What Artists Wear

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She wasn’t suggesting that he turn up naked (although there was much flesh-baring among the group) but that Eliot would not have to observe the stifling sartorial conventions that still had the British upper and middle classes in a stranglehold. Otherwise, in the 1st Century Graeco-Roman world, being clean-shaven and short-haired was considered absolutely essential. They were there to be worn – even the tufted monkey fur coat she wore in the 1982 photograph of her by Robert Mapplethorpe, which shrank in the wash. Images of Picasso’s stripes, Hockney’s colours, and Basquiat’s suits plaster the moodboards of luxury houses and mass-market brands alike, while their iconography has been used to shill everything from slippers to candles.

The Bloomsbury Group, re-examined through their garments

If he had had long hair, and looked like a Nazirite, we would expect some comment on the discrepancy between how he appeared and what he was doing - the problem would be that he was drinking wine at all. A simple, creative way to stretch your wardrobe is to "mix and match" different pieces to create unique looks. Bourgeois stands a little apart from some of his other subjects for the reason that she loved fancy, expensive clothes. The focus on what artists decide to wear daily and in performance art proves to be a window into the wider culture their art is born into. We talk about these garments as if they’ve all been worn, but we’re talking about them in a language which actually is conjecture.In the image, Martin stands halfway up a ladder, in front of a canvas covered in lightly washed stripes—the first step in crafting one of her signature gridded paintings—and with a spirit level tucked under her arm.

What Artists Wear’: Clothes as Tools of Expression • A ‘What Artists Wear’: Clothes as Tools of Expression • A

Jewish men who had unkempt beards and were slightly long-haired were immediately identifiable as men who had taken a Nazirite vow.They are pure tools of expression, storytelling, resistance and creativity: canvases on which to show who we really are. In fact this familiar image of Jesus actually comes from the Byzantine era, from the 4th Century onwards, and Byzantine representations of Jesus were symbolic - they were all about meaning, not historical accuracy. Overall a man in Jesus's world would wear a knee-length tunic, a chiton, and a woman an ankle-length one, and if you swapped these around it was a statement. The text is sandwiched between images of artists in their studios, offering an often intimate window into their life. When Porter spots them walking along an East End street one summer’s evening, he asks himself why, given that they’re sporting some very normal tailoring, they look so bizarre, out of context and ‘weird’?