Tattoo Markers Influence Fashion at Rodarte
We are seeing a trend where marker drawings are playing an interesting role at fashion events in New York. This past Sunday was the closing party of the Wish You Were Here Swap in the LES, a retail pop-up project featuring goods from London’s Newburgh Quarter. At the party we noticed the London-bred artist-in-residence, Shantell Martin, decorating peoples’ faces and bodies with markers which she called Line Drawings. These animations truly seemed to echo Martin’s work. Her series of line drawings are created in sync with the energy of the live performance during the closing party.
This week marker art was seen again. For Rodarte’s latest collection for New York Fashion Week, WWD captured body art on the models’ arms and necks drawn with heavy black markers. The marker art appears to add a mesmerizing, tribal-quality to the pieces of destroyed leather, scrap beads, and burnt knitwear that comprised of the collection. The drawings produce a darker dimension to the futuristic aesthetic which the Mulleavy sisters are known to create. The “idea that someone could ‘be scarred and still beautiful’ was the collection’s leitmotif,” as described by Style.com. One would think it’s about the clothes, but it’s interesting to see this decorative art at staged fashion events.
Photos by Shantell Martin, Style.com and WWD