The Year in Art & Fashion Collaborations

Robert Mapplethorpe X Ludovic de Saint Sernin

JU: Artist-licensing deals, which are so normalized now, really got their start in the 1990s, when Robert Mapplethorpe licensed his Calla lilies to a ceramics company for a set of dinner plates. Some say it was the last work he made before his death.

CW: I just saw Ludovic at Disneyland Paris. He was wearing one of these jackets. I gave a little touch; it was very soft and luxurious. This collection is slick and sexy. There are the flowers and X marks culled from specific Mapplethorpe work, but it’s also an embodied and material response to the artist’s ethos.

JU: You’re right. Mapplethorpe is one of the most collabed artists, and yet his social, political, and cultural context is so often neutered. Whereas this collection is giving dungeons—though I don’t think anyone should wear a Ludovic de Saint Sernin to an actual sex dungeon!

CW: Why not?! It would look great oily.

JU: [The red one-shoulder top] might look good with a dick hanging out. This collaboration is very subtle, which is not something we have a lot currently. It’s a genuine homage that doesn’t just rely on the cult value of an artist, which is usually what happens.

CW: “Homage” is the word I wanted to bring up. Among the collaborations [in these pages], there’s a split between collaborating, with the artist actively participating, and paying homage to, or being inspired by, a dead artist. This collection goes beyond just licensing images in a way that feels appropriate. I suspect that if Mapplethorpe were alive, he would love it.

JU: There’s historical information, like the plates that I mentioned, that points to the fact that Mapplethorpe welcomed merchandising and product culture. As a photographer, he had to deal with the artificial rarity of prints his entire life—an interesting parallel to his contemporary, Keith Haring, who similarly thought about dispersion around his death. When you’re dying prematurely because of AIDS, merchandising is one way to get your stuff out there. Yes, they’re using flowers instead of fisting, but it’s about beauty, as fashion should be.