Artistic influences, contemporary or not, have always inspired designer’s tastes. A designer is a sensitive soul that breathes beauty. It is a vampire to artistic movements.
This has been a major question since the beginning of fashion. In fact, a designer’s role has only but grown: from the “adagio” of the beginning when still called the “suppliers” to the “majestic crescendo” of the becoming; these influences are important artistic protagonists of our culture.
Throughout history designers have been collectors, maecenas, and some have been able to mix up in the panorama of the artistic intelligence of their time. Their collaborations, their friendships with artists who were musicians, writers, sculptors, and graphic designers have influenced their vision of an outfit.
But the main art of the arts is the interior synthesis of a concept, of a sound, of a ray of light that will be reinterpreted to the infinite in a selection of forms, colors, and sounds…. since even fabrics have a sound.
A dress is not a sculpture, it is not a painting, nor a ballet, not even a musical partition; but it is part of these masterpieces and it surely holds its place in the artistic movement. Just like in a great symphony, the same notes are interpreted by diverse instruments. Since art is a symphony of the senses – senses for the unconscious where time will only be a spider web, an intricate lace of past, present, and future – and sometimes will become visionary.
We, therefore, can’t look at a Dali without thinking of Schiaparelli; we can’t glance at a Mondrian without considering Yves Saint Laurent; we can’t contemplate Vigée Le Brun’s portrait without bearing in mind Christian Lacroix; and we can’t gaze at a Soulages without being reminded of Mademoiselle Chanel.
This has been a major question since the beginning of fashion. In fact, a designer’s role has only but grown: from the “adagio” of the beginning when still called the “suppliers” to the “majestic crescendo” of the becoming; these influences are important artistic protagonists of our culture.
Throughout history designers have been collectors, maecenas, and some have been able to mix up in the panorama of the artistic intelligence of their time. Their collaborations, their friendships with artists who were musicians, writers, sculptors, and graphic designers have influenced their vision of an outfit.
But the main art of the arts is the interior synthesis of a concept, of a sound, of a ray of light that will be reinterpreted to the infinite in a selection of forms, colors, and sounds…. since even fabrics have a sound.
A dress is not a sculpture, it is not a painting, nor a ballet, not even a musical partition; but it is part of these masterpieces and it surely holds its place in the artistic movement. Just like in a great symphony, the same notes are interpreted by diverse instruments. Since art is a symphony of the senses – senses for the unconscious where time will only be a spider web, an intricate lace of past, present, and future – and sometimes will become visionary.
We, therefore, can’t look at a Dali without thinking of Schiaparelli; we can’t glance at a Mondrian without considering Yves Saint Laurent; we can’t contemplate Vigée Le Brun’s portrait without bearing in mind Christian Lacroix; and we can’t gaze at a Soulages without being reminded of Mademoiselle Chanel.
