Artists (usually men) of every discipline have been using muses (usually beautiful women) or some sort of a genius model as the inspiration behind their work for centuries.
Think Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick, Picasso and Marie-Thérèse Walter, Yves Saint Laurent and Betty Catroux to name just a few!
I like the idea of a designer seeking inspiration from an actual human being, rather than a conceptualized idea or intangible notion; for example Veronica Beard’s NYFW Fall 16 collection was inspired by a ‘gypsy caravan’- that’s way too loose for my liking.
One local designer who looks to muses for the inspiration behind her work is Sara Munro of Company of Strangers. I asked, how, why and who inspires her.
Q. Why do you choose muses as your inspiration, say rather than a concept or idea?
Muses inspire us because of their story or their art or their interesting lives. It's a fun game to imagine someone else's life and try to see things through their eyes.
Q. Who have some of your past muses been?
Anita Pallenberg, Egon Schiele, Stevie Nicks, Emilie Flöge (Gustauv Klimt's Wife) Eva Hesse- this Summer collection.
Q. What industries are they usually from?
Usually art or music usually. Creative people!
Q. Are they men or women?
Both but mostly women I would say, we are drawn to powerful women who influenced new movements.
Q. How do you choose them?
Mostly from seeing a piece of art or reading biographies about people. You stumble on something interesting, something crazy they did, or a visual of their work.
Q. What's the process of finding a muse each season?
It comes very naturally, we often have a list of people on the back burner that don't fit into the vibe of the next collection or they might be more suited to a darker winter collection perhaps. They get drawn out when the time is right.
Q. How do your muses influence your clothing?
It's a feeling that gives a mood to the collection; say with Stevie Nicks we had robe type silk summer coats with tassels and fringing, potion prints a bit 70's and witchy woman.
Sometimes the muse directly creates our choice of colour palette or a silhouette.
Q. Why did you choose Eva Hesse for SS17?
She had a 10 year art career and was very experimental in her use of mediums. We loved her use of found objects that were seemingly useless. She used latex which was relatively new at the time. She also had an interesting story. She was a holocaust refugee as a child, she worked like she knew she had a limited time on this earth. She was also a very dark beauty.