We Wear Art

Can we represent art movements through fashion?

Project in collaboration with Bianca Sciarone
2015-2016
Part of High School degree at Grotius College Delft

Context

There has always been a natural bond between fashion and art. Fashion inspires art. Art inspires fashion. Fashion reflects a person’s personality. Art is something most people relate to paintings or sculptures exhibited in galleries. However, clothing is one of the only art forms you can use to express yourself in daily life. With this in mind, we sought to produce clothing that reflected our interpretations of various art movements. Thus, we used clothing as a communication tool to present our interpretations of art movements.

Pablo Picasso, Girl with a Mandolin, 1910

Pablo Picasso, The Guitar Player, 1910

Cubism

1907-1922

Paul Cézanne, a post-impressionist, was the first to express ideas about painting, which led to the emergence of cubism. He believed impressionism lacked structure. Cézanne wasn’t trying to imitate reality anymore; instead, he used pieces of the real world to create a new reality.

In analytical cubism, they mainly focused on the composition, finding a balance between shape and light and dark. Painters kept the colours as neutral as possible to emphasise the tone and composition.

Cubists took an object and used its most interesting partial shapes. The artists looked at the object from different angles and made the foreground and background blend. In cubism, the shape around the object was just as important as the object itself.

Characteristics used
(jacket and pants)

Geometric shapes
Tonal, earth toned colours
Straight lines
Facet-like shapes

Barnett Newman, Zip, 1905

Colorfield Painting

1948-1965

Abstract expressionism was the first real American art movement. Since the invention of the camera, it has become obsolete for some artists to paint realistically. The appreciation for abstract art started to grow. After World War Two, during the late 1940's, Colorfield Painters wanted to recover the ease from before the war by creating calmer art.

Characteristics used
(dress)

Emotionless, business-like
Sleek
Formal
Abstract
Emphasise the flatness of the surface
Bright, local colours
Tension between the colours and the shapes

Roy Lichtenstein, Whaam, 1963

Pop Art

1955-1970

Pop Art emerged when the public got fed up with expensive and complicated paintings from Abstract Expressionism and Surrealism. Pop art gave the public recognisable images of modern consumerism. Artists from England and America both used popular topics from the media, such as commercials, comic strips, product packaging, and movie stars as their inspiration. The artists used modern techniques such as silkscreen printing, blow-ups, and airbrush, which were also commonly used within the advertisement industry.