It’s been a confusing year in the world of fashion collaborations. The snake eating its tail at the brand team-up dominated the conversation: Fendas. Adidas Gucci. Adidas to Prada. Balenciaga/Adidas. Keep calm Adidas! The company pulled the plug on the Yeezy partnership—and we all know how Yeezy Gap Engineered by Balenciaga ended up, despite the catchy name. Balmain x Barbie was just the first step. We’re firmly entrenched in the Barbie era with this Barbie crossover for the 2023 movie. Hope you like fuchsia!
Fendace and Harry styles HA HA HA for Gucci. Favored by Fendas and Gucci.
Well, it’s all personal, but many of these corporate Voltron Frankensteins seemed to be standing together with logos on neck bolts – luckily, this trend seems to have caught on, or I’ll take an aspirin or a bite at Pizza Hut to Duane Reade at Walgreens. Taco Bell.
On the other hand, the line between gift shop and museum has become more blurred. Designers from Mugler to Dior to Shiaparelli to Virgil Abloh have exhibited at the high-traffic museum. Louis Vuitton organized “200 Trunks, 200 Visionaries” in Los Angeles and New York; One left (carrying a sack of merchandise) felt more like attending a well-curated show than a brand activation – there were some cool and talented trunks! Fashion reigned over art spaces – but art wasn’t central to the year’s fashion collaborations.
If not hot brand-on-brand action, they’ve been injecting their famous faces into capsule collections. Harry Styles’ Gucci HA HA HA song for Alessandro Michele Swann was an international hit. Calvin Klein Palace’s partnership with Alasdair McClellan’s film and campaign gave us some strong fundamentals and killer messages. You can’t go wrong with Joan Collins and Dolls. As usual, The North Face and Suplain teamed up with all of them for mountain climbing and streetwear respectively (anyone with a higher price tag always wins the brand’s lighter look). Super Burberry’s pairing was a soft tartan move before creative director Riccardo Tisci went. In the year It’s still hard to recover from the eponymous Skittles collaboration in 2021, but it’s rare in the history of Supreme failure. Never forget!
Giving mud and style: Balenciaga’s dystopian runway by artist Santiago Serra. Courtesy of Balenciaga.
The stage was 2022 for Art’s Revenge in 2023, with artists designing runways for heavyweights like Celine, Dior, Hermès and Balenciaga. But the artists’ input on the collections was not as extensive as in previous years.
But don’t tell that to Daniel Arsham, who’s been a busy bee, shelling out everything from jewelry to hotels to bathtubs to smartphones. In addition Own brand clothing. Arsham has truly made art out of brand collaborations. (I’d suggest a collaboration with adidas, but he’s already done that).
Here are some art/fashion moments of 2022 that we didn’t mention but are still echoing. Until 2023! 
Models strut their stuff in Duncan Grant-inspired knitwear at the Dior Men’s Winter 2023 show. Courtesy of Dior.
DIOR men
For the Summer 2023 collection, creative director Kim Jones took inspiration from Bloonsbury team multi-hyphenate Duncan Grant. Primarily a painter, Grant was a textile designer, potter and visual filmmaker, as well as an illustrator and passionate gardener who secretly expressed his homosexual sexuality.
Jones created Grant’s country estate, Charleston, and its gardens as a runway and offered a bucolic romp through Gent’s oeuvre and prophecies in all their excesses and contradictions. Like early collaborators KAWS and Raymond Pettibone, he was refreshing and talented, a streetwear genius. But in his expression at Grant, Jones wasn’t impersonating Fenk but looking inward and following his muse: a hardcore Bloomsbury aficionado since he was 14. 
Duncan Grant, List of Untitled Drawings (1946–59). Photo courtesy of The Charleston Trust, © Estate of Duncan Grant, licensed by DACS 2020.
Prime x Stone Island
If Leonardo da Vinci found out about the seventh capsule collection between the Italian luxury brand and success behemoth, he would have rolled over in his grave and said, “Finally!” He says. Mona Lisa smiles because she’s wearing a waterproof tech anorak.
Stone Island x Prime. Courtesy of Stone Island.
Cass x Prada
People are going to call Damien Hirst the “Father of Cass Hirst” soon because his son’s shoe designs are so overrated. Junior Hirst (better known by the mononym Cass) produced four versions of Prada’s iconic America’s Cup sneaker in 22 variations.
Kicks were always Cass’s canvas; At the age of 14, he began designing Nike Air Force Ones. The first iterations were taken by the like. A$AP Rocky, Playboi Carti, Offset, Rihanna, AJ Tracey, and last but not least Virgil Abloh.
Cass x Prada America’s Cup “Rel3ase” Sneaker (about $1,890). Courtesy of Prada.
Sky High Farm Workwear and Comme des Garçons SHIRT
Maybe it’s projection (or just reading too much into the moon-shaking strawberry logo), but a sense of calm emanates from multimedia artist Dan Collen’s Sky High Farm. The actual working farm and its new clothing line are fast becoming cultural staples. And it feels good, thanks to this Comme des Garcons SHIRT collaboration with 100% of the profits going to benefit the non-profit’s mission of “making it work”. Nutritious food grown with farming methods accessible to communities in need.
Good work has never been so good. The selection of buttons and tees are both brands’ quirky and enduring melting pot. They don’t skimp on the tie-dye, which surprisingly doesn’t come off as retro, but all the more modern. One should be optimistic these days. You might never have thought that Rei Kawakubo and Dan Collen would be spreading the joy – but it’s fantastic.
You can’t be stealthy to fight the good fight, now can you? Courtesy of Sky High Farms Work Wear.
Celine
Celine is such a part of the menswear vernacular, it’s strange to think that Celine Homme has only been around since 2019. Creative director Hedi Slimane is inspired, fascinated and passionate about art: he puts it into every collection, with big names and unknowns. For every outing, however, Motoli has a tendency to gather a passing group. For the “Dysfunctional Bauhaus” summer ’23 show, he worked with Swiss artist David Weiss, owned by duo Fischli/Weiss, with Peter Fischli to spray ocean wave paintings and watercolors on accessories like skateboards and totes.
Refreshing Hedi Slimane’s David Weiss inspired accessories. In Celine’s favor.
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