“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,…
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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’…
GRAY SPARROW Linen is warm and embracing, folding and hiding secrets within. German arte povera artist Joseph Beuys masterfully enveloped this slate grey into his art, investing the rugged simplicity of humble, ordinary materials with mystical, magical properties. Heaving weather beaten slabs of rock, chalk-smeared blackboards and rolls of muffling felt into complex arrangements, Beuys…
“It was as if Europe had tired of dropping bombs and now wanted to let off a few fireworks.” Christian Dior’s meteoric rise to success came in the late 1940s, at a time when post-war austerity and rationing led fashion towards clean lines and utilitarian styles. His designs came as a revelatory shock, re-introducing glamour,…
Pale, hazy tones of dawn swept across Paul Nash’s dreamy scenes, suggesting a place where all is hushed and still. The warm, pastel green of WILLOW linen was one of his recurring colours, invoking the cold light of frost-bitten grass, whispery strands of freezing fog or dreamy forms that seem to fade into distant, heavenly…
“I don’t do fashion, I am fashion.” One of the most legendary fashion designers of all time, Coco Chanel is a true icon, whose legacy lives strong today. Famous for pioneering timeless staples including the little black dress, the skirt suit and the striped Breton top, her focus was on wearable styles with a streamlined,…
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