A New Book Delivers What Its Title Promises: Runway Dreams
Fashion’s connections to place, time, and art are explored in Runway Dreams (T&G Publishing), a forthcoming book featuring the artwork of Puerto Rican photographer Edwin Antonio, and essays by editor and stylist Leaf Greener. Yet, to meet face-to-face, theirs is an Instagram collaboration based on a mutual appreciation for contextualizing contemporary design.
A trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art inspired the project for which Antonio, a master of Photoshop, has dressed characters from classical paintings in contemporary fashions and set them in themed settings, which range from New York City to the Palace of Versailles. In these scenarios, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun’s 18th-century beauties rock Gothic gear, and Botticelli’s Venus, Simonetta Vespucci, trades in her birthday suit for a striped minidress. Antonio’s collage technique reframes familiar things, notes Greener, so that they “can elicit different emotions when they collide in diverse contexts.”
Though Antonio’s references come from classical paintings, his collages are somewhat surreal, and thus mirror these unprecedented and upside-down days. In bringing the past into the present, Greener suggests that the artist is taking the same path as many 21st-century creators who take a “mood-board remix” approach to design. “Fashion is a cultural industry,” the editor says. “It is [also] a concept between art and business. Therefore, there’s an inevitable connection between social fashion and art.”
Social distancing has created an appetite for connection and a longing for escape. Art is one source of the latter. “Oil paintings are nostalgic, filled with desire for the past,” says Greener. “They transfer our attention to what has been lost, and firmly grasp it to prevent it from slipping away; a form of resistance. As a nostalgic approach, collage art can reactivate material culture in its entirety in a truly convincing way.”
Artwork by Edwin Antonio; courtesy of the artist1/6Valentino, spring 2019 couture
Runway Dreams is organized into five chapters. In the first, “Haute Couture Madness,” Antonio transplants looks from Paris to the Big Apple, “the city that inspires me the most.”
Artwork by Edwin Antonio; courtesy of the artist2/6Valentino, spring 2019
Chapter two, “Hometown,” “celebrates the beauty of my island,” which, the Puerto Rican artist notes, has recently weathered a hurricane and an earthquake. San Juan’s Old Town and other landmarks provide the background for colorful, sun-loving fashions.
Artwork by Edwin Antonio; courtesy of the artist3/6Roberto Cavalli, fall 2019
“Culturally, the Medieval Ages were an important chapter in history. Without the establishment of ‘realism’ in the late Middle Ages, Europe could not get out of platonic idealism and could not give birth to modern science. I also feel Medieval times inspired so many designers for their fall 2020 collections,” says Greener. (We agree.) Antonio’s starting points were Game of Thrones and cinema. He took the background photos in Ireland.
Artwork by Edwin Antonio; courtesy of the artist4/6Marc Jacobs, fall 2019
The Hall of Mirrors figures large in the background of the Versailles-themed chapter four. The splendor of the place is perfect for statement-making fashions, such as Molly Goddard’s voluminous tulle confectionery dresses, or this beauty, by Marc Jacobs.
Artwork by Edwin Antonio; courtesy of the artist5/6Michael Kors, fall 2019
The concluding chapter, “The Last Looks,” simply celebrates beauty. These are the designs that set off fireworks in Antonio’s imagination.
