Transforming a woman’s body into a piece of art, the Venezuelan Oscar Carvallo introduced 35 outfits with prints, textures, cuts and details created from six works made by another Venezuelan artist, Carlos Cruz-Diez for the collection Voyage Cinétique II, Spring-Summer 2014. This is the second visual and sensory journey that they made together.
Carlos Cruz-Diez’s plastic reflection has modified notions about color in art. Most of his research originates in what he calls “supports for chromatic events.” His work shows that colour, when interacting with the observer, becomes an autonomous event capable of evolving in real time and space, without any kind of anecdote and without the help of form or support. Cruz-Diez’s work encompasses eight investigations: CouleurAdditive, Physichromie, InductionChromatique, Chromointerférence, Transchromie, Chromosaturation, Chromoscope y Couleur dans l’espace.
It was not easy to fuse. Carvallo commented: “Kinetic art in a painting is easy to admire, but when you have it on your body is something else, for questions of color and movement.” Carvallo decided to enter the world of fashion starting as the right hand of the renowned French “couturier” Guy Meliet, the disciple of Christian Dior, from whom he learned the techniques of sewing since he was established in the city of Caracas.
With special attention to details and textile finishing, Oscar Carvallo surprisingly mixed silk, muslin, gazar and lace with unusual materials such as neoprene, mesh and metal sheets, which gave color and texture to the incredible collection. Cruz-Diez was also in charge of the jewelry, which was a complete play of lights and movements, leading to the silhouettes of vivid colors making the spectator’s eye get lost inside the kinetic reflection put on stage with humor and theatricality.
This proposal was born from a close collaboration between Maison Carvallo and Atelier Cruz-Diez when they first met at an event at the Musée des arts décoratifs in Paris, which took place in 2008.
