Where art and fashion meet
“The stockyards and somewhat gritty history are a part of Chicago but we’ve evolved,” he says. “I’ve lived in Chicago my entire 49 1/2 years and I’ve never seen fashion and art so alive here.” Mayor Daley’s appointment in 2006 of Melissa Turner as Chicago’s director of fashion arts and events has not hurt. Turner works to create a favorable environment for designers to deter them from fleeing to either coast.
Combine that with Chicago’s well-known fashion and design schools and you have the makings of a potential mecca for talent. Before we go patting ourselves on the back for being tres chic, let’s be honest. Art and fashion are intersecting all over the globe. Designer Agnes b injected culture into Paris Fashion Week last year with an exhibition of previously unseen photographs by Pierre Rene-Worms. Haute house Louis Vuitton has collaborated with a string of artists.
The most recent is Richard Prince, who designed a handbag line for spring 2008 line based on his “Nurse Paintings.” Models walked down the runway holding the handbags, dressed as nurses. Alexa Brazilian, Elle magazine fashion news director, is quick to point to Damien Hirst — a British postmodern artist who created a diamond skull that reportedly sold last fall for $100 million — as a prime example of art and fashion colliding. Hirst has collaborated with Levi Strauss Co.
on its 2008 jean collection, creating a line featuring rhinestone skulls. The jeans made a September debut in London’s trendy Chelsea district at the Gagosian Gallery, which features modern and contemporary art. “It’s art for the masses,” Brazilian says.