Art N' About

Author: ALEXXA GOTTHARDT

Catwalk or gallery? That's what countless fashion and art critics have been asking themselves with increasing puzzlement over the last few years. Haute couture designers have always shocked with preposterous color, outrageous amounts of tulle and twinkle and, of course, ever-alluring absences of fabric in the least inconspicuous places. Recently, however, new waves of shock are pulsing down the runway in the form of models clad in what many designers and critics are hailing as art.

As the spring 2006 collections strutted out to the masses over the past month, the allusions and connections to the art world were lavish. Libertine's collection showcased a pair of trench coats adorned with Brit artist Damien Hirst's famous spin paintings, breakthrough art-based label C-Neeon channeled strict Bauhaus principles of German modernism and designers from countless houses gushed about the inspirational power of the likes of Jean-Antoine Watteau, Gustav Klimt and Joseph Cornell.

Whoa, fashion as art, art as fashion? Two bold statements that tend to send artists, art historians and art connoisseurs worldwide into fervent tirades on the demise of traditional fine art at the hand of the mass-culture, uber-sleek, oh-so temporal fashion system. No matter how controversial, however, it is obvious that the fashion and art worlds are combining and that there is no turning back.

The boundaries between art and fashion become more and more blurred. Radical fashion designers are compared to artists as illustrious galleries and museums take the work of designers like Giorgio Armani, Vivienne Westwood and Christian Lacroix off the runway and into the white cube. Another designer, Hussein Chalayan, renounces the traditional view of fashion as merely objects of clothing embroidered with garish strands of exclusivity and trend obsession. Instead, Chalayan's architecturally-based designs transcend the boundaries of the fashion system with the introduction of conceptual ideas and the infusion of social commentary. In one of his recent collections he explored the idea of the portable home by slipping his models into reworked wooden furniture. This year, he was even chosen to represent Turkey at the 2005 Venice Biennale. Voila, designer turned artist.

Fashion photography, a genre once shunned as the leper of photographic art, is now also taking a renewed, robust leap into the world of contemporary art. In addition, photographers who once were frightened by the derivative quality of fashion are now excitedly collaborating with designers. Katharina Sieverding, a renowned abstract photographer, recently did just this when she decided to collaborate with Puma shoes on a new add campaign, testing her own level of commitment to authenticity and originality. The ad uses an original photograph from Sieverding's 1973 portrait series as a backdrop for the image of the shoe Puma hopes to sell in obscene amounts. Interesting juxtaposition. Sieverding, too, is helping to break down the boundaries between disciplines by rendering fashion advertising a form of conceptual art.

More and more, artists and designers alike are using the power of the intense visual impression and marketability of fashion as a base for their newest projects and as a springboard for their own artistic statements. Lucy Orta, a trained fashion and textile designer, has been mixing clothing design, art and social activism since the early 1990s. Her most recent designs, vibrantly colored and inscribed with compelling slogans, explore issues such as social exclusion, sustainable development and democratic processes. Orta does not deal with the side of fashion that represents super-trendy designer labels and artificial images of perfection. Instead, she hopes to provoke thought about very real, enduring problems our society faces today. This kind of fashion, perhaps, is the most valid embodiment of fashion as art. It is fashion with an idea-fashion with a purpose beyond just looking pretty.

Fashion has an undeniable power to reach the masses and manipulate society. So why not manipulate that power, that influence, to raise social and political awareness? Fashion as art. Art as fashion. It's a marriage of marketing, self-promotion, crazily innovative design and passion for society's plight that coalesces in the creation of an expressive artistic force arguably stronger and more influential than any other today. It's both catwalk and gallery, with a little tulle and twinkle on the side.