Pucci's Architectural Inspiration: Art vs. Fashion

It is important to understand how fashion designers gain their inspiration when designing a new collection. This knowledge of what designers look for as inspiration helps us interpret current trends and forecast for the future. Fashion repeats itself and designers seek inspiration from everything surrounding them. They may look for inspiration through historical clothing, various time periods, art, travel and street fashion. I am focusing my attention on how designers seek inspiration through architecture. For this piece, I am comparing Emilio Pucci to architecture inside the Santa Maria Nascente, known as the "The Cathedral inside the Duomo", located in Milan, Italy.

Statue inside of Santa Maria Nascente
"The Cathedral inside the Duomo"
Simone da Orsenigo
 Milan, Italy, 1386-1965.



Emilio Pucci, Fall/Winter 2013/2014


 The creative director who looked at architecture for the Fall/Winter 2013-2014 collection is Pucci’s Peter Dundas. The Italian fashion house famous for its swirly, colorful prints added an element of architecture to this Fall/Winter 2013-2014 collection dress. Dundas updated the Pucci print that rose to fame in the 1950’s by adding a cast-iron appearing design that starts at the dress’ necklace and ends just below the hem. By using different hues, such as black, grey and white, the design appears to be three dimensional, just as the arrangement above the statues head. The arrangement on the dress is also symmetrical, just as the statue’s, and because of this the lines on the Pucci print appear cleaner than if the design was free flowing. Dundas also used the texture of architecture for his inspiration. Although the garment does not have a texture to it, the colors and layout of the dress depict the texture of the architecture. By mimicking the texture of architecture in this dress, Dundas makes the arrangement pop out against the modernized Pucci print while still staying true to the company’s heritage. The photos included below show additional up close details of the architecture, as well as the garment.

 

Sources:
http://en.structurae.de/structures/data/index.cfm?id=s0011073
http://www.style.com/fashionshows/review/F2013RTW-PUCCI