Three years ago the Museum of Modern Art in New York organised a retrospective celebrating Brazilian artist Lygia Clark. The event, including 300 works, ranging from the late 1940s to the early 1980s, featured drawings, paintings, sculptures, and participatory works divided in three themes – abstraction, Neo-Concretism, and the "abandonment" of art.
Some of Clark's earlierst works focused on modern geometric abstraction and the artist's discovery of the "organic line", an opening of conceptual space within the surface of her work that led her to the creation of the "Superfícies moduladas" (Modulated surfaces) and "Planos em superfícies moduladas" (Planes in modulated surfaces) series.
These studies took a new turn when Clark embraced the Neo-Concrete movement and created her "Bichos" (Critters or Animals), three-dimensional abstract metal objects whose individual parts are linked by hinges so that they can be moved. At times they were inspired by living organisms as seen in "Caranguejo" (Crab) (1960), or by conceptual themes as seen in the continuous and intertwined metal strips without hinges used for "O dentro é o fora" (The inside is the outside) (1963) and "O antes é o depois" (The before is the after) (1963). "Trepantes" (Climbers) were instead unhinged metal structures in which stainless steel was bent and twisted into lyrical lines and circular forms.
These spatial temporal constructions invited people to establish dialogues with them: by playing with the different folding planes and lines of the organisms, the spectators started an active relationship with the artwork.
Throughout her life Clark's practice was suspended between the organic and the geometric, between form and formlessness, and fashion designer Charles Youssef decided to borrow from the artist her strong geometrical shapes and silhouettes for his A/W 17 collection.
Youssef employed fabrics instead of Clark's articulated metal planes, coming up with spiky stegosaurus or ziggurat-like formations that ran along the edges of his shirts or the hemlines of his dresses. The skirts with a triangular-cut hem worked pretty well, but in some cases (read the angular shirt matched with a pair of geometrical pants) the result verged more towards the costumy, conjuring up visions of Klaus Nomi.
The sharp triangle motif (an obsession for the designer) was then transformed into a black and white print for dresses and button-down shirts, while the edges became softer and more rounded up in a couple of cocktail dresses. Clark's "Bichos" could be altered by moving the metallic hinged planes; Youssef altered his designs by lining some of them (see the coat) with a fabric in a different colour and therefore adding dynamism to his pieces.
Based in New York, Youssef is part of the CFDA's Fashion Incubator program and he is tipped among the "ones to watch". Youssef held senior design positions at Calvin Klein in New York, Gareth Pugh in London, Cerruti in Paris and Ralph Lauren in New York.
He launched his label after his pieces caught the eye of Lady Gaga, who donned one of his dresses and then purchased his collection for her 2010 concert tour. So far he has been drawing inspirations from architecture, geometry and art, with collections moving from Japanese architect Tadao Ando's creative concrete structures and from artist Esther Stewart's striped wallpapers.
For his S/S 17 collection, the designer also teamed up with Samsung and TRESemmé for a virtual reality experience that required guests to view the models via virtual reality goggles. There were no technological collaborations for this new collection, but there is time for them, Youssef is after all a new designer on the fashion scene. Though he will have to tone down his more costumy geometrical tricks, it will be intriguing to see what Youssef will come up with in future and where he may take his arty and architectural references.
Related articles
