By Alejandra Hernandez
Have you ever wondered how important art is to fashion? These two industries have blurred their boundaries over the past decades, resulting in insane artist-designer collaborations and timeless work. Although its seen as cliché by many, brands are eager to take part in the practice since collabs are the perfect mix of luxury and marketing for brands. From Louis Vuitton to Raf Simons, the number of brands seeking these types of partnerships are endless. Let’s analyze some of them:
Coach x Jean-Michel Basquiat
Coach launched this collaboration for the fall 2020 collection, as a global campaign featuring Yang Zi and Jeremy Lin (the brand’s ambassadors). It symbolized Coach’s approach to connecting with a new generation of costumers and included clothes, bags and accessories. It was criticized by many for its irony, as Basquiat’s art used social commentary to criticize power structures and systematic racism.
Prada x Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset
A permanent sculptural art installation based in the Texas desert created by Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset. An ironic take on luxury shopping created with the help of two commissioning art organizations: Art Production Fund and Ballroom Marfa. The artists found a rancher who was willing to donate a parcel of land to the project and voilà. This idea was defined as a pop architectural land art project, and its only aim was the hope it would increase the interest in contemporary art and art in general. We think it has!
Louis Vuitton x Takashi Murakami in 2003
A perfect example of a successful fashion-art collaboration. The creative director at that time (Marc Jacobs) lead this collab in 2003, creating a signature colorful monogram collection that’s still a must today and a clear statement from the 2000s. It confirmed the economic potential that arises from a collision between fashion and art.
Elsa Schiaparelli x Salvador Dalí
Her work was always full of surrealism. Sadly, not all of her collaborations with Dalí were documented, but the three best known were ‘The lobster dress’, ‘The tear dress’ and ‘The skeleton dress’. The most famous one has to be the lobster dress, designed in 1937 by Dalí himself. Elsa loved the way he portrayed his point of view and way of thinking into clothes.
To learn more about the OG fashion and art collaboration between Schiaparelli and Dalí, check out our profile on Elsa, from our Fashion History series:
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