Art often lends to fashion great inspirations when it comes to colour combinations, materials, themes and techniques. Yet it is not just fashion collections that benefit from the influence of art: it is indeed not rare to see a specific technique employed by an artist becoming the protagonist or the starting point for a runway show, an installation or even an advertising campaign.
For example Dior's S/S 2021 campaign revolves around the chiaroscuro technique: this ingenious modulation of lights and shadows often employed by Caravaggio to give reality to his paintings, is a dynamic way to put in relief objects and the human body, lacerating the darkness and lending to a scene a profound melancholy, a melodramatic effect and a great expressive power. Shot by Bulgarian photographer Elina Kechicheva, the images of the campaign feature models posing in striking compositions of lights and shadows, at times surrounded by luscious fruits as elegant as Caravaggio's.
The painter often included in his works compositions of fruit such as apples, cherries, cucumbers, figs, gourds, grapes, melons, pumpkins, peaches, pears, pomegranates and watermelons, employed as symbols of the transience of human life, but also used as metaphors, hinting at religious and erotic overtones. Starring Levi Achthoven, Maryel Uchida, Sculy Mejia, Judith Frament and Holly Fischer, with art direction by Fabien Baron, the images (released last month), at times also evoke other artists influenced by Caravaggism, such as Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi.
The colours in her Judith and her Maid (1625-1627) seem for example to be evoked by the golden velvets and red curtains surrounding the models in the campaign.
The Baroque references in the photographs are destabilised by the design accessories: a bag or a tote, appearing at the foot of a model or next to a watermelon, bring us back to modern times, break the spell of Caravaggism and remind us that we are not staring at a painting, but at a commercial image.
The colours and patterns of the designs from this collection, the Mediterranean paisleys and damasked fabrics in natural fibers, but also the ethereal classical gowns in jewel tones of emerald, pink, and sapphire (often matched with Roman sandals) also go well with the moods of Caravaggism.
Yet, if you're looking for modern graphic ideas for a fashion campaign derived from art and you would like something less intense than chiaroscuro, opt for modern art.
Try for example Federico Uribe's works such as "Balance" (currently on auction at Sotheby's for the 80th Anniversary Charity Art Auction to Benefit the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach; closing today): this could be considered as a multi-layered work, it is indeed a drawing, a collage and a sculpture. High-heel-clad feet balance a ball with a tiger on top. The animal has got a three-dimensional quality about it because it is made of orange, white and black pencils.
Uribe started as a painter, but, in the early 2000s, he moved onto creating sculptures and installations of human figures and animals.
He began integrating everyday readymade objects in surprising ways in his works: golf balls, for example, serve as the fleece of sheep in some of his sculptures; a tiger or a fox may be entirely made out of bullet shells (ammunition could be seen as a reference to his homeland, Colombia, where violence is part of daily life, and to the epidemic of gun crime in the US where he has lived for 15 years).
Uribe transforms these common objects into colorful figures that stretch the limits of a given material's (for example coloured wires) original use and value.
There is an interesting juxtaposition in "Balance" between the tiger and the nature of the material. Tigers are aggressive, but this one is made with pencils that become lines of colours employed by the artist to physically build his painting. This juxtaposition transforms the tiger almost into a cute cat, into something fun, cartoonish and humorous.
So, if you're looking for ideas for a campaign that may be less intense and more playful than Dior's, check out those modern artists whose works may be characterised by an ironic and colourful aesthetic and who play with contrasts and juxtapositions, as these elements could be the right ingredients to help you creating an innovative advertising campaign.
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