Nancy Hall-Duncan’s “Fashion x Art Book” presented at Rizzoli Bookstore in nyc
Have you ever seen a dress on a runway show and thought “that's a work of art”?
Author and fashion curator Nancy Hall-Duncan explores the literal meaning of that thought in her new book: Fashion X Art. Fashion and art have always been two disciplines that work well together. Since the Yves Saint Laurent exhibition at the MET Museum, no one has been unsure of that. And a few weeks ago, Yayoi Kusama could be seen in a Louis Vuitton store in NYC painting dots on the window to draw attention to the new LV x Kusama collection. But long before collaborations between artists and designers became such a hype, art was a great inspiration for fashion and in some cases even vice versa. Duncan proves this by compiling some 75 pairs of designer pieces and artwork in her book. Fashion on the Beat attended her book launch last night at Rizzoli Bookstore in the heart of Midtown Manhattan and asked her about inspiration, surprises, and the future of fashion and art.
Courtesy of Leonie Georg
In the back of the bookstore, among books and an interested fashion crowd, author Nancy Hall-Duncan and the evening's host, NYT Museum Director and Chief Curator Valerie Steele, delved deep into the realm of their two passions, which happen to be fashion and art. Hall-Duncan introduces herself and shares her impressive journey and career. She attended the Institute of Fine Art in New York and then began her career as a curator. In 1972, she published her book on fashion photography, which she describes as an exciting time when she met some of the big names in fashion photography like Helmut Newton. Last night she sat in a red chair at Rizzoli Bookstore to introduce her second book, “Fashion X Art," which she says "has been a long road from the last book to this one, but it feels more like a circle." When Steele asks her about her inspiration for her new book, she laughs and says, "I mean, my whole life has been art." But then she remembers that so many boundaries are being broken right now, and disciplines are beginning to merge into one another. "There's an overlap of all my passions: fashion, art, and photography." So she set out to find combinations, including some obvious ones like the Mondrian dress by Yves Saint Laurent, but also some surprises like Picasso's painting "Bathing Women," inspired by Coco Channel's swimsuits. "There are so many ways that art and fashion come together, and most of the time it's inspirational rather than direct," Hall-Duncan further explains.
Courtesy of Leonie Georg
During the event, at the back of the speaker's stage runs a presentation with some of the pairings. Monet's Water Lilies as a print for a skirt, the famous lobster dress painted by Salvador Dalí, and even Tutankhamun's death mask turned into an entire couture collection. But art and fashion going together so easily wasn't always the case. Valerie Steele, who is also a fashion historian, explains. "It's a really tricky procedure for artists to collaborate with luxury houses.” For a long time, people didn't want to bring fashion and art together. Coco Chanel, for example, would never say she was an artist, but she makes clothes. And fashion would never be shown in a museum. When Yves Saint Laurent exhibited at the MET Museum in 1983, the New York Times reported, it was like showing Ford cars in galleries, Steele says. But even though the exhibition got bad press, it was the start of something. Something that is now described 75 times in Hall-Duncan's book. When we ask her how she sees the future of fashion and art, she says, "The runway shows were never about whether something was wearable, they were about taking something in a different direction.
Courtesy of Leonie Georg
And that's the connection to art. People are angry right now, and you can see that in fashion and in art. It reflects the issues of society, and it's already become much more political and will become more so.”
