Art meets Fashion

Bar­bara Wei­gand, owner of the IOSOY brand, is launching an artist edi­tion of her cou­ture series Easy­glam at the opening of the 2021 sea­son.
The first Artist Edi­tion was crea­ted toge­ther with the photo artist Die­mut von Funck, whose high-contrast and color-intensive double-exposed pho­to­graphs were trans­fer­red to fabric. The base mate­rial is an exqui­site duch­esse fabric from the Spa­nish com­pany Grata­cos, well-known for its haute cou­ture fabrics. This type of fabric is also cal­led Mikado, of which the most striking pro­perty is light­ness with a stan­ding feel.
Bar­bara Wei­gand sees the trans­pa­rency and dis­clo­sure of the pro­duc­tion as a qua­lity fea­ture for her sus­tainable pro­ducts, which she pro­du­ces with the sup­port of small busi­nes­ses and manu­fac­tu­rers. As CDO of the high-tech plat­form AMUI, she sup­ports tra­di­tio­nal han­di­crafts, which can sur­vive that way in the future.
The lyri­cism of the pho­to­graphs, com­bi­ned with the wide-falling A-line cut, vary­ing through the arran­ge­ment of the pleats, makes the gla­mor skirts in par­ti­cu­lar a Gesamt­kunst­werk of this art edition.

The fine art prints by Die­mut von Funck, also pre­sen­ted in the exhi­bi­tion, are avail­able in a limited edi­tion of 10 copies, each num­be­red and signed by the artist. The prints were pro­du­ced using a nine-color pig­ment prin­ting tech­ni­que on Wil­liam Tur­ner water­co­lor paper, whose fine grain empha­si­zes the deli­cate laye­ring of the dou­ble expo­sures. Glass­less frames made of wenge wood round off the com­po­si­ti­ons as a whole.
The care­ful selec­tion of sui­ta­ble prin­ting paper is clo­sely lin­ked to Die­mut von Funck’s family history. Her mater­nal ance­s­tors include the cul­tu­rally ver­sa­tile paper manu­fac­tu­rer Johann Wil­helm Zan­ders, who took over the Schna­bels­mühle in 1829, a paper mill foun­ded in the 16th cen­tury at the Strund­er­bach in Ber­gisch Glad­bach. The well-known pro­ducts of the com­pany that still exists today include high-quality, quar­rel­some artist papers, which are sold under the name and coat of arms of the Gohrs­mühle, which was bought in 1868.
The artist’s for­ma­tive childhood memo­ries include various types of paper in terms of feel and tex­ture, as well as bota­ni­cal maga­zi­nes, which inspi­red her to put toge­ther her own book­lets with the Zan­ders papers. In 2008 she finally revi­ved her crea­tive streak and com­ple­ted a three-year app­ren­ti­ce­ship at the Pra­gue Photo School in Linz/Austria.
Her double-exposed pho­to­graphs take the viewer into light-drenched sce­ne­ries in parks and gar­dens. The trans­pa­rency and color of the plant motifs are remi­nis­cent of the rep­re­sen­ta­tion of sen­sual nature expe­ri­en­ces in French Impres­sio­nism and Japo­nism. In con­nec­tion with the glossy, reflec­tive tex­ture of the fabrics, the vege­ta­tive image struc­tures appear  vir­tually dema­te­ria­li­zed of bewit­ching effect.