What Artists Wear
And the phenomenon of buying $700 paint-splattered Margiela
Have you ever heard the saying about dogs that look like their owners? I’m sure you have. The premise being that we start to morph into the things closest to us. Imagine my delight when I recently realized the same to be true for artists’ paintings and their clothes.
The idea for this feature came to me when I saw Kellen Hatanaka post his studio outfit on Instagram. Featuring sweatpants from Latre in Toronto, no less! It got me thinking of all the fashionable artists I know: Jeanine Brito, who I wrote about her use of fashion in The Walrus, Alteronce Gumby, whose well-tailored outfits look straight off the runway, or my husband, Keiran Brennan Hinton, who I think might be recognized more often for his great suits than his great paintings. Julia Jo has the best jewelry and watch collection I’ve ever seen, bar none! With these as role models, I completely understand wanting to dress like artists.
When out in public, the artist sheds their paint-soaked clothes for typical fare. Which is ironic, given the popularity of paint-splattered clothes sold to the general consumer. A clothing swap is taking place—with regular people adopting the artist's studio aesthetic. The Pinterest-ready Pablo Picasso quote comes to mind: “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” I guess one way to stay an artist is to dress like one.
I don’t think there’s an essay that captures the phenomenon of regular people borrowing the aesthetic of artists as much as Roland Barthes’s “Dandyism and Fashion,” in which he unpacks the way that fashion codes compressed after the French Revolution, relying on a series of small details to differentiate social groups. “Sometimes [the dandy] relies on wealth to distance himself from the poor, other times he wants his clothes to look worn out to distance himself from the rich—this is precisely the job of the ‘detail’ which is to allow the dandy to escape the masses and never be engulfed by them,” writes Barthes. A modern-day version of this can be seen in a quick Google search: Maison Margiela paint-splattered sneakers for $995, the subtle paint markings of $770 Acne Studio jeans, or a t-shirt from Neighbourhood for $200 with built-in artist wear.
It’s no wonder that, every time I received a photo of their clothes from an artist, I thought: they could sell this! Maybe we all want to be artists, but the closest most of us will get is a very expensive replica.
Below are real articles of clothing from real artists, revealing what they wear to the studio. The accumulation of marks from their studio practice creates an aura that can’t be replicated in the above facsimiles. I was struck by how, when viewed side by side, their clothing and paintings share a certain aesthetic cohesion, revealing the essence of their work and the power of clothing to communicate.
such a fun idea. glad you put this together.
Love this!!!