Fashionistas have long shunned run-of-the-mill, mass-made garments that have never been so-called in vogue. This holds especially true today, as A-listers across all sectors resort to increasingly eccentric ensembles to make a statement. It shouldn’t be a shocker that celebrities flaunt clothes made from raw meat or accessories crafted from ice on the red carpet. Had they donned some conventional designer pieces, they probably wouldn’t be remembered as trailblazers when it comes to strikingly distinctive appearances.
Nonetheless, what are stars doing when they want their appearance to make a lasting impact while representing something culturally meaningful and impactful? Can they be innovative and leave a mark with artistic, beautifully intricate pieces that may even pay homage to some of history’s most significant artistic movements? It seems convincingly so—and the route appears to be through wearable art.
Sculptures into attires? It’s an old hat
Long before retailers in fast fashion would release garments inspired by iconic artworks that developed into silkscreened marketing strategies, this apparel meant a completely different thing. Big artist names like Salvador Dali and Henri Mattise explored fashion for their creative endeavors, which later became a trend in the world’s most valid form. Looking into the first artists’ story, the Spanish surrealist painter partnered with Elsa Schiaparelli, and their creations inspired a line of clothes, including an iconic Tear Dress that referenced some of the star’s masterpieces.
Frida Kahlo’s colorful and daring apparel went unobserved for decades, and it wasn’t until 2004 that her items were unearthed, turning into a testament to the painter’s bold and distinctive personal style. Lastly, sculptor and performance artist Nick Cave is justifiably famous for his Soundsuits, which, besides being wearable, exist as palpable sculptures. The trailblazer in wearable sculptures harbingered a fashion movement where all sorts of craft or kitsch materials could be transformed into distinctive pieces of clothing.
As these brilliant minds demonstrate, the line between sculpture and fashion is as thick as perception allows. Well into the future, sculptures available for sale and distinguished by their quality and rarity could inspire viewers to adorn their homes or, in the most fantastic scenario, limited-edition wearable art.
Wearable art: Creating stories on garments
In today’s fashion landscape, where mass-made clothes that have nothing to say abound the market, a groundbreaking and captivating trend is gaining traction and bridging the gap between artistry and clothing. Wearable art, or accessories and clothes specifically created as works of art, is a moving combination of functionality and imagination where the pieces worn don’t just inspire stylistic flair but evoke feelings and challenge ages-old fashion norms. This priceless and distinctive means of self-expression encourages enthusiasts to showcase their personalities and wear them inside out, carrying their loved art expressions to places where they want to make an impression.
Many times, iconic pieces of art inspired endless lines of mass-produced pieces in the fast-fashion realm, with examples being numberless. For example, it’s possible that many newcomers learned about Vincent van Gogh’s famous Starry Night through the themed merchandise available, ranging from clothes to pottery to home décor.
Sculptural fashion aims to transform the human body into an expression by emphasizing specific traits, curves, or natural shapes. Moreover, it overstates these features to make them discernible from every viewer’s perspective. Fashion and sculpture have some things in common—they both employ imaginative shaping, draping, molding, cutting, and other techniques.
A quick retrospective of the ’70s
Fashion collections inspired by books and their writers are nothing novel—this trend has been going on for as long as we can remember. Moreover, it rode the wave of fame in the early ’70s, when the American artistic movement inspired quite the opposite.
Wearable art had emerged by then and empowered those looking to make a statement to feel like they had something to say—and someone to hear it. The whole point was to take walled art and fashion it into everyday life. Nevertheless, designers took a different approach to this trend in modern times, frequently drawing inspiration from literary writings for distinctive garbs and themed collections.
Met Gala amazes again with writings fashioned into garbs
To emphasize how far wearable art has gone, it’s enough to look into modern examples at iconic celebrity shows like the annual Met Gala. Designers developed creations inspired by characters and novels like “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Alice in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll, and “Little Mermaid” by Hans Christian Andersen, to name a few.
Other designers chose to raise their game and transform these literary operas into Gala garments. The 2022 Gala, which featured celebrity names like Gigi Hadid and Kylie Jenner, and the 2023 edition, showcasing personalities such as Lea Michele, are living examples of how books and fashion intertwine. The theme of the 2022 program was none other than “The Garden of Time” by English novelist J. G. Ballard.
Wearable art will pass the test of time
Wearable art is a movement and unlikely to go anywhere in the foreseeable future. This concept has the power to fuse two seemingly opposite worlds—fashion with its social norms and art with its way of challenging normality. Pieces in this category aren’t churned out en masse but hand-made and adorned meticulously. This individual human touch has owners resting assured that the same outfit worn by them isn’t flaunted by anyone else worldwide.
Furthermore, wearable art gets art off the galleries’ walls, where it’s not accessible to everyone, and into the streets. This trend improves the cultural knowledge of an increasingly larger audience, helping them engage with it regularly and bond with previous generations.
Wearable art is a beneficial phenomenon, and celebrities attest to it
Celebrities show that there’s no limit to wearing clothes that tell a story and reference artistic movements, masterpieces, styles, and so on. This is more often than not associated with the designer’s skills and competency, meaning that once this barrier is raised, the possibilities become endless!
Featured image: Jacopo Raule/Getty Images
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