The print of a dress makes a dress – especially the uniqueness of a collection in times of copy cats manufacturing fast and making everything available everywhere in the world. IRMA discovered three designers who chose to have their prints uniquely designed by artists for their collections. The dress is no longer just a dress but becoming a piece of art. We like that very much.
Christophe Chemin, artist for Prada, Autumn/Winter 2016
The French-born artist Christophe Chemin currently lives and works in Berlin. He draws, writes, photographs, directs, films and designs. He has published four novels and is the creator of numerous films. For his artwork he found that the nature of women is extremely complex and ineffable: It is full of textures and colors. Like a Russian doll, one placed inside another. The allegory of women related to the structure of nature and time, as an elegy.
For the second time of commissioned artwork for Prada (first round was Menswear FW 2016-17), Christophe Chemin is taking us on a journey deep inside the architecture of women’s soul.
Wini Greeni, illustrator, tattoo artist & designer for Alexander McQueen
At túworkshop, founder Wini Greeni imagines original products inspired by her experiences around the world. She was a graphic designer in Hong Kong, a tattoo artist in Beijing, a fashion designer at the studios of Alexander McQueen in London, and one day in 2009 she was asked to illustrate the pattern design for the Alexander McQueen collection. Our guest editor Zoe Warncke met her in New York.
Interview by Zoe Warncke
ZOE WARNCKE: Would you consider yourself more a textile designer, an illustrator or a tattoo artist?
WINI GREENI: I consider myself as someone who wants to make the world more colourful and surreal.
ZOE WARNCKE: What do you like most about drawing from nature?
WINI GREENI: It’s an endless lesson from Mother Nature and it’s for free!
ZOE WARNCKE: Your favorite visual medium?
WINI GREENI: I love all media. It depends on what kind of message I would like to express. Don’t ask me to choose! I am a libra!
ZOE WARNCKE: How does it feel to see your artwork on the runway?
WINI GREENI: 🙈 🙉
ZOE WARNCKE: What is a really bad day for you and how does a wonderful day look like?
WINI GREENI: Bad – Why does it always rain on me!
Good – work the last bits of energy out of me! Make good use of every single minute!
ZOE WARNCKE: 1. How did you get approached to make the illustrations for Alexander McQueen? 2 Would you do it again? 3. Or for any other designer?
WINI GREENI:
1. I was their intern.
2. Always!
3. For Josep Font! For Rei Kawakubo! For Jun Takahashi! For Nicholas Ghesqusre!
Follow her on instagram @winigreeni
Eri Wakiyama, illustrator for MIU MIU
Eri is a graduate from Parson’s School of Design in New York. One day she was asked to do some pattern designs for Miuccia Prada for her summer 2016 collection and a few months later Eri was sitting in their show in Paris when only after the 26th look a dress with her drawn candle motif in black & white ink walked along the runway. Eri: “I was like, ‘What if they didn’t use it,’ but when [the first pattern] came out—I was shaking so much!”
Follow her on instagram @mermaidhair
Photo Credit Front: Christophe Chemin for PRADA