arm reliquary of st. blasius, c. 1077

Okay, not strictly the best picture. I had to get it from one of the powerpoints from my art history lecture. It's nowhere to be found on the internet (except a wee tiny one on wikipedia). Anyway, I love the way this looks: the multitudinous rings (offerings from the faithful, amassed over centuries) and then the two jeweled bands, one at the wrist and the other at the elbow with a long, diagonal band connecting them. I feel compelled to make something like this (to wear, that is), it's so new-agey-looking with all the rings, but still so fundamentally Medieval...

superstition & (butterf)lies

Images from Damien Hirst's Superstition: series of butterfly mosaic pieces created by applying the butterflies to wet paint. Some of the most awesomely beautiful things I have ever seen. I wish I could find better pictures online (only the cream colored photos are any good), but alas, I cannot, and our scanner is broken, so the book itself (Superstition) is out of the question.

I'd die to have a skirt made out of the third detail shot.

laced tight

Nicole Tran Ba Vang, Untitled 6, 2001

This image has kind of haunted me for a few years due to its use in a poster for an S&M in art exhibition (which I saw at 14). I have two copies of said poster.

eliasson

Work by Olafur Eliasson, half-Iclelandic, Denmark-born, Berlin-based artist.

yoshitoshi

Twenty Eight Famous Murders With Verse, 1876

Okay, bear with me: this is a kind of gruesome image. BUT if you can get past the blood, there's almost something Dries about the combination of patterns and colors (including the red). Not quite, but almost.

vanitas

top: Vanitas, Aelbert Jansz van der Schoor
bottom: unknown

Vanitas: genre of painting popular in the 16th and 17th centuries; served as a memento mori to viewers. Reflection on the transience of life and the inevitability of decay was meant to be evoked through the obvious use of skulls but also in the inclusion of symbols like the hourglass, burning candle, fruit and flowers, meat, and other ephemeral items.

On a fashion note, I think the bottom painting could be turned into a lovely print to be used in lieu of spring florals.

source: Rijksmuseum, myspace

judith and holofernes

If for no other reason, this painting is great because of the gloves. But mostly it's amazing because Lucas Cranach was absurdly talented. Sigh.

more 3as4

ThreeASFOUR's Spring collection was based largely on the dot drawing series by Yoko Ono, who I can't lie, I've always sort of dismissed as an artist. But these patterns are beautiful, and I haven't seen the original drawings, but I'm charmed. The runway show itself was a bit of a performance art piece, with the models successively cutting a spiral garment off of the first model to appear. I quite like the idea.

Photos of the studio while the Spring collection was under works

Ono's drawings were reflected back in the makeup on the models

The shoes are the one of the most interesting parts of the collection to me - the combination of what are essentially stripper shoes with interesting bands and straps across them in black fabric, leather, and god knows what else.

the arnolfini wedding

Jan van Eyck, 1434

I can't stop thinking about this painting. I've seen it before - at the National Gallery in London - but for some reason it's sticking in my mind now. It doesn't have anything to do with fashion, my interest in this, although the bright green of her dress - in real life anyway - is mesmerizingly vibrant. It's just a really beautiful, apparently haunting image.

back brace

Admittedly, this isn't strictly fashion, but it is meant to be worn. This is a piece by the (I think) Texas-based artist Rebekah Frank. It is meant to be a statement on gender normativity and forces the body into a more "confident" stance while keeping the arms pinioned (the title of the piece is, in fact, Pinion). As far as I'm concerned, this is just an interesting-looking piece, feminist statement or not. I also like that it imposes its will onto the body and alters its form, which is something that fashion has and continues to do (and explore). A garment (excluding shoes) that took on the challenge of good posture would be probably a difficult but productive endeavor. Just a thought

via NotCouture

I saw this photo as part of a piece called "Erotic Architecture" at the MUMOK (Museum of Modern Art) in Vienna. I couldn't help but notice that it reminded me of both fashion and Futurism.

Mary Katrantzou, Spring and Fall 2009

Holly Fulton

Johnathan Saunders Spring 2004

alteschinken

Detial from Jan Vermeer's The Art of Painting. I love the slits cut into the back of his ... coat? Fashion inspiration from Old Masters (Or as they're known in German: Alte Schinken aka Old Bacon. P.S. I know he's Dutch.) how pretentious.

in stitches

I was at the Reina Sofia the other day and I saw a couple of pieces by an artist named Manuel Millares namely Pictography, Painting, 1957, and Painting 144. My dad came up behind me while I was looking at them and said, idea for tshirts? And he was totally right, the pieces I saw of canvas smeared with paint and ripped apart and then crudely stitched back together were inspiring. I can't seem to find any of the pieces I saw there online, but here are some others (unfortunately, which don't have quite the effect the others did).