Art / Fashion in the 21st Century

“However much I enjoy a book, it’s not often I need time out between chapters to recover from the rush of adrenalin, envy and excitement. That is the effect of the coolly titled Art / Fashion in the 21stCentury. Mitchell Oakley Smith and Alison Kubler come with impeccable credentials for a project of this magnitude… Oakley Smith and Kubler’s partnership has produced a publication in which words and images come together in a perfectly orchestrated fusion.”
-SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

“Art and fashion have always gone hand in hand, but recent years have seen such a flurry of brilliant creative collaborations between the two worlds, it's hard to keep track of who's doing what. Even when artists and designers are not making beautiful music together, they're never entirely separate disciplines. Just look at Dutch label Viktor & Rolf and its sculptural approach to clothing, or artist Cindy Sherman's use of clothing as disguise in her conceptual self portraits. New book Art / Fashion in the 21st Century (Thames & Hudson) is stuffed with photography showcasing the most impressive art and fashion collaborations from the last decade, with work from fashion houses Balenciaga, Chanel and Prada, and artists Zaha Hadid, Takashi Murakami and Richard Prince, and a foreword by famous fashion muse and art lover Daphne Guinness.”
-VANITY FAIR

“A handsomely illustrated exploration of the increasingly blurry borders between fashion and fine art, with provocative, beautiful and occasionally preposterous images.”
-THE TELEGRAPH

“A stunning new book book by Mitchell Oakley Smith and Alison Kubler, Art/Fashion in the 21st Centuryexplores the symbiotic relationship between fashion and art. Featuring interviews with leading figures from the worlds of art and fashion and 238 colour illustrations, this is one for the Eames coffee table.”
-THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

“Australia-based Oakley Smith and Kubler chart the rise of the rapidly growing interplay between fashion and art over the past decade with 250 colour photographs of cool collaborations. Does fashion want to be taken seriously? Does art want an invite to all the best parties? Who knows. In the fashion corner we have the likes of Marc Jacobs, Miuccia Prada, Hussein Chalayan and Viktor & Rolf – and for art’s sake, names such as Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, Jeff Koons, Tracey Emin and Zaha Hadid. Living, breathing art/fashion collaboration Daphne Guinness has written the foreword.”
-FINANCIAL TIMES

“Prada and James Jean; Stella McCartney and Jeff Koons; Louis Vuitton and Stephen Sprouse: art and fashion have long gone hand in hand, and from these collaborations to the synchronicity between fashion and architecture, Art/Fashion in the 21st Centuryis a fascinating look at the relationship between interlocking worlds.”
-HARPER'S BAZAAR UK

“Catwalk fashion is often barmy, but to consider it unwearable may be missing the point. Art/Fashion in the 21st Century, a new book by Mitchell Oakley Smith and Alison Kubler, explores how collaborations between designers and artists have merged the spheres of fashion and art. ‘Fashion is staking a claim to the rarefied world of fine art via blockbuster museum exhibitions, since the phenomenal Alexander McQueen retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum in 2011,’ Oakley Smith explains. For Kubler: ‘Fashion is as enduring as art for what it might tell us about history and how it might describe the zeitgeist.’”
-THE GUARDIAN

“An inspirational overview of innovative designers (Alexander McQueen) and hot collaborations (Liam Gillick for Pringle of Scotland). It's a masterpiece.”
-MARIE CLAIRE UK

“According to Oscar Wilde ‘one should either be a work of art or wear a work of art’. But can they be one and the same thing? Certainly there's long been a crossover between art and fashion. Coco Chanel worked with artists such as Jean Cocteau and Pablo Picasso. The interconnections have increased if anything, with fashion houses involving artists to refresh their imager, as Art/Fashion in the 21st Centuryproves. Think Richard Prince customising Louis Vuitton. Which leads to the ultimate question: can fashion designers be artists in themselves? Belgian designer Walter Van Beirendonck thinks so: 'It's all about communication, and that's something fashion and art have in common.’”
-THE HERALD

“After a season heavily inspired by art – Miuccia’s murals, Karl’s Chanel gallery, Marc’s memorable exit from LV was very artistic in it’s own right - timing couldn’t really be more appropriate for a book launch of art slash fashion. Mitchell Oakley Smith and Alison Kubler’s Art/Fashion in the 21st Century is an impressive archive of designers slash artists and their relationships, of course their are lots of colour pictures – what is an art slash fashion book without. A foreword by the human embodiment of art slash fashion, Daphne Guinness is just so appropriate.”
-10 MAGAZINE

Hardback
Thames & Hudson
February 2017
ISBN: 9780500500712

Authors: Mitchell Oakley Smith and Alison Kubler