LIVING DOLLS

Work by Alexander Girard, one of the leading figures in post-war American design, has inspired a fashion collection for SS18. HOME takes a look

Words PENDLE HARTE

Designer Alexander Girard (1907-1993) is having a moment. A quarter of a century after his death, the Italian architect, furniture, textile and interior designer is the subject of a touring exhibition – and now an extensive fashion collection is dedicated to his aesthetic, transferring his signature bold colours and patterns onto clothes for the first time.

‘When you practise in all fields of design, each field benefits from your experience in the others. And all design is related, whether houses, gardens, furniture or women’s clothes,’ said Girard. One of the most influential textile artists and interior designers of the 20th century, Girard is associated with bright colours, quirky shapes and humorous details. He’s perhaps best known for his collection of painted wooden dolls, a staple of stylish mantelpieces all over the world, which are still handmade for Vitra and which he designed for himself in 1953. It’s a large family of animals and humans, all individually made and therefore unique, and these design icons are characterful and fun as well as stylish and iconic.

Together with his close friends Charles and Ray Eames and George Nelson, Girard was a leading figure of post-war American design. The primary focus of his wide-ranging oeuvre was textile design; as head of the textile division at the Herman Miller Company, Girard created numerous fabric patterns and products reflecting his love of festive colours, motifs and textures. He favoured abstract and geometric forms in a predominantly cheerful palette of colours.

He was also a passionate collector. On his extensive travels, he avidly accumulated textiles and objects from all over the world, which provided him with a rich source of inspiration and ideas. When he died, his wife Susan bequeathed holdings from this collection to the Vitra Design Museum along with the contents of Girard’s studio (hundreds of drawings, prototypes and textile samples). This creative estate formed the basis of the major retrospective, Alexander Girard. A Designer’s Universe that ran at the Vitra Design Museum in Germany recently and which is currently touring the world. This exhibition made a lasting impression on Albert Kriemler, creative director od Swiss fashion house Akris. He said: ‘I visited the Girard exhibition in the Vitra Design Museum three times because I was so excited about his creative genius. He saw things differently. He had a way of changing our view of the world.’

Akris’s Spring/Summer 2018 collection is a tribute to the designer. It features well-known prints such as the Double Heart reinterpreted in woven leather and a jacquard knit.

Kriemler also drew inspiration from a number of lesser known objects, designs and sketches from Alexander Girard’s oeuvre, providing a new perspective on the elegance and esprit of Girard’s creations. He adapted the designs in close collaboration with Alexander Girard’s descendants, his grandchildren Kori and Aleishall Girard, who jointly run the Girard Studio today. They said: “We were pleasantly surprised to see the selection of our grandfather’s works that Albert Kriemler chose for this collaboration. He found inspiration from many aspects of our grandfather’s career: wooden sculpture, architectural renderings, oil paintings and collage, to name a few. Seeing how Albert has interpreted these designs and adapted them for clothing is exciting for us, as we have always seen the potential for this work to translate very well to fashion. We feel that the final outcome is a beautiful and unique tribute to the work of our Alexander Girard.”

The Vitra Design Museum exhibition ‘Alexander Girard. A Designer’s Universe’ is now touring internationally and continues at Hangaram Design Museum, Seoul, South Korea until 4 March 2018, reopening at the Berkeley Art Museum, USA, from 20 June until 9 September 2018.