Photos by Rachel Perry Welty for Vogue. Via.
For its December 2011 issue, Vogue asked conceptual artist Rachel Perry Welty to photograph an accessories story for the magazine. Using patterns from such luxury labels as Balenciaga, Prada, Givenchy and Alexander Wang, Welty creates self-portraits that transform these hip accessories into something oppressive. They completely overpower the human subject, whose face is obscured by her long blond hair; she is defined by her possessions, her consumption.
The images — fun, beautiful and extremely subversive for a fashion magazine — are based on Welty’s series Lost in My Life, which also show the artist overwhelmed, transformed by stuff: fruit stickers, price tags, receipts and twist ties. You can see her Vogue photographs at the Yancey Richardson Gallery in New York City, along with Lisa Kereszi’s wonderful, moving photo series The Party’s Over, which I wrote about for ELLE.com.
George Hoyningen-Huene, Art in Fashion: Balenciaga, Ballets Ruses, Paris, 1928; image from Staley-Wise Gallery
Fashion imitates art. The great couturier Balenciaga drew a lot of inspiration from Spanish painters like Goya and Zurbarán. But he also borrowed from more contemporary artists like Picasso and Miro, as evidenced from this photograph by French Vogue photographer George Hoyningen-Huene. One of the themes that runs through Hoyningen-Huene’s fashion photography is clothes relationship to art; his models, in draped gowns cut on the bias that show off the female form, often pose next to sculptures that echo their dresses’ folds and shape. “Form and Fashion,” at the Staley-Wise Gallery in New York City, takes a look at his formalist masterpieces, as well as those of contemporary photographer Kurt Markus.
Francisco de Zurbarán (1598-1664), Saint Apollonia, Louvre
Today, I am going with my friends Nadia and Julianna to see an exhibition of the great Spanish couturier Cristobal Balenciaga’s work at the Queen Sofia Spanish Institute in New York City. For the occasion, I thought I’d post one of the Spanish paintings I saw when I went to the Louvre this summer. This painting by Francisco de Zurbarán—known as the Spanish Caravaggio—caught my eye because of the subject’s gorgeous, brightly colored, full-skirted taffeta gown and velvet cloak. The outfit, indeed, looks very Balenciaga, who drew heavily on his Spanish heritage for his rather radical designs. The green-and-carnation-pink color combination recalls a recent ballgown from Oscar de la Renta, which he designed as an homage to the great couturier.
De Zurbarán’s bright colors belie the painting’s more sinister details: His portrayal of Saint Apollonia includes, as the Louvre states, “the instrument of her torture.” The saint clutches a tooth gripped by a pair of pliers in her right hand—eek.
