along with portraits of them when they were young and the couple now...
http://www.moschino.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment