With shifts in consumer values, buying power, access, and technology shaping an innovative and dynamic luxury market, what will this mean for fashion houses, brands, and artists?
Learning and exploration happen both within the classroom and outside of it at Sotheby's Institute of Art as projects arise with peers and autonomously. Student-led projects include MADE IN BED, an art magazine and website independently run and produced by the Institute's students exploring a myriad of topics. It provides global insight into the art world through a vast range of perspectives, research, and creative endeavours. In the article 'Glossy to Grunge: How Art & Fashion Are Redefining Luxury', Grace Gividen explores what happens when tastes divert from more traditional connotations of ‘premium’ and ‘luxury'.
"Grunge at its most ornate was also a feature of the Botticelli Reimagined exhibition at London’s V&A Museum. It presented Botticelli’s works as being so extraordinarily embedded in the public consciousness that design and fashion both draw direct inspiration from him. The new era of gothic revival is emulating what was once a highly decorative, maximalist period, and we see this connection in the leather headwear and crosses of Chrome Hearts. In the same way, brands such as Dolce & Gabbana and exhibitions like Botticelli Reimagined are offering consumers a more formal, upscale approach to a grunge aesthetic.
Art and fashion are constantly redefining how consumers engage with and purchase items. Today’s consumers buying into luxury categories are striving to be a part of something cultural, novel, and sensorial. The expressions of grunge we’re now seeing in luxury are broad, considered, and have clarity of thought. It’s also revisionist in the same way that we’re now seeing young contemporary artists like Mario Ayala choosing to work in graffiti with bold acrylics. All of this suggests that the influence of grunge has staying power and will continue to diversify. There will be further exploration of less serious, more ironic approaches to grunge, creating works and pieces with high impact, hype, and ‘talkability.’ At the same time, it will be taken more seriously as the sustainable benefits of buying less and using for longer merge with greater levels of craftsmanship in individual pieces and it will almost certainly become more valuable."
Read the full piece, here.
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About MADE IN BED
MADE IN BED is produced by students from Sotheby’s Institute of Art-London. The magazine aims to provide valuable insight and criticism into the global art world through explorations and projects initiated by the Institute’s MA students. It takes its name from London’s iconic Bedford Square, referencing the home of the Institute’s London campus, where most students can be found furthering their knowledge, writing our articles, engaging in international discourse, and exploring new frontiers.