LACMA launches fashion collaboration with L.A. designers
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is rolling out a new art-meets-fashion project that has some of Los Angeles’ top fashion talent designing limited-edition garments inspired by artwork in the museum’s permanent collection.
Dubbed Wear LACMA, the fruits of the collaboration with local designers will be sold through LACMA’s museum store, with all proceeds benefiting the museum.
The first designers in what LACMA expects to be an ongoing program are Libertine’s Johnson Hartig and Gregory Parkinson, whose creations will be available starting next month.
Inspired by Thomas Lawrence’s Portrait of Arthur Atherley as an Etonian (1791), Hartig has created a Libertine for LACMA collection of T-shirts (100 men’s and 100 women’s Ts, priced at $95 each), totes ($65) and blazers ($1,500), while Parkinson has created fewer than 100 hand-dyed girls’ dresses ($120 each) inspired by Adrian Coorte’s still-life Wild Strawberries in a Wan Li Bowl (1704).
While the Wear LACMA program itself is new, it’s far from the first time LACMA’s holdings and exhibits have been translated into something stylish to wear or carry, and the new designer offerings will join things like scarves and pajamas inspired by textiles featured in the “California Design, 1930–1965: Living in a Modern Way,” exhibition, John Baldessari T-shirts, and tote bags printed with Lydia Marcus’ photograph of Christopher Burden’s Urban Light installation.
According to a museum representative, art-inspired pieces created by two more not-yet-announced California-based designers will launch this winter, and the program is expected to continue on a seasonal basis, with additional collaborations to follow for spring and summer.
Wear LACMA’s inaugural designer collaboration pieces will be available for purchase exclusively at the bricks-and-mortar LACMA Store (not online), at 5905 Wilshire Blvd., beginning Oct. 5.
ALSO:
LACMA expands its costume and textile holdings
LACMA celebrates 100 years of Western Costume Co.
New York Fashion Week spring-summer 2013: Gregory Parkinson
