#Fashion art love series

The bold and boxy costumes that Picasso contributed to the production are a jumble of urban structures, like skylines sprouting legs.

Picasso and Khokhlova were both involved in the 1917 ballet Parade, conceived by the French writer Jean Cocteau. Though Saint Laurent insisted he was a great admirer of the “purity” he detected in Mondrian’s distinctively austere style, which is characterised by a simplicity of line and elegance of colour, his eagerness to commodify that aesthetic as a luxury garment is at odds with what the Dutch painter believed.

#Fashion art love series

Take Yves Saint Laurent’s famous adaptation, for a series of six day dresses that the French designer unveiled in 1965, of the Dutch abstract artist Piet Mondrian’s soulful grids. Sometimes that collision of sensibility is comical. Any attempt to wed art with fashion is arguably destined to trigger tensions between the craving for permanence and the need for transience. By definition, their work is seasonal, if not disposable, and depends upon the constant flux of what is considered fashionable. Designers, on the other hand, rely for their very livelihood on the mutability of taste. What motivates artists is the desire to create an object or image that is timeless – a work that transcends trend. The friction between Dalí and Schiaparelli reveals an inevitable conflict between the aspirations of the artist and those of the designer.