Fashion and art have been in bed for some time now in the West. Last year, Chanel mounted a travelling exhibition of art inspired by its famous 2.55 (sounds like an automatic weapon, but it isn’t) handbag. A few years ago, Louis Vuitton, one of the biggest names in luxury and fashion, opened a gallery space called Espace Louis Vuitton in the same building from where they sell their luggage and handbags in Paris.
The luxury giant has also commissioned renowned architect Frank Gehry to design and build the Louis Vuitton Art Foundation in Paris which is expected to be ready by 2012. Cartier has its own exhibition space in Paris. And everyone knows that another luxury goods giant, PPR, owns one of the world’s largest auction houses. And PPR’s owner Francois Pinault (not to be confused with his son Francois Henri-Pinault) is one of the biggest art collectors in the world.
French couturier Yves Saint Laurent (YSL) started collecting art in the 1950s and built up a significant collection which was auctioned at the beginning of this year after his death. Fashion photography, a purely commercial pursuit, is also being seen as art in the West. It is clear that Europe and America are allowing art and fashion to mix hoping that the glamour (fashion’s), the intellectual heft (art’s) and money (both) could lead to a brew that would be palatable to the practioners of art and fashion, and the wealthy patrons of both these creative forms.
Where does all this leave Indian fashion and Indian art? That’s a trickier question because both Indian contemporary art and Indian fashion are cottage industries still. Both have and continue to win accolades in the West as well as here but the scalability of both is still not clear. In the case of Indian contemporary art, India still doesn’t have enough collectors. Without a significant pool of Indian collectors (the logic being that art from a particular country is mainly supported by collectors from the same country), the market will not grow fast enough to help new and exciting artists to emerge. And if that doesn’t happen, really then there won’t be an art movement or even an art market. Collectors are the lifeline of art. As the famous collector (now a gallery owner as well) Charles Saatchi said in a recent interview, “Artists need a lot of collectors, all kinds of collectors, to buy their art.”
Indian fashion too suffers from a small pool of patrons. And this has lead to all sorts of problems, most significantly of not enough cash to expand their business to become mega brands like YSL, Gucci and so on. In that way, art and fashion are parallel lines, facing similar problems of not enough willing patrons. And that is because of a lack of respect for design and culture that permeates India. A flashy car or an obviously expensive five carat solitaire will have many eager buyers but a soul inspiring painting will struggle to find a buyer. A single line on a piece of paper can lead to both a great work of art as well as high fashion. A single signature on a blank cheque can ensure that both these creative traditions become part of the cultural heritage we will bequeath to our children.