Ulla Johnson has made a practice of collaborating with women artists or their estates; Lee Krasner, Anna Zemánková, and Shara Hughes, among them. Helen Frankenthaler, the great abstract expressionist, was “the dream,” the designer said today. To point out that Johnson has a knack for manifesting what she wants is in no way to downplay the hard work that goes into it. Proof of her drive has taken form not far from her show’s Cooper Hewitt location in the shape of a new flagship store. And in the use of three iconic Frankenthaler paintings in her latest collection.
Johnson explained her attraction to the artist’s work. It’s not just because its beautiful. “In my creative art, pretty and feminine… sometimes these words are kind of taken to mean not serious or powerful,” she said. “And I think Frankenthaler maybe struggled with that too. If you say it’s a beautiful picture, are you gutting something from what she was trying to say? Is it reductive? Is it flattening?” After worrying herself on this subject—high fashion hasn’t historically valued prettiness and femininity even though the society of women does, go figure—Johnson said she’s at long last made the decision to “embrace these things.”
Indeed, the new collection leaned in hard to these qualities, with its diaphanous, weightless fabrics; feather embellishments and fringes; and whorls of Frankenthaler color, some of which even made it onto Johnson’s expanding bag range.
Discussing the three paintings, Western Dream, Nature Abhors a Vacuum, and Moon Tide, Johnson observed that, “when she put it on the floor, Frankenthaler felt like the border of the canvas became limitless. And that sense of being freed up without constraints, where really the edge can blur forever, was very inspiring for us.” If there’s a lingering question, it’s what would Helen Frankenthaler wear from this collection to work in her studio? To run some errands? Johnson will get no argument from these parts that there’s strength in softness, but what about her sturdy side? It would be enriching to see her apply her considerable drive to more of these kind of clothes, and to add them to her runway message.
