Fashion and Art Collaborations

[PaintedBlack_7]

I would have been happy to sell you one of mine, just because I know how much you would appreciate it, but I stupidly ruined one with deodorant, so now I only wear it under a vest (hence my getting a second one).

dry cleaner can't take care of it?

i did something similar with one of my work shirts and they did some typeof chemical treatment to it and saved it

[spiral jetty]

more on the art's side.

ann d teaming up rodney graham for "mallarme's shirt", 1992.

[klangspiel]

jlg x marithé + françois girbaud

[djibouti]

Again a bit off the SZ radar but a pretty interesting story here about the unpermissioned co-opting of Bridget Riley's paintings for some dresses in the 60s.

http://greg.org/archive/2010/08/27/the_trendmaking_eye.html

edit: I wonder how this would fly if it happened now - it's difficult because both fashion and art seem to be among the most nebulous in terms of copyright laws. though this example seems egregious enough that surely she'd be able to sue successfully.

But I wonder what the discussions between Jim Lambie and Raf Simons/ Jil Sander was for the SS2011 collection - since it seems like his signature patterns were just grafted onto clothing.

Another odd example is with the recent Robb Pruitt show and a "threadless" t-shirt designer getting upset for Pruitt co-opting their design into one of his paintings.

Art seems a lot more comfortable with appropriation and has a sort of standard discourse and language to deal with it - I think it's pretty rare to find interesting discussions about appropriation within fashion, except with something like Margiela's replica line.

[spiral jetty]

Art seems a lot more comfortable with appropriation and has a sort of standard discourse and language to deal with it - I think it's pretty rare to find interesting discussions about appropriation within fashion, except with something like Margiela's replica line.

when appropriation as an (critical) art practice came up around 1980 (and maybe even before that in the 1960ies work of sturtevant) it was supposed to be a conceptual attack on the (pretty fetishist) originality status a work of art is attached with. an attack in that sense that it lies bare the sociological preoccupations/historic conventions our (rather unconscious) understanding of art is based upon.

not so much on that content/reference level appropriation art is still a challenge for the art discussion, mostly because - different from fashion - art underlies a different auctorial and quite an ideologically preserved distribution system. a work of art at least is supposed to be unique and we worship it for that archaic reason. at least this is, how i would put it.

[thehouseofdis]

more on the art's side.

ann d teaming up rodney graham for "mallarme's shirt", 1992.

I hadn't heard about this collaboration. Here's a link to an image of the White Shirt (scroll down a bit).

[spiral jetty]

I hadn't heard about this collaboration. Here's a link to an image of the White Shirt (scroll down a bit).

yeah, that's it.

[djibouti]

when appropriation as an (critical) art practice came up around 1980 (and maybe even before that in the 1960ies work of sturtevant) it was supposed to be a conceptual attack on the (pretty fetishist) originality status a work of art is attached with. an attack in that sense that it lies bare the sociological preoccupations/historic conventions our (rather unconscious) understanding of art is based upon.

not so much on that content/reference level appropriation art is still a challenge for the art discussion, mostly because - different from fashion - art underlies a different auctorial and quite an ideologically preserved distribution system. a work of art at least is supposed to be unique and we worship it for that archaic reason. at least this is, how i would put it.

Well, yeah, I suppose what I mean to say is that appropriation is viewed as an "acceptable" strategy in art and there's a level of discourse / language / theory that exists to discuss it within art. Of course it has something to do with it's distribution and a critical reaction against more classical ideas of value (in the author, in a singular fetishized object) and distribution.

Appropriationist strategies are definitely not unique to art, however- there's plenty of appropriationist writing which seems to exist for different and less overtly "critical" reasons. At least it has much more to do with "authorship" and concepts of voice and originality than it is being critical of a system of distribution as you mention.

Clearly the relationship is not 1-1 with art (or writing) as a creative endeavor and fashion as an equal endeavor, but I don't mind a messy translation of a creative strategy in one field to a creative strategy in another.

For example I think Margiela's 0 10 line also has a decent amount in common with a lot of appropriationist writing / cut up method (or at least more in common - taking pre-existing objects and re-combining them, hijacking the textures and partial signification into new weird hybrids).

I think generally it's just not been explored as much. I think it's potentially more difficult to engage with successfully than to design clothing outright from scratch. I think also appropriation exists under the surface of most of what is on the shelves. Perhaps also there's a bad taste left in the mouth from fast-fashion copies of high fashion. But, I wish it were dealt with more explicitly - Margiela's appropriation is one of my main interests in his work and I think there's still a lot to be explored.

[spiral jetty]

Appropriationist strategies are definitely not unique to art, however- there's plenty of appropriationist writing which seems to exist for different and less overtly "critical" reasons. At least it has much more to do with "authorship" and concepts of voice and originality than it is being critical of a system of distribution as you mention.
...
Perhaps also there's a bad taste left in the mouth from fast-fashion copies of high fashion. But, I wish it were dealt with more explicitly - Margiela's appropriation is one of my main interests in his work and I think there's still a lot to be explored.

i just brought up the topic to make clear(er) why, in my opinion, appropriation had such an impact on the practice and discourse of art. and this has not so much to do with the content/reference level but with art's strange and archaic distribution system and that the "criticality" one might link with appropriation as a technique pretty much find its legitimization from that perspective. thus when we saw appropriation end up as just another easy available style (and nowadys making you throw up with every new generation of art school appropriationstas training their highbrow skills), it's still this romantic history, where its edge lies.

of course appropriation more generally speaking is a specific take on common strategies of imitation, reproduction, quotation, referencing... which are fundamental to any kind of learning process in any discipline.
but, to understand the highly sensible discoursive structure underlying fashion, i agree, we should be more aware of those aspects and how they appear in the idiom/practice of fashion.

i find your observations on martin margiela as an appropriationist quite interesting - not only in terms of his personal history..., how his project at least in the past positioned itself in/against the fashion system... and sure there is a sensibilty in his appropriationist gestures to adress the, may i say, difficult (or even unconscious) role of memory of fashion... sorry, i'm a bit off track now so i'm just hallucinating along and along.

[ittalidaa]

cindy sherman
direct mail campaign for the fall winter 1994-1995 ‘metamorphosis’ collection. for three seasons, comme des garçons used work by this cutting-edge artist for direct mail campaigns. she was given clothing from each collection and asked to use it as she wished in her photographs.
1994 © cindy sherman

[525252]

In dance:
Michael Clark Company and Leigh Bowery

Anjelin Preljocaj and Jean Paul Gaultier in Blanche Neige (Snow White)


Preljocaj I think tends to collaborate with designers quite a bit

[MJRH]

The Wind - S/S 2008
Dai Fujiwara (Issey Miyake) & James Dyson

[thehouseofdis]

In dance:
Michael Clark Company and Leigh Bowery

Anjelin Preljocaj and Jean Paul Gaultier in Blanche Neige (Snow White)

Preljocaj I think tends to collaborate with designers quite a bit

There was also the amazing collaboration between Merce Cunningham and Rei Kawakubo that centered around the CdG "bump" dress. Epic!

[Acéphale]

BLESS x raster-noton

[jj.still]

Not sure if this is the right thread (can not find anything like "Fashion and mass culture collaborations")

just found it at facebook
Aitor Throup's work (written and directed by him) Kasabian - SWITCHBLADE SMILES
CCP gloves to the masses.
Considering his other collaborations (umbro, si, etc) I'm puzzled about whether he will continue to make fashion.