Looking at Art, Looking at Clothes

On Hockney, A Bigger Splash, George Rouy and how people dress for art events.

So David Hockney died last weekend, which was incredibly sad. It also made me realise there has been a subtle thread of influence running through my life and aesthetic choices for years.

As I posted in a note earlier this week, I've had framed prints of both Hockney's celebrated double portrait of Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy and Cecil Beaton's photograph of Hockney and Peter Schlesinger taken while Hockney was painting that very portrait hanging side by side in my office for years. During a recent seasonal wardrobe reshuffle, I realised Hockney's influence extends beyond the artwork on my walls. From the colourful Jazz Age shoes by Diego Vanassibara to graphic tees by Tory Burch and JW Anderson, there is a visual thread running through many of the pieces I've owned too.

I’ll stop there before I’m accused of jumping on a Hockney bandwagon. But if you’re looking for further Hockney-related visual stimulation beyond the obvious artworks themselves, I watched A Bigger Splash on Sunday in tribute. It’s an odd, curiously dated film, not unlike Performance in atmosphere, capturing a London that feels simultaneously swinging and slightly ominous. No wonder Hockney escaped to California and found a more satisfying kind of liberation there, forming part of a wider circle of influence that included Isherwood, another great Californian émigré.

Speaking of art and fashion, something that’s struck me recently is not so much what artists themselves wear, which is well documented elsewhere, but what people wear to see art.

This has been a long-term fascination of mine, documented in previous posts, particularly around Frieze and the unique art-and-fashion ecosystem it creates. Recently, I’ve found myself paying attention to the crowds at events as varied as Icarus, a play written and directed by Sky Quinn and brought to my attention via Jefferson Hack’s Instagram, which took place in a commercial building complete with metal shutters backing onto an alleyway in Haggerston. A First Wednesday event built around Isamaya Ffrench’s curated Studio Iron show at Saatchi Yates; and an artist walk-through with George Rouy of his show Reprise at Hannah Barry Gallery.

Icarus in Haggerston

Rouy in flow

At all of these events there was a familiar but ever-changing mix: workwear paired with vintage, or apparent vintage; the out-of-context Western-wear beloved of Goldsmiths students; the inevitable Freitag courier bag worn cross-body; undercover Celine; archival Kim Jones Dior. Pulling focus back to Rouy himself for a moment, he was dressed in a patchwork leather jacket that could have been prime vintage and matching snakeskin cowboy boots, a combination that felt pure Martine Rose.

You might reasonably be wondering what I wore to these events myself.

My op-art print Dries denim jacket is getting plenty of wear during this unpredictable summer, occasionally paired with an oversized Studio Nicholson boxy short-sleeved shirt and leather tie, which one person generously interpreted as a Hockney tribute. I’ll take it. Elsewhere, a trophy T-shirt from Château La Coste in Provence has been paired with thrifted cream Levi’s cords and Bikkembergs suede boots.

I’ve come to prefer the nonchalant but still considered style of dressing found at art events to the days when I used to attend everything on the London menswear schedule. If anything, the clothes worn by people who are genuinely creative, or plugged into creative scenes, are often more interesting than the hyper-vigilant awareness of fashion people wearing fashion.

A current obsession of mine is trying to work out how to make wearing menswear as a man look as interesting as Bella Freud wearing a mannish tie or suiting. Is this even possible? I’m still looking for the answer.

In the meantime, we’re about to enter one of the busiest periods in the London art calendar. From Frida Kahlo at Tate Modern and Anish Kapoor at the Hayward, to Stephen Shearer, whose paintings were championed by Raf Simons long before wider recognition arrived, and John Currin, recently discussed on Bella Freud’s Fashion Neurosis, there will be no shortage of reasons to spend time in galleries.

As Hockney’s death has reminded me, influence rarely arrives in a straight line. It accumulates quietly through paintings, books, films, friendships, clothes and chance encounters, before revealing itself years later. This summer, I’m looking forward to feeling inspired not only by what’s hanging on the gallery walls, but by the people milling around in front of them.