There is no fashion without art. Major fashion labels and designers have therefore embraced art direction to create looks and theater that go beyond imagination. The industry has often been unfairly judged in the art world, despite the fact that fashion brings together everything synonymous with art: visuals, imagination, design and opinion. We are therefore looking at some of the greatest influencers in the industry who strive to bring art and fashion together in harmony.

Peter Marino

You may have heard of Peter Marino, or at least seen some of his interior designs. The US fashion architect is the man behind some of industry’s most luxurious stores, from Chanel to Louis Vuitton. With a team of 180 people on staff, Marino is able to bring his architectural visions to life to create stores intrinsic to a brand’s synonymous style. Marino finds his inspiration in art, as he started out his career wanting to be an artist, which is reflected in his artistic architectural creations through his use of color and shape.

Elsa Schiaparelli

The greatest designers take their inspiration from art. Take Elsa Schiaparelli as a prime example. In a stifled fashion world, the French designer inspired imagination and appreciation through her beautiful designs, which are almost whimsical in their nature and inspired by none other than the artist Salvador Dali, whose works of art determined many of her best-known pieces, including the famous Lobster Dress, which was debuted in 1937 and was a homage to Dali’s New York Dream Man Finds Lobster in Place of Phone.

McQueen & Hirst

Art and fashion literally combined in 2013, as fashion designer Alexander McQueen and artist Damien Hirst came together for a unique collaboration. McQueen took inspiration from Hirst’s Entomology series to design a 30-piece collection of chiffon scarves, which featured spiders, butterflies and other insects, offering an exquisite geometric pattern that lit up the world of fashion and art.

Sachs & Nike

Tom Sachs was a sceptic of fashion, viewing it as an industry steeped in commercialism. However, Nike changed the American sculptor’s attitude to the industry when they invited him to design a collection for their brand. This provided a platform for Sachs to show off his artistic creativity while critiquing the fashion world ironically through fashion, exploring design themes of mass-production and the industry’s environmental impact.

Sach’s NIKEcraft collection was focused on an imaginary lo-fi Mars mission, which repurposed boats’ sails, car air bags and even a genuine spacesuit into the superb designs. The collaboration provided the artist with a chance to tell a unique story, which is, of course, what fashion and art is all about.

Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol would have been the first person to tell you that fashion is an art form, because his life’s work was determined by an amalgamation of both. The pop artist had a love for all things fashion, starting his career in fashion illustration, working for various glossy magazines to design advertisements for products promoting Elsa Schiaparelli’s gloves.