The garment: Yves Saint Laurent “Mondrian” day dress from the autumn 1965 collection

The inspiration: Piet Mondrian‘s famous grid and primary color paintings, like Composition with Yellow, Red, and Blue, 1927 shown above

The history: As the sack dress evolved into the more figure-flattering shift in the 1960s, YSL saw this new shape as the perfect canvas for color blocking. Looking to contemporary artists who fit in with the 1960′s mod vibe, Mondrian’s colorfully linear work was a perfect match for the silhouette.

Inspired by the work of Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, Ana Mendieta, Chiharu Shiota and Marina Abramovic, silk organza and cashmere were adorned with yarn and crystals to re-create classically modern paintings into wearable art. Smokey eyed, nude lipped models stood inside cocoons of tangled thread to explain the meaning of Bowen’s Winter 2011 Collection “Oneness.” “We wanted to do something different for winter,” Bowen said as we stood inside the model-filled yarn cave, sipping lychee Bellinis. “I wanted to explore how we as individuals are all inextricably connected to one another.” And connected we are, fashion to art and art to history, moving through life in a sea of inspirational webs.

What’s the inspiration behind the SS11 collection?

The inspiration for SS11 is 1970 cinematography with its desaturated washed out colours and seriocomic storylines, laces and corsetry, Jackson Pollock and Scandinavian concepts of beautiful utilitarian design.

What are some concepts, movements, era, people, music etc that have impacted the design of the collection and why?

The designs are very classic utilitarian, very 1930 Bauhaus style or Corbusier – simplified, well – designed, affordable art or architecture for your feet.

The last year I have been sharing the design studio with a trendy fixie bike shop and London based garage-synth-rock band Commissar, who use a lot of electronic noise in their music alongside machine like drums, which work like propaganda. After a while you can’t stop hearing drums banging – which would have been an impossible environment to design anything delicate and “quiet”. At first the band was rehearsing night times twice a week, which developed into daytime 6 hours 5 days a week and ultimately lead to us all being evicted from the warehouse unit.

The band definitely influenced that collection a lot, that’s why I called this collection “The Drum Machine”.

Because it was impossible to have any meetings at the studio I moved all my meetings to a café round the corner and therefore got most of opinions only from non-fashion-types, people that had never heard of Karl Lagerfeld etc, which was actually quite refreshing for a change – back to basics.

What do you expect will be some key items in the collection?

The conceptual scarves collection, which we will launch for SS2011 has already proved really popular with buyers that got a sneak preview, also I think the trainer version of some classic Red By Wolves designs, like the unisex, buckled Yvan boot, for example, will do really well.

Do you have any other news you’d like to share?

Yes! Unisex Scarf Collection of multifunctional conceptual pieces launching for SS2011!
LINK LOVE: A Dose of (Capsule) Paris: Red by Wolves

It wasn’t too long ago that Racquel Honore’s line ANKH started to hit stores, but it has already made a lasting impression. Racquel’s line is composed of four collections, all of which prove to have significant inspirations. All of the collections have a characteristic that runs through each strand, that characteristic being vintage character. It is important to Racquel that she captures a specific moment in time and that artifacts are present, which represent that one split second. Racquel’s collections include Vagabond, Earth, Love, and Pollock. One of Racquel’s collections features puzzle pieces as the central tactic. The limited edition line features actual pieces of a 1960′s puzzle by Jackson Pollock. Though the puzzle piece jewlerey could be referred to as bulky, it has a certain elegance. More simplistic pieces feature color as their main deisgn detail and simplistic pieces of art that are placed as pendants on the chains. The line features earings, bracelets, and necklaces. Whatever it is, there is something for everyone.