Theme Philosophy

Our approach to the Art Meets Fashion challenge revolves around a fusion of our artist’s and designer’s unique styles of work. Both are very organic in their approach to design and both use texture heavily. For Duke, this involves not only his painting techniques, but his choice of mediums. For Osbaldo, this is seen in his sculptural and dimensional garments that demonstrate his ability to transcend us to another time and space as we watch his work move down the runway. Black is a prominent color used by both Duke and Osbaldo, and they share a love of fantasy and the sci-fi world. Thus has evolved, our theme and approach for this project, “La Femme Noir”. This will also be our team name.

As the plan currently stands, Osbaldo will design sculptural pieces of clothing, and portions of these will be painted by Duke, after the garment is constructed. For Duke, this will involve engineered painting in the round, and he looks forward to the collaboration. As the group looked at Osbaldo’s sketches, we saw elements of sculpture and fantasy. Susan and Andrea are opera-goers, and the sketches brought forth memories of Mozart’s Queen of the Night. Once we played the music from this famous aria in The Magic Flute, we all agreed that our approach was set. We would create La Femme Noir, fashion and art’s counter to Mozart’s Queen of the Night.