He didn’t so much predict the future as create it. “Celebrity, shopping, money, novelty, surfaces, colour, black and white, mass production, inauthenticity, youth, nightclubs, boredom, movies, Eurotrash, dropouts, pop, the future: all the things he celebrated and satirised and fetishised and derided are the same things fashion obsesses over, fantasises about, rips off. “Andy Warhol and fashion were made for each other,” says Alex Bilmes, editor-in-chief of British Esquire. Naomi Campbell in a Warhol Marilyn gown by Gianni Versace, 1991.
“He capitalises on that, but was always interested in the new, which is essentially the business of fashion.” He was working before homosexuality was legalised, and the Factory was inhabited by counterculture figures,” Moran says. “He had a very open approach to creativity. There are more than 100 artworks in the Tate show, which looks at Warhol’s work from many perspectives, Moran says: the significance of him being the son of immigrant parents from present-day Slovakia and how that might have affected his view of America, his upbringing in the Byzantine Ruthenian Catholic church, his fascination with celebrity and obsession with death, as well as looking at the work from a queer perspective. “We all found this combination comfortable because we could go from an uptown dinner party to a downtown loft party and fit in, while also being a bit different.” “The suit-jacket-and-jeans look became the Factory look, preppy and businesslike but more edgy than corporate,” he says. The rest had been replaced with Oxford shirts, conservative ties, clear-framed glasses and cord jackets. And it succeeded.” By the time Colacello met him in 1970, only the jeans remained. “Pop art was made from familiar objects, it was accessible, and a winning combination with his distinctive visual identity.”Ĭolacello, who worked at Interview for years and was among Warhol’s inner circle, says his 60s look of “silvery white wig, dark wraparound sunglasses, black turtleneck under black leather jacket, black boots and, yes, blue jeans – was calculated to create a cool, hip, rebellious, even a bit sinister image. “He really understood the idea of having a public persona,” says Fiontan Moran, assistant curator at Tate Modern.
Warhol was not, however, just a trailblazing artist he was also a star with an image to match. He hung out with legendary Vogue fashion editor Diana Vreeland, briefly managed cult band Velvet Underground, and was quick to understand the zeitgeist – see his support for newcomers such as Keith Haring and Basquiat. Later he made friends with, and portraits of, designers including Diane von Furstenberg, Giorgio Armani, Gianni Versace, Halston and Yves Saint Laurent. Throughout his career, Warhol had a strong connection to fashion: as a young man in the 50s, he created illustrations for Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. Most recently, Uniqlo has sold Warhol T-shirts and Saint Laurent are collaborating with Everlast on a boxing capsule collection inspired by Michael Halsband’s photographs of Warhol and Basquiat in Everlast. He has also worn Comme des Garçons, had a shoe last named after him at Berluti and was photographed by Helmut Newton in 1974, lying down in a black leather trench. Andy Warhol and Keith Haring at The Tunnel nightclub in 1986.
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