CITYist

I was struggling with the idea of what I would do, and whether or not I could leave the fashion world without it leaving me first.

Fashion has had a long — and sometimes stormy — relationship with the visual arts. Think of John Singer Sargent’s Madame X and her scandalous strapless gown, or Gilbert and George making mischief in their prim business suits. But lately the art and fashion fusion is everywhere: witness the Louis Vuitton shop in the middle of the Brooklyn Museum’s recent Takashi Murakami exhibit (on view in Frankfurt this fall), or photographer Ryan McGinley’s two-timing between W and the Whitney Museum. Even America’s beautifully disheveled youth wander city streets wearing limited-edition T-shirts designed by their artist friends.