L’Wren Scott on Art, Fashion, and Wanting to “Save Half the Things” She Makes

Against the glimmering backdrop ofGustav Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, artist Rachel Feinstein sat down with designer and friend L’Wren Scott to investigate the motivation behind Scott’s Klimt-inspired fall 2013 ready-to-wear collection. The intimate event—attended by roughly 50 museum patrons and a handful of Scott’s fiercest admirers, including the actress Ellen Barkinand Feinstein’s husband, the artistJohn Currin—was held at New York’s Neue Galerie, which is said to house the finest collection of Klimt’s in the United States.

Feinstein—outfitted in one of Scott’s signature form-fitting frocks—is no stranger to fashion herself. In September 2010, Tom Ford tapped her to walk in his cloak-and-dagger spring 2011 show, alongside such iconic figures as Lauren Huttonand Beyoncé. Meanwhile, Marc Jacobs has frequently collaborated with the sculptor and cited her work as inspiration in his collections. It was she, after all, who contributed the fantastical, if somewhat macabre, set design to Jacobs’s fall 2012 runway presentation. Of working with some of fashion's boldest-faced names, Feinstein told VF Daily that the experience "makes me see this whole other side of life, which is that it's fast moving and you have to kind of keep up. . . . It makes you realize life is going by and you've got to get off the pot."

BY ARIA ISADORA/GUEST OF A GUEST.

Last night, however, all eyes were on Scott. Framed by four of her meticulously constructed ensembles, Scott talked art, fashion, and Klimt’s breathtaking versatility before the rapt assembly.

Despite the storied setting and her deep identification with Klimt, however, Scott was quick to separate herself from the artist whose work surrounded her. “I suppose the difference between art and fashion—while they are both commodities—you know, fashion is a big industry and a big machine,” Scott said before the group.

And yet, countered Feinstein, “You’re always kind of aware of really great craftsmanship in your work. . .  It’s very much like a painting or a sculpture.” The point was well taken by Scott, who acknowledged that the nature of her couture aesthetic makes parting with creations that much harder. “I’d be the first to save half of the things I make,” she said. Invoking Klimt, who famously spent three years perfecting the Bloch-Bauer portrait, Scott added, “It’s very hard to let go.”

Ellen Barkin, who has previously sworn that the only non-vintage pieces in her closet are Scott’s, needed no convincing of the designer’s artistic sensibility. Like Feinstein before her, Barkin drew parallels between the label’s and Klimt’s shared exultation in the female form. “Sometimes I wear [L’Wren’s dresses] and I feel like I’m out to dinner,” she quipped to the crowd. “And other times I feel like I should have a whip and a ball gag.”

The article is from http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2013/06/lwren-scott-fashion-gustav-klimt