What Artists Wear

Product Information

The average older woman’s clothes are appalling’: sculptor Barbara Hepworth in St Ives, 1957. Photograph: Paul Popper/Popperfoto/Getty Images Brilliant and unexpected... What Artists Wear approaches fashion in a wholly different way * Showstudio * Some interviewed people are saying themselves „it was not a statement, just what was available and comfortable for work“ A fascinating exploration of the clothing worn by the rebels, rule breakers and outliers of the artistic world, and what it means to live in it ... The book defies convention ... Porter's curiosity is infectious Esquire

The selection of artists: some heavy hitters but I imagine many will be new to you if you are, like me, casually interested in art & aesthetics. This is a good thing. A liberation and a joy, beautifully written and brilliantly thought. What Artists Wear is at once a revelatory account of how art is made and an electrifying investigation into the relationship between clothes and autonomy, freedom and power' Olivia LaingAt the end of the book, you talk about how the freedom certain artists have when it comes to clothes could serve as an invitation to dismantle the power structures that clothes often speak to. Was the process of writing the book galvanizing for you in that sense? As he cycles through the lives of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Sarah Lucas, Martine Syms, and Joseph Beuys, Porter's deep dive is a tender report on the legacies we leave behind and the clothes that accompany us along the way. Dazed Books of the Year Takes ages to get to the point and is such a general overview - disappointingly un revolutionary (as seems to be the case with this kind of art book but what do you expect 🙄) makes me feel itchy and like I wanna shake the author upside down and scream at them

It’s because they’re really one of the only groups of people who don’t have to wear a uniform,” he says now, speaking to HYPEBEAST shortly before the book’s release. “Even those of us who work in creative jobs, we all have a kind of uniform of sorts. Even if we’re all wearing a baseball cap and a sweatshirt, it has to be the right baseball cap and the right sweatshirt. Artists are really one of the only groups who don’t have that, because they tend to work in isolation.” The book is superficial under the cover of being about art, philosophy and psychology, it’s neither of those things

Select a format:

Eclectic, invigorating ... the chapters devoted to female artists make for the most fascinating reading, their clothes liberating them by giving them permission to be different * Observer *