“The work of art is a scream of freedom.” The astonishing, monumental ambition of husband and wife duo Christo and Jeanne Claude was limitless, covering vast swathes of land, sea and architecture. Merging textiles with land art, they transformed some of the world’s most famous sites, draping, wrapping and adorning them with specially engineered, vivid…
All posts by Rosie Lesso
OLIVE BRANCH Linen’s earthy green rolls outwards across Bosch’s fantastical scenes, forming endless pastures of muddy grass and fervent trees that evoke the utopian paradise of Eden. His paintings are brimming with moralising stories about life, love, loss and repentance, as impish humans, birds, fish, insects and machines form mini-dramas that play out in a…
The role textiles play in contemporary art is a hot topic right now, one that countless galleries and publishers around the world are keen to pick up on. Some of the most publicised, recent examples include Turner Contemporary Gallery in Margate’s Entangled: Threads and Making in 2017, Tate’s stellar and widely popular tribute to the masterful…
British based painter Tomma Abts chooses retro, in-between shades that are hard to place, particularly the dusty, vintage pink of SHADOW GREY Linen. Woven like strips of found fabric into her abstract designs, ribbons of these unusual colours fold over and intersect with one another, creating complex visual puzzles that shift in and out of…
“Elegance is the balance between proportion, emotion and surprise.” Valentino Garavani, known worldwide by his first name alone, had an immaculate, Italian touch, one which earned him widespread, international acclaim. Finding his voice in the 1960s, his old-school, Hollywood glamour was an antidote to the proliferation of androgynous, tomboyish styles that were rising around him,…
SPHINX linen’s exotic jewel tone unfurls across Inka Essenhigh’s evocative paintings, investing sublime oceanic depths or mysterious forests with a haunting, glowing aura. Fantastically surreal, her exquisitely detailed, atmospheric scenes collapse together natural and synthetic worlds, conveying lush, fervent landscapes populated by sprites and fairies, scenes painted with supernatural colours and the emanating light of…
“My job as a designer is to make a woman feel her very best.” Dominican designer Oscar de la Renta brought sleek, Spanish tailoring and European elegance to the United States in the mid-1960s, forever altering the country’s fashion landscape. Making his name in New York, he attracted high profile clients including politicians, models, actors,…
With the weighty indulgence of port wine, EARTH linen’s warm, rich darkness swept across Italian Baroque painter Caravaggio’s canvases, lending them an entrancing, dark opulence. Set against dark shadows and pale flesh, Caravaggio explored how this colour could bring heady notes of sinful decadence into his paintings, heightening their passionate tension and trembling tenebrism, inducing…
“My obsession is to make women beautiful. When you create with that in mind, things can’t go out of fashion.” Famously private and mysterious, Tunisian-born, Parisian designer Azzedine Alaia remains one of the fashion world’s most enigmatic figures, one who rebelled against the structures and conventions of the industry to follow his own path. Known…
Bold, powerful and intoxicatingly bright, POPPY Linen’s candy hue can bring a snap of life to everything around it. British abstract painter Howard Hodgkin saw this colour’s vibrant, sparky potential, layering it into his evocative arrangements of colour, texture, shape and light as a foreground flare of colour that jumps towards us. He also saw…
“I believe that my clothes can give people a better image of themselves – that it can increase their feelings of confidence and happiness.” Without a doubt, Giorgio Armani is one of the world’s most influential and successful designers. King of the power suit, his immaculate, clean lines have draped the shoulders of the rich…
POINSETTIA Linen’s full-bodied richness can breathe passionate, fiery life into the colours around it, igniting in them an electrifying, energising heat. For American born painter R.B. Kitaj this colour became a symbol of rebellious defiance, a statement of unflinching strength and determination. Such was the importance of this colour to him, with its socialist, rebellious…
“The clothes that I prefer are those I invent for a life that doesn’t exist yet – the world of tomorrow.” Shiny, thigh-skimming boots, skin-tight synthetics, stretchy knits and micro-miniskirts; these were the epoch defining looks of Pierre Cardin. Like many of his generation, Cardin embraced the arrival of the Space Age in the late…
Whisperingly light with just a hint of warmth, FOG linen’s pale grey formed a glistening, metallic sheen throughout El Lissitzky’s paintings and prints, speaking of his awe and wonder at the dawn of the machine age. A utopian idealist at heart, Lissitzky was a leader in the Russian Constructivist movement, believing the clean lines, geometric…
“To have style is to … remain true to oneself.” One of the most celebrated designers of all time, Hubert de Givenchy brought elegant, Parisian chic to Hollywood, adorning the stars with his inimitable, immaculate style, thereby cementing his place in history. As a counterpoint to Christian Dior’s “New Look” of the 1950s, with its’…
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