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"Fashion is more art than art is"- Andy Warhol
Before The Factory and the pop culture fame, Andy Warhol was an illustrator for magazines such as Glamour, Vogue, and Harper's Bazaar. He mainly drew shoes- many of them bizarre and unrealistic, but enchanting. Warhol immediately began to impact fashion as he became more prominent in the art world. In 1962, Warhol released his Campbell Soup Can collection of 32 canvases. Following this release, Campbells began screen-printing the cans on paper dresses, therefore creating the "Souper" dress.
In 1965, Paul Morrisey began working at Andy Warhol’s factory. Morrissey is a film director who worked with Andy Warhol to create several art films, such as L’Amour and Chelsea Girls. Morrissey describes the filming with Warhol as “a friendly atmosphere: there was no urgency for anybody to do anything. The casualness lent itself to the quality of the films”. In most films, plot takes a back seat to visual aesthetics, making fashion an important contributing factor to the films.
Warhol and Morrissey created Chelsea Girls, a three and half hour art house classic that documents many residents of the New York’s Chelsea Hotel. Presented in split screen, with a single audio track that corresponds to one side of the screen, the movie also features music from Nico and the Velvet Underground. The film uses fashion in unique ways in order to portray emotion and power in several scenes. Click below to read more about the use of fashion in Chelsea Girls.
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