Fashion and Art Essay
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| Coco Chanel drawn by Jean Cocteau © Mary Evans Picture Library/ National Magazine Company |
In his essay, Iain R. Webb introduces Britain Creates and the relationship between fashion and art. A professor of fashion at the RCA and Central St. Martins, Webb has been part of the London art and fashion world for thirty years and is a renowned stylist, author and curator.
"At London Fashion Week you are just as
likely to find Tracey Emin, the poster girl
of Brit Art, or Peter Blake, the Godfather
of Pop Art, sitting front row as you are a
buyer from Browns or a twittering fashion
blogger. The worlds of fashion and art have
long been blurred along their borders. Their
mutual fascination has ensured a fertile
relationship of inspiration, collaboration
and dialogue.
The latest chapter in that long and rich
history is the series of collaborations
fostered by Britain Creates 2012.
In the
year in which Britain hosts the Olympics,
the pinnacle of sporting achievement, the
London 2012 Festival celebrates the finest
in British cultural excellence, as well as
the city’s importance as a place in which
creative people of all kinds congregate and
collaborate. Britain Creates invites a roll call
of leading British fashion designers to work
in pairs with some of our foremost visual
artists, allowing that creative dialogue to
lead to an artwork that may take any form,
in any medium – free of the commercial
constraints the designers have to consider,
and free too, perhaps, of the expectations
established by the artists’ usual practice.
For the first time, artists and designers are
invited to work in tandem, as co-authors
of a work of art.
The results promise to be
inspiring and surprising: a true celebration
of British creativity at its best."
Read the full essay in the
book that accompanies the Britain Creates exhibition.