10 Fashion Designs Inspired by Iconic Artworks
Discover how designers such as Yves Saint Laurent and Vivienne Westwood reinvented famous paintings
Fashion designers draw inspiration from all kinds of materials—and sometimes, that can be a famous artwork. Whether it’s Gustav Klimt’s signature golden swirls appearing on dresses, Pablo Picasso’s asymmetrical geometry inspiring jackets, or Henri Matisse’s bold painting of a Romanian blouse transforming into a real blouse, the line between high art and high fashion is quite often blurred.
Everything from Renaissance art to modern art can be found strutting down the catwalk, but reimagined with needle and thread. Let’s have a look at the times when top fashion designers gained inspiration from the world’s most well-known artists.
1. François Boucher and Vivienne Westwood
Vivienne Westwood is well known for raiding and reinventing the closets of the past. With a few tweaks, Westwood totally transformed the look and vibe of the crumpled, opalescent silk dress worn by Madame de Pompadour in François Boucher's 1758 painting, Portrait of Madame de Pompadour.
Westwood’s 2003 evening dress Anglophilia contains the designer’s trademark asymmetry to create a cutting-edge take on the original.
2. Martial Raysse and Yves Saint Laurent
Yves Saint Laurent was a lover of art, drawing inspiration from art history for some of his most iconic designs—some of which are featured as part of his current Yves Saint Laurent Aux Musées exhibition showing "the profound inspirational bond the couturier had with art in general."
One example is this fur jacket in his spring/summer 1971 collection. Laurent’s inspiration this time was a mixed-media painting by the French artist Martial Raysse.
Made in Japan-La Grande Odalisque (1964) seems to simultaneously mock and play with the concept of beauty, by erasing some of the woman’s features and placing a plastic toy fly above her head. See how Laurent not only replicates the gaudy yet playful green in this jacket, but also the bold curves.
3. Queen Elizabeth I and Alexander McQueen
Alexander McQueen isn’t the first fashion house—nor will it be the last—to draw inspiration from the Tudor fashion icon, Queen Elizabeth I. The exaggerated silhouette imparted by her dresses, hairstyle, and ornaments, particularly in the Armada Portrait painted by an unknown artist (circa 1588), have inspired designers for generations.
With the detailed lace designs, ruffled sleeves, and jewel-encrusted headgear, Alexander McQueen blew the dust off Tudor fashion in Paris Fashion Week, 2013.
4. Pablo Picasso and Yves Saint Laurent
Yves Saint Laurent once said, "I believe the work of a couturier is very much like that of an artist. In fact, I have constantly found inspiration in the work of contemporary painters: Picasso, Matisse, Mondrian.”
And that inspiration is evident in this jacket from YSL’s 1979 Autumn/Winter collection, where Laurent has brought Picasso’s surreal and geometrical Portrait of Nusch Éluard (1937) to life with a jacket made up of similar colors and shapes.
5. Piet Mondrian and Yves Saint Laurent
Art strikes Yves Saint Laurent again, and this time the dress is named after the artist: Hommage à Piet Mondrian.
This particular YSL dress from the Autumn/Winter 1965 collection (also known as the Mondrian Dress) could almost pass as a print of Mondrian’s Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue (1929). But if you look closely, the colors, lines, and rectangles are arranged to fit the dress—itself more of a cube-like shape than the usual curvilinear.
6. Claude Monet and Christian Dior
The dappled light, pastel colors, and natural elements of Claude Monet’s impressionist paintings haven’t just sparked the idea for one Christian Dior dress, but have served as the fashion designer’s style code for generations.
Dior attributed this gown from the Spring/Summer 1949 collection to Monet’s The Path Through the Irises, and embroidered entirely with flower petals in varying shades of pink and purple, it is a testimony to Dior’s level of craftsmanship.
7. Gustav Klimt and Alexander McQueen
The sensual, gold-encrusted art by Austrian master of the Symbolism movement Gustav Klimt, is understandably a point of reference for many couturiers.
Look how Alexander McQueen’s gold-encrusted ensemble from his Spring/Summer 2013 runway show features the same, abstract patterns that adorn Klimt's muse in Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907). Klimt was fascinated by symbols—from Ancient Egypt, Japan, and the Byzantine era—and frequently incorporated them into his work.
8. Tom Wesselmann and Yves Saint Laurent
As we’ve seen elsewhere in the collections of Yves Saint Laurent, famous artworks and couture clothes frequently crossed over. Pop art was all the rage in the 1960s, and YSL never shied away from engaging with contemporary trends.
In a similar style to YSL’s homage to Mondrian, this dress from his Autumn/Winter 1966 collection pays homage to the mixed-media American artist Tom Wesselmann, whose bold nudes and strong lines took the American art world by storm in the swinging ‘60s.
9. Valentino and Heironymus Bosch
At the Valentino Spring/Summer 2017 fashion show, creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli turned to one of his early artistic inspirations—the Renaissance artist, Heironymus Bosch and his triptych painting, The Garden of Earthly Delights (1490-1510).
Valentino teamed up with punk designer Zandra Rhodes and together created a collection of diaphanous dresses, shirts and skirts in apple green, blush pink, and robin egg blue that give an enthusiastic nod to the medieval masterpiece.
10. Henry Matisse and Yves Saint Laurent
You could argue that it was Henri Matisse, rather than Yves Saint Laurent, who originally designed this boldly colored and distinctly patterned blouse. Yves Saint Laurent has remained loyal to the colors and design of the shirt that appears in Matisse's 1940 painting La Blouse Romaine.
In fact, YSL not only brought this Romanian-inspired garment to the catwalk in 1981, but sparked its popularity as a fashion item that has been seen time and again not just in high fashion outlets, but on the high street, too.
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