Ideas Get Dressed

Ideas Get Dressed: Works by Zac Posen, Manolo Blahnik, Roland Nivelais, Raquel Davidowicz, Sara Zielinski, and Geova Rodrigues

Curated by Emma Kathleen Hepburn Ferrer

SAPAR Contemporary is proud to present ‘Ideas Get Dressed: Works by Zac Posen, Manolo Blahnik, Roland Nivelais, Raquel Davidowicz, and Geova Rodrigues,’ curated by Emma Kathleen Hepburn Ferrer. Included in the exhibition are original preparatory works from each designer that visualise the first steps of turning a vision into a final garment. Each designer employs an entirely different technique, that they utilise from the birth of an idea to its realisation. The mannequin exhibited by Zac Posen, created especially for this exhibition, demonstrates Posen’s rigorous attention to structure and support in the preliminary stages of the ‘drape.’ The one-of-a-kind illustrations hand-drawn by Manolo Blahnik, are dainty, inquisitive, and vibrant with such a characteristic inner-life that the shoes themselves appear human. Geova Rodrigues’ ‘maquettes’ that have never before left his studio, show the designer’s unique strategy for exploration of texture and fabric from the very early stages in his process. 

We hear tidbits of the mayhem surrounding Fashion Week, and of the peculiarities that inspire the designers we love, but so little is known about the highly personal and individualised process that designers employ when thinking of and creating their work.  In ‘Ideas Get Dressed,’ these rituals are examined and explored. From illustrations, sketches, and scribbled notes, to a mannequin draped with cloth, fabric sewn onto a canvas, and unique miniature human-like dolls, this exhibition calls for a new understanding and appreciation of ‘design’ – the ‘intention that exists, or is thought to exist’ behind clothing and fashion. Part of proceeds of exhibition sales will go to USA for UNHCR, The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, to whom curator Emma Ferrer is an ambassador.

Emma Kathleen Hepburn Ferrer is an artist, curator, fashion model, actress, and writer. After 4 years of studying classical painting at the Florence Academy of Art, a modelling debut on the cover of the September Issue of Harper’s Bazaar, and a career in the making as an artist liaison and curator, she has found herself continuously on the brink of fashion and art. Most recently, Hepburn Ferrer has undertaken an investigation into the notion of clothing as a true extension of our deeper selves in the form of her upcoming book ‘Timeless Audrey’– a joint effort with her father to re-discover the philosophies that turned her grandmother, Audrey Hepburn, into the fashion icon of the 20th century.