Pop Art and fashion have always gone hand in hand, from the art forms role in fashion illustration to the work of New York icons Keith Haring and Patricia Field, the fashion photography of Antonio Lopez, to designers today such as Jeremy Scott with his colourful designs and prints that often borrow heavily from the cultural zeitgeist, like his recent Simpson’s knits, to every high street retailer that emblazons Roy Lichtenstein esque stylised slogans across their t-shirts, and countless others.
Pop Art is an art movement that emerged in the mid-1950s in Britain and later in the United States, which threw away with the traditions of fine art by including imagery from mass culture such as advertising, news, film and comics; the popular and mundane as opposed to the elitist values and culture in ‘fine art’. One of the greatest proponents of the genre is undoubtedly Andy Warhol, with his Marilyn Monroe canvases and Campbell’s Soup can, and it is he who most people will immediately reference when presented with the term Pop Art.
Warhol is the genres ‘Pop Artist’ and it is with this man that Pop Art and fashion truly meet; indeed Warhol began his career in fashion illustration. The artist’s works explore the relationship between artistic expression, celebrity culture and advertisement and this was also applied to fashion and he was a prolific fashion illustrator, carrying out commissions for many of the big names of his time, including Vogue. Warhol’s ‘ artist’s salon’ The Factory’’ a hot bed of self-expression in both art and fashion; he and his circle, which included muse and ‘Factory Girl’ Edie Sedgwick, who with her modish smoky eyes, mini-skirts, giant accessories, black-and-white motifs, remains a style icon to this day, became increasingly influential. The Warholian look, of both the man and his muses, has inspired generations of misfits and fashionista’s alike.
In terms of fashion design, Warhol’s work is continually translated into the creations of designers today, a fitting homage to the legacy of a man who famously once said; “Fashion, wasn’t what you wore someplace anymore. It was the whole reason for going.” Designers have always looked to Warhol for inspiration, be it his shambolic sense of personal style to which the grunge movement harkens back, or his art itself. Gianni Versace in the Nineties featured Warhol’s Marilyn print on dresses and legendary punk designer Stephen Sprouse (who was a member of Warhol’s inner court) made regular use of Warhol’s iconic prints in his collections. As these two greats of fashion design and their ilk inspire the rising young designers of today, so does Andy Warhol’s influence live on.
It can even be said that the fashion industries obsession with celebrity; they sit front row at catwalk shows, front campaigns and even design collections themselves, stems in some part from Andy Warhol’s own celebrity obsession, something which permeated his work and his art. Marilyn Monroe, First Lady Jackie Kennedy and Elizabeth Taylor, all were subject material for the artist, as were Elvis, Marlon Brando and even Chairman Mao! The ‘lifestyles of the rich and famous’ is what Warhol was forever chasing, and in its turn, this is what the fashion industry is in the 21st Century trying to sell with its creations. Fashion today is intrinsically inter-woven with popular culture and the zeitgeist and so it is just as driven by our obsession with celebrity. Whilst this may not be a social phenomenon Warhol created or invented, it is one that he certainly helped to fuel. At first through his art and later his magazine ‘Interview’, Warhol was at least partially responsible for elevating the cult of celebrity to being a driving force in our society.
