A Collaboration with Rizzoli Bookstore

The idea for the collaboration with Rizzoli came from the goal to promote art and creativity in one of the most inspiring places for many of us: a bookstore. Throughout the centuries, it was often the stories narrated in books that inspired patrons and artists to create art, while artworks, their meanings, and their contexts also have been examined and discussed in published writing. For this competition, my students designed window displays for Rizzoli Bookstore that were inspired by Baroque art and at the same time showcased a fashion item in connection with New York Fashion Week in February. Their creative responses exceeded my expectations and proved to me how masterpieces from the past can keep inspiring us!

The concept of my design centered around the theme of the memento mori, which was highly popular in the Baroque era. It promoted the idea that life and its earthly pleasures are fleeting, unless they are immortalized by art: art grants fleeting beauty eternity. This is what I have tried to showcase in my window design, which included items usually associated with memento mori—a skull, flowers, a mirror reflecting the image of the passerby, etc.— as well as my fall 2022 term garment. It was inspiring to learn from my professor about the rich history of the Baroque art period in the first place, and it was thrilling to be able to bring to life my most favorite aspects of this history with the help of the store staff and to learn how to execute an idea on a much larger scale than I am used to.