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Vanessa Beecroft’s work with Kanye West over the last eight years has inarguably made the controversial Italian the most viewed performance artist of all time – a feat made all the more impressive for her having essentially left the art world behind in 2010.
Her relationship with fashion has been an even longer standing one, with previous collaborators in Miuccia Prada, Tom Ford for Gucci, Helmut Lang and Manolo Blahnik, and a close friend in Franca Sozzani. That relationship now takes on an entirely new form following a recent Milan Fashion Week collaboration with Tod’s, aptly-named VB Handmade and inspired by the work of another industry legend, Guy Bourdin.
Starring Karlie Kloss, VB Handmade takes the formative elements of her once prolific practice (stoic, barely-dressed models acting according to a set strict ‘rules’) and combines them with the substance of Tod’s artisanal practice and Kloss’s impossibly long limbs. It’s the perfect convergence of fashion, art and craftsmanship.
“I started with a photograph by Guy Bourdin where a woman is lying on a table, and she’s naked. I had to wrap something around the women’s bodies, and Tod’s asked if I could do something in relation to their handbags”, explained Beecroft of her work.
“So I wrapped them with leather pieces and stuck them with needles. So it was kind of an adventure, figuring it out.”
And, of course, it was set to a sound track provided by Kanye West. What else are ‘real friends’ for? Watch VB Handmade in action below.
