Artist Eko Nugroho Ventures Into Fashion With Major Minor Collaboration
Jakarta. Fashion and art are, more often than not, strange bedfellows. The former unabashedly thrives on commercialism, whereas the latter — while not necessarily free of profit-oriented intent — is widely considered to lie on a higher esthetic and intellectual ground.
And yet, both worlds have rubbed shoulders with each other on various occasions, especially when a designer reaches out to a favorite artist to team up for a fashion collection.
But the opposite happened with Eko Nugroho, who unveiled his collaboration with ready-to-wear label Major Minor in a runway show last Sunday at the Jakarta Fashion Week.
During an early preparation of his upcoming solo exhibition — open next month at Salihara Gallery in South Jakarta — the internationally acclaimed contemporary artist was looking for new ways to make visual art more appealing and accessible to a wider swath of the public.
“I’m always exploring various new mediums for my work,” the artist explained. “I always work with communities, and I became interested to collaborate with local fashion designers.”
After going through a short list of names that he could potentially work with, Eko ultimately decided on Major Minor, a four-year-old brand founded by veteran designer Ari Seputra and his wife Sari.
At face value, the collaboration sounded intriguing.
Eko is known for artwork that, despite its vibrantly colorful esthetic, is powerfully charged with socio-political critiques. His recent exhibition in Frankfurt, Germany, featured murals and installation tackling the issue of democracy in post-Reformation Indonesia.
On the other hand, Major Minor revels in feminine and urban designs that are “asymmetrical and colorful,” as explained by the label’s head designer Inneke Margarethe.
As the show revealed, the collaboration only appeared to go as far as reworking recognizable visual elements from Eko’s body of work — masked figures, mythological creatures, tapestries of tropical fruits and plants — into Major Minor’s easy wearable pieces.
An asymmetrical skirt, for instance, sports a print of Eko’s colorful drawing on its front panel. A similar imagery was also reinterpreted with black embroideries and appliqués on a white collared shift dress. His contrasting triangular motifs, meanwhile, were encountered on a look of zip-up top and skirt with front slit.
A number of silk scarves featuring Eko’s illustration were also styled on some models. They were highly reminiscent of his creation for the French luxury house Louis Vuitton in 2013, although most likely, these will retail at a more affordable price point.
But when pieces inspired by underwater creatures appeared on the runway — including a diaphanous satin-organdy dress festooned with patches shaped like coral reefs, starfish and jellyfish — the cohesiveness of this collection became questionable.
A scan through all looks shown last Sunday raised a question about the depth of Eko’s involvement in the collection, especially considering he said that he saw fashion as an interesting new realm to explore. Was he there every step of the way during the design process, or was he merely lending his visual identity?
Not to mention, press materials announcing the collaboration always mentioned the artist’s name first, ironically relegating Major Minor to the backseat at the biggest fashion event of the year.
Indeed, the label may attain greater visibility and potentially larger future revenue from new customers who become interested with the brand after knowing about the collaboration. But simultaneously, it overshadowed whatever message Major Minor was trying to convey this season.
As for Eko, this collaboration serves as a prelude of sorts to his upcoming big exhibition. In the process, he has expanded the discourse of visual art application and, at the same time, gained a new level of credibility in the world of fashion — regardless of whether the collection will sell well when it goes into stores early next year.
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