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Artistic Fashion/Fashionable Art

March 18, 2010

Parthenogenesis by Angelo Musco

Frequently people see the clothing on the couture runways at fashion shows and call it art because of its seemingly blatant rejection of functionality. Occasionally this deduction is warranted, though lack of function is hardly reason enough to call a garment a work of art. Something else is required: an ability to push traditional conceptions of dress. We see this manifested in the work of fashion labels such as Comme des Garcons and Hussein Chalayan; however, these designers rarely get the chance to exhibit such work on any other platform than the runway.  So when fashion designer May Kosaka was asked to collaborate with artist Angelo Musco in 2005 on an art installation entitled Parthenogenisis at the Armory Show, she couldn’t refuse. “The artist wanted to photograph a pregnant woman, with white face, white hair, white eyes, in a twenty foot diameter skirt… He gave me only those parameters, and left everything else open.”

Kosaka took full advantage of this creative license, and began experimenting with white spandex, “which has the curl and bulk to create the shapes in my mind, yet has the give and cling to wear … I created sculpture on the bellies of thirteen pregnant women that were part of a larger piece, a dress with a twenty-foot diameter skirt.” Kosaka’s label, MOTHE, tackles the obstacle of creating intelligent garments that are both conceptual and wearable, and she credits the Parthenogenisis project as a large influence on the rest of her work. “I think if I had started with ready-to-wear collections before moving on to art projects, my mind would have built up rules and fences that would have had to be unlearned and untrained.”

Her interest in art and concept is apparent in her work, which will be available at Eva (355A Bowery) in the Spring, and on her website. Click here for the full interview.

Written by YAH contributor Eugenie Dalland

Eugenie Dalland is a fashion writer and French translator living in Brooklyn, author of the blog Sartor Resartus.

Posted in ART on March 18, 2010 2:06pm by Madeline | 34 comments

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