The complex and iterative patterns of the late Los Angeles artist Channa Horwitz were already mentioned in a previous post linking art and fashion. Horwitz's motifs come back to mind today in connection with a Spring/Summer 2014 collection, Tanya Taylor's, presented during the first day of New York Fashion Week (this was also Taylor's first proper runway show for Spring).
Though the designer was inspired by Caro Niederer’s landscape paintings in the pieces showcased in the second part of her collection and in particular by Niederer's combinations of pinks, oranges and blues - shades that Taylor transformed into floral motifs that she hand-painted (Taylor is also a painter) on white leather pieces - the first stripy looks that alternated white and blue with colourful elements indirectly called to mind Horwitz's contemplations of minute fractions of colours.
In Horwitz's diagram-like works such as "Sonakinatography", "Canon" and "Variations and Inversions on a Rhythm", there is sort of numeric progression. The artist often reduced each square inch of graph paper into sixty-four squares, limiting herself to using just eight colours. In some of her works blocks of colours represent movements or sounds, and, in some cases, her compositions look a bit like scores for player pianos.
Taylor avoided the risk of falling into the “nautical-meets-childish-rainbow-stripes” trap by playing with symmetries and asymmetries, a trick that allowed her to get a sense of movement through colours, while giving some of her pieces the player piano score look. The rigid geometry of some of the looks was broken by the stilettos with pointy vamps made in collaboration with Paul Andrew and designed to extend up the foot.
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