AW14 press day highlights: art meets fashion

I spent last week doing the AW14 press day rounds and my early highlights include all the art-fashion collections emerging. Each X Other is an interesting collective of artists, musicians, designers and other creatives who translate their work into something wearable, beautiful and often poetic, the idea being that art is always around you. For AW14, they have teamed up with New York artist Maripol to produce these simple pieces printed with her recognisable Polaroids and club flyers…

Mother Of Pearl has always worked with artists, choosing one every season to bring an extra dimension to creative director Amy Powney’s sophisticated, sporty cuts. For AW14 the collaborating artist is New York based Richard Saja. His handworked neon embroidery jars rather nicely against this William Morris-esque printed sweatshirt…

As part of its Belgian-themed AW14 collection, Opening Ceremony brings us these Magritte gems. Yes, those are Magritte-printed Vans and that is indeed a reversible bomber. It lands next month…

Finally, my blog buddy Joe from Whats-he-wearing.com had the pleasure of seeing the AW14 Raf Simons/Sterling Ruby collection in the flesh on Wednesday. Matchesfashion.com showed a few pieces at its menswear preview including this white hand-painted coat. “It’s beautiful. Matches got only one of them and it’s already been sold,” said Joe. Did he try it on? “No! It’s £27,000, we weren’t even allowed to touch it!” So, does that make it art or fashion?

(Raf Simons/Sterling Ruby photo by Whats-he-Wearing.com)