Why fashion designers are curating art

A few days ahead of the opening of an art exhibition she has curated at the Soho Revue Gallery in London, designer Rejina Pyo is talking about her frustrations with the male gaze, and more generally with fashion. She has lately eschewed the traditional fashion show. “I was tired of that very exclusive concept where people are fighting for the front row, where it’s all about ‘who am I sitting with?’” she says. Instead, she is using art to communicate directly and connect with her audience. “I love the idea that this exhibition is open to everybody, aged seven to 70.”

As She Isopening October 23, celebrates womanhood — one of its starting points is the poem “In an Artist’s Studio” by Christina Rossetti, a reflection on women’s objectification within Pre-Raphaelite art. It features a thoughtful breadth of established and emerging artists, such as Ángela de la Cruz, Chantal Joffe, Cassi Namoda, Jane Yang-D’Haene, Joline Kwakkenbos, and writer Rachel Cusk, alongside an installation of artefacts collected in South Korea by Pyo’s artist mother Bo-sung Kang.

It’s a smart move, given that Pyo believes you are more likely to see her clothes at Frieze than at fashion week. (Vogue recently described her clients as “spanning from creative eccentrics to high net-worth gallerinas”.) For the designer, who studied fine art at Hongik University in Seoul before completing an MA in fashion at Central Saint Martins in London, fashion and art exist in tandem. She herself paints. “I just always saw fashion as one of the ways to express [myself]rather than as a very separate thing to fine art,” she says.

Pyo considers the exhibition a purely creative endeavour, a way to both express her own sources of inspiration and connect with her artistically orientated community. Over time, she has built a relationship with some of the artists featured, such as de la Cruz. “Everything we have done that is authentic to the brand’s creativity has resulted in something good for us, but when you try to make something specifically for a return on investment, those things rarely work,” she says.

Fashion and art have been in bed together many times before, from Elsa Schiaparelli and Salvador Dalí in the 1930s to Vivienne Westwood and Keith Haring in the 1980s, while the likes of Louis Vuitton and Prada own extensive art collections and foundations.

The latest art-fashion moment is arguably steering in a more curatorial direction. Designers such as Jonathan Anderson and Grace Wales Bonner have both led the movement, curating exhibitions at the Hepworth Wakefield and MoMA respectively. Earlier this month, Marco Capaldo of 16Arlington curated Memories of the Future at Frieze No.9 Cork Street, featuring a mix of work by Andy Warhol, Francesca Woodman and George Rouy, while Simon Porte Jacquemus of Jacquemus curated an exhibition on sculptor François-Xavier Lalanne for Christie’s in New York. These endeavours give brands and designers intellectual bite, while allowing them to engage with a secondary audience.

For Isabel Ettedgui, owner of British clothing and leather goods label Connolly, taking a curatorial art approach is an important point of difference. Her London flagship — formerly the location of the Alison Jacques gallery — operates as both a store and art gallery. “It’s a way to make the shop more interesting,” she says. “I felt from the beginning, you can’t just sell clothes. It’s not enough.” Ettedgui believes that artists are drawn to Connolly’s Georgian townhouse environment because it is unlike an austere gallery, while the displays help customers imagine what artwork might look like in their own spaces.

Ettedgui says that showing art as a “calculated marketing tool will probably not be successful. I think the best collaborations are when there is a real dialogue between the artist and the owners or creatives of the business.” The brooding watercolour inks that are part of the current exhibition, Good Hope by Graeme Black, serendipitously reflect the palette of Connolly’s autumn collection.

Jeweller Jessica McCormack annually rehangs the art in her stores, including the six-storey Mayfair townhouse on London’s Carlos Place. “The art in our stores — be that sculpture, photography, paintings, antiques — it lives its life in partnership with the jewellery I create,” she explains. For McCormack, the townhouse is both a space that inspires her work and a creative scene to welcome clients into.

I visited during Frieze and, despite having seen a lot of incredible art in quick succession, a portrait by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye has remained in my mind ever since, partly because it simply felt so at home there.

“For us it’s not about a commercial benefit, but I am always so excited to introduce our clients directly to an artist that they have discovered through us,” McCormack says. Her own jewellery collections have been directly inspired by artwork in the house, such as the specially commissioned lamp sculpture by The Haas Brothers that sits in the store’s entrance.

For Swedish menswear brand Saman Amel, which is working with Galerie Nordenhake director Ulrika Pilo on curating an exhibition slated to open at its London atelier in 2025, the inclusion of art in its spaces is an integral part of shaping a unique brand identity.

“Our spaces are aimed to be a fertile soil where meaningful conversations and relationships can blossom,” says co-founder Dag Granath, underscoring the importance of engaging clients beyond just buying a suit. “Mega brands are dominating culture, and with their muscles they can expand themselves into more parts of our lives. As a small brand we need to be even more articulate in building our world of taste, because original taste can make you incomparable.”

“There are a lot of cases when art is something you add to your brand to give it credibility or depth,” says Pilo. “For us, getting to know and then to collaborate with Saman and Dag has always been about a mutual interest in each other’s creative businesses. They have always wanted to open doors for their clients, and giving them access to the art world is part of that goal.”

Pyo’s show features no fashion garments whatsoever, though clothes are represented within various artworks, such as Joffe’s glorious combination of a pink shirt styled with a burgundy top in “Esme on Her Birthday”.

“I think all art forms interact: art, fashion, writing, film, and I think really interesting things happen when they come together,” says Joffe. “I like painting people wearing interesting clothes.” Meanwhile, in her excellent Arlington Self-Portraits series — with titles such as “The Red Tie” — Kwakkenbos explores her identity and feelings through garments she has collected, including pieces by Pyo.

“I think that fashion and art are interconnected,” says de la Cruz. “They both reflect what is going on in the world and contribute to it.”

‘As She Is’, curated by Rejina Pyo, runs from October 23 to November 2 at Soho Revue Gallery

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