Angela Missoni Launches Arts Program at the NYC Missoni Store

by Kristen Heinzinger

The Madison Avenue Missoni store is changing things up. Creative director Angela Missoni launched Surface Conversion with a party at the store last night, a project that merges contemporary culture, modern art, and fashion by way of exhibitions, performances, screenings, guest lectures, book launches, and art installations inside the brick-and-mortar. “This is something I had in mind for a few years,” Missoni told us. “Contemporary art is a field that I’m always interested in. Having [these great] windows in the store, I said it has to become something more.” The Missoni’s friends who joined to celebrate included Pat Cleveland, Gilles Bensimon, Alessandra Facchinetti, Mia Moretti, Olympia Scarry, Cameron Silver, and Mario Sorrenti, to name a few.

First up: Brooklyn-based French-Swiss artist Servane Mary, who created window art and a sculpture using images of cowgirls from the ’40s. This is Servane’s first time working with fashion, she told us, before giving us the low-down on her inspiration for the installation. “I take images of women from the ’40s to the ’70s, and mount them on various materials. I started to work on a cowgirl series, and I found photographs of a group of women that a photographer from Life magazine followed on a ranch in ’47. They were doing the job of the men because they left to fight the war overseas. A certain power was given to the women, and I’m interested in that.” She brought the installation to life by mounting the images on glass and plexiglass, giving a semi-transparent and 3-D effect to otherwise 2-D images. “It’s the idea of being able to see the front and the back of the image, which is the side you’re not supposed to see because it doesn’t exist,” Servane added. “So on the window, you see the cowgirls sitting on the fence looking back on the street, but you can also see them from the inside. It connects the public and private spaces.”

As for how the collab came about? “I met Servane at a gallery in Italy. I loved what she was doing, because it was really about family,” Missoni told us. “I thought it was a good moment to promote a woman who does work on women.”

Check out Servane’s works at the stores at 1009 Madison Avenue until January 29, 2017, before the next three-month art series moves in.

Photography: BFA.com/Courtesy Missoni

You may also like

Leave a Comment