Fashion month and Frieze fall within days of each other, highlighting the deeply interconnected nature of these two creative mediums – a relationship that has always been investigated by both artists and designers, spurning glorious collaborations throughout contemporary history. For SS18 designers drew strongly on artists to render new, unexpected collections. Twin looks at some of the best designers working with artists for womenswear this season.

Christopher Kane / John Kacere

Kane’s collection this season took inspiration from Cynthia Payne, the eighties party girl and brothel keeper who was a tabloid favourite in the seventies and eighties. A reference that balanced the clean with the dirty, the pretty with the ugly underbelly of society, Kane’s use of John Kacere imagery continued this harmonious interplay. Kacere’s photo-realistic paintings of women in underwear have littered Tumblr for years but Kane’s repositioning of the silk and satin clad derrieres onto chiffon-bordered t-shirts have finally brought the idea of wearing a woman’s butt on my flank into reality.

 

Hannah Weiland of Shrimps / Faye Wei Wei

A partnership exploring the possibilities of presentation, West London artist of the moment, Faye Wei Wei created a series of three broad, bold boards to stand behind the Shrimps S/S 18 presentation. Working directly with designer Hannah Weiland, Wei Wei’s mythology-inspired canvases clashed against the Shrek-greens and fun furs on show. An illustrator herself, Weiland first saw Wei Wei’s work at a show at the Cob Gallery and loved it.  This collection featured fewer of Weiland’s signature doodles, allowing Wei Wei’s canvases to provide a large dose of the whimsy and wonder we associate with Shrimps.

Gareth Pugh / Nick Knight / Olivier de Sagazan

In a move that has swiftly become synonymous with the Gareth Pugh brand, for S/S 18, Pugh rejected the catwalk in favour of a fashion film created by SHOWstudio and Nick Knight. Collaborating with artist Olivier de Sagazan, the film sees de Sagazan and Pugh mould their faces together with clay, tear each other, viscerally, physically apart, and explore the allegories present in Pugh’s clothing; creation, destruction and reproduction.

Undercover / Cindy Sherman

This year, artist Cindy Sherman released her private Instagram to the public and renewed her global capital. As one who consistently taps into smart, zeitgeisty movements, Joon Takahashi of Undercover took this opportunity to whack Sherman’s face on a series of dresses. Drawing inspiration from twins, ‘Shining’-style, these dresses played on the concept of duality, dual natures – reality and Instagram, as explored in Sherman’s oeuvre.

Comme des Garçons / Giuseppe Arcimboldo

Giuseppe Arcimboldo was an Italian painter best known for creating imaginative portrait heads made entirely of objects such as fruits, vegetables, flowers, fish, and books. Rei Kawakubo’s S/S18 collection presented imaginative portrait dresses with items including hairbrushes, dollies, trinkets and Hello Kitty ephemera. Dresses plastered with Arcimboldo’s paintings contradicted the scatter of Harajuku and pink and looked as modern on the catwalk as the animé designs that preceded them.

Featured image by Faye Wei Wei

Tags: SS18, womenswear SS18