I'm currently mooching in London for the week, meaning i've had the chance to go to some of the great exhibitions the city has to offer. First stop was the V & A for the museum's recent 'Britain Creates 2012: Fashion + Art Collusion' exhibition. Commissioned as part of the London 2012 festival (is there anywhere here that isn't revolving around the olympics?!), the series showcases a number of collaborations between visual artists and British fashion designers, underlining fashions strong and longstanding relationship with art.
Jonothan Saunder's and Jess Flood-Paddock's 'Life' saw many glass panels screen printed (a signature Saunders technique) in a myriad of warm colours. This gave a rather mesmerising illuminative effect; one woman was clearly affected similarly to me as she went so far as to touch the exhibit, resulting in a stern telling off. The large number of panels was designed to interestingly reflect the notion of mass production of fashion.
The effects of positive and negative space in shoe designer Nicholas Kirkwood and Simon Periton's 'Dissecting Waltz' gave the heels used in the artist's hanging mobile eye-catching silhouettes. Different parts of the shoe in some respects came to 'life', reflected in the movement of the objects; this gave a poetic stance on the craftsmanship of shoes.
Inspired by an old yoga handbook, the figure in Peter Pillotto and Francis Upritchard's 'Arch' was covered in illuminative sequins. This intricate body suit gave the appearance of the slithe, scaley body of a fish, strangely reminding me of a favourite childhood book, 'The Rainbow Fish'!
Matthew Williamson and Matt Collishaw's 'Lepiszoulo' played on Collishaw's extensively detailed photographic prints of crushed insects, whereby Williamson painstakingly embellished an image of a fly. This gave a beautifully iridescent quality to the photograph.
Mary Katrantzou and Mark Titchner made use of Katrantzou's well known colourful, kaleidoscopic prints, presenting a selection of multi-layered landscapes in an animation entitled, 'Tint the pallid landscape (off to the wars in lace)'. Various words deriving from from the qualities olympic and paralympic athletes hold could be seen on-screen (strength, courage, precision and so on).
Giles Deacon and Jeremy Deller's untitled piece was, as stated, a 'suit of armour for an athlete'; a full body 'running suit', the garment was inspired by William Morris' famous stained glass works. The exotic adornments of Papua New Guinea communities were what sprung to mind for me, perhaps due to the feathered head-dress.
The graphically pleasing exhibition book featured the thought-processes of the artists. Other collaborations included the ever-experimental Hussein Chalayan (surprise, surprise!) and Gavin Turk's music based 'Four Minute Mile', Paul Smith and Charming Baker's 'Triumph in the Face of Absurdity' and Stephen Jones and Cerith Wyn Evans' 'Celestial Bonnet'.