Long before Daniel Roseberry began sculpting trompe-l'œi trainers and surrealist jewellery—both celebrated Schiaparelli house codes—designers were drawing influence from the artistic canon. From Surrealism and Dadaism to Modernism and Impressionism, art movements have long provided fertile ground for fashion designers. Those aforementioned trompe-l'œi accessories—which appear as silver mules embossed with the skeleton of a foot—were influenced by (1935) in which the latter painted a pair of hands to look like gloves, the result was lensed by Man Ray and a year later, the designer Elsa Schiaparelli created a pair of gloves to look like hands.
That’s just one example of the mediums’ symbiotic relationship. Ahead of 2024, here, in no particular order (to order these collaborations by cultural impact is too much of a mammoth undertaking for this writer), are seven of the most iconic art x fashion crossovers. Yves Saint Laurent’s 1965 collaboration with the abstract artist Piet Mondrian is one of the most instantly recognisable crossovers of fashion and fine art.
Celebrated as a turning point in modern couture, Saint Laurent—whose career would be marked by both his artistic inspirations and, in turn, his own influence on the art world—drew from Mondrian's minimalist, geometric designs to create his iconic . Arriving at the height of the Swinging Sixties when customers were hungry for streamlined designs that stood in opposition to the rigid dress codes of the f.
