Paul Smith: Fabric of Life
Sir Paul Smith is known as a designer of elegant, menswear, with stripes as his calling card. He is also a renowned collector with numerous disparate collections, elements of which he has displayed in-store, alongside his tailoring, casual-wear and accessories, since the 1970s. In his headquarters store in Albemarle Street in London, he has combined the two sides of his creativity in a new gallery in the basement. In his current exhibition, Fabric of Life, he presents not only items of his furniture but artwork that resonates with the company’s ethos of creativity.
Image: Carolina Mazzolari, Map 21.
Image above: Kimathi Mafafo, Untitled.
The gallery kicks off with a show curated by art curator Catherine Loewe. It started as an online show under the auspices of the digital and virtual reality producer Vortic, who specialises in sustainably curating and sharing exhibitions “with any viewer, anywhere in the world.” However, by happy accident, the curator’s friend Katie Heller had just started to work with Smith and suggested that Loewe mount the show in the new gallery. So it is both an online show and a physical one.
Loewe comes from the tradition of Fine Art curation but became beguiled by using textiles to express ideas. “I spent a year researching these artists, whilst examining the power of fabric to reveal deep psychological narratives and explore a wide range of themes that carry personal, social, political and cultural histories,” she explains. She has brought together an eclectic group of twenty eight international artists from 15 countries, working with textile techniques including dying, weaving, embroidery, collage and painting. All the work is for sale.
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We are proud to be a subscriber-funded publication with members in 185 countries. We know our readership is passionate about textiles, so we invite you to help us preserve and promote the stories, memories, and histories that fabric holds. Your support allows us to publish our magazine, and also ‘what's on’ information, and subscription interviews, reviews, and long-read articles in our online blog.
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Image: Carolina Mazzolari, Map 21.
Image above: Kimathi Mafafo, Untitled.
The gallery kicks off with a show curated by art curator Catherine Loewe. It started as an online show under the auspices of the digital and virtual reality producer Vortic, who specialises in sustainably curating and sharing exhibitions “with any viewer, anywhere in the world.” However, by happy accident, the curator’s friend Katie Heller had just started to work with Smith and suggested that Loewe mount the show in the new gallery. So it is both an online show and a physical one.
Loewe comes from the tradition of Fine Art curation but became beguiled by using textiles to express ideas. “I spent a year researching these artists, whilst examining the power of fabric to reveal deep psychological narratives and explore a wide range of themes that carry personal, social, political and cultural histories,” she explains. She has brought together an eclectic group of twenty eight international artists from 15 countries, working with textile techniques including dying, weaving, embroidery, collage and painting. All the work is for sale.
Want to read more of this article?
We are proud to be a subscriber-funded publication with members in 185 countries. We know our readership is passionate about textiles, so we invite you to help us preserve and promote the stories, memories, and histories that fabric holds. Your support allows us to publish our magazine, and also ‘what's on’ information, and subscription interviews, reviews, and long-read articles in our online blog.
ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER? CLICK HERE TO ACCESS CONTENT
OR...to continue reading….
*Magazine subscribers automatically get free access to all our online content. We send the access code by email with the publication of each issue. You will also find it on the envelope containing your magazine. Please note the access code changes every issue.*