Merchants of Style: Art and Fashion After Warhol, Natasha Dege

Merchants of Style traces the bold convergence of art and fashion from the surrealist couturiers of the 1930s through to today’s luxury brand collaborations. Natasha Degen casts Andy Warhol as the pivotal figure who blurred the once-rigid boundaries between canvas and couture—where handbags become artworks, and galleries double as showrooms. With 54 carefully curated illustrations (40 in full colour), the book maps how commercial imperatives, artistic ambition, and institutional power forged a hybrid aesthetic economy that continues to define global culture. 

In tight, insightful essays, Degen shows how fashion houses have appropriated art’s discourse to elevate their own narrative and how artists leveraged haute couture to subvert consumption language. From Dalí’s boutique window displays to luxury empires opening art foundations, this book offers a compelling diagnosis of cultural exchange, elite consumption, and the future of aesthetic industries. Merchants of Style is an essential companion for anyone intrigued by the fabric of commerce and creativity.

About the Author
Natasha Degen is Professor and Chair of Art Market Studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York. Her writing bridges scholarly rigour with cultural reportage—spanning The Market (2013), and contributions to the New Yorker, Artforum, Financial Times and Frieze. In this book, her lens aligns archival precision with sharp analysis to decode the entanglement of art and fashion in today’s cultural economy.

Publication date: 2023
Publisher: Reaktion Books
Pages: 288
ISBN: 978-1789146691