Blog #6: Rose Land

This week I read an article in the November issue of W magazine called Rose Land by Venessa Lau. The article talked about a fashion designer by the name of Thakoon Panichgul and an artist by the name of Laurie Simmons, working together to design a beautiful collection for the recent Fashion Week in New York. From a distance, Panichgul had admired Simmons’s work for years. And finally, in 2007, he got up the courage to talk to Simmons about her work and also ask her what she thought about the idea of using her artwork in Panichgul’s upcoming collection. Simmons was, of course, ecstatic. “A lot of people assume that artists don’t want to work outside their prescribed area, that making the jump into the commercial world is a step down. What they don’t know is that most artists are dying to collaborate with fashion people. It’s exciting that my work could have another incarnation in his clothes,” Simmons explained. Just a couple years after Panichgul and Simmons first met; Simmons was seeing her work, for the first, at Panichgul’s Thakoon show. As she watched beautiful models march by wearing all sorts of different flocks with her roses sprayed all over the fabric, she was amazed. “The first dress that had my pattern on it was a black jacquard so I couldn’t see if the roses were on it. Then the dress got close enough, and I almost jumped out of my seat! I was pretty pleased,” Simmons said after the show. After the designing was over and feeling of anticipation had faded, when everything was over with, both artist and designer were pleased with the outcome.
What I found interesting about this article was the fact that both Panichgul and Simmons could work together, to create this collection. Both were able to leave the area they felt most comfortable, merge both of their ideas, and come up with something new and creative. Not many people can do that, but obviously it was successful for Laurie and Thakoon.