The Couture of Klein: Reinterpreting Art on the Runway

The poised, fast-paced models multiplied endlessly in shimmering reflections, intertwined with the audience’s own mirrored images, making the ever-present gaze impossible to ignore. The audience becomes both the watcher and the watched, catching themselves in the act.

Yves Klein (1928-1962), Anthropométrie de l’époque bleue (ANT 124). Image courtesy Christies London.

In the realms of art and fashion, intersections often yield groundbreaking results, and few have bridged these worlds as provocatively as Yves Klein. Known for his striking monochromatic blue works and radical use of the body as both subject and medium, Klein's influence has rippled through contemporary visual culture and continues to shape creative disciplines. This essay discusses the enduring impact of Klein’s aesthetic and philosophy through two monochromatic looks from Phoebe Philo’s Spring/Summer 2017 collection for Céline. By referencing Klein’s "Anthropometry of the Blue Period" and collaborating with artist Dan Graham to construct a reflective glass pavilion for her runway, Philo blurs the boundaries between clothing, art, and experience. Here, I explore how Philo’s designs do more than nod to avant-garde artistry—how they invite viewers into an immersive reflection on the body, spectacle, and self— positioning her collection as a modern dialogue with Klein’s legacy. Philo’s designs are not merely a superficial appropriation of Klein’s work to sell an avante-garde aesthetic, rather an allusion used intentionally, to create an experience connecting the body to the world.

Yves Klein was a French artist and pioneer of post-war European art, widely recognized as an influential avant-garde artist. Klein's work explored a range of themes and techniques, including performance art, painting, sculpture, and installation, and he is perhaps best known for his monochromatic blue paintings and his development of the "Anthropometry of the Blue Period" series, in which he used the female body as a brush to paint on canvas. This series was used by Phoebe Philo in her 2017 Spring/Summer runway collection. 

For those of us not deeply versed in the nuances of high fashion, the name Phoebe Philo may not be immediately familiar. Yet her impact is undeniable. As the visionary behind Céline’s iconic transformation, Philo redefined modern luxury with an elegant minimalism that speaks both to sophistication and substance. Her Spring/Summer 2017 collection, rich with artistic allusions and refined silhouettes, goes beyond mere fashion—it captures a dialogue between art and identity, offering a compelling exploration of style as a form of personal expression. 

The above two pieces in Celine’s Spring/ Summer 2017 Collection stand out in two ways. Firstly, they have a direct allusion to Kleins “Anthropometry of the Blue Period”, which itself had proven to be radical for its time. Secondly, had the audience been unfamiliar with Klein and his work, the design would still stand out to them due to the interplay of coverage and bareness. The base of both dresses convey modesty; one covering the model’s whole body, the other sporting a turtle-neck. They stand as basic, transitional pieces for the warmer months— the quintessential hallmark of spring clothing. However, the stamp of Klein’s work on them, the silhouette of the naked female body, reverses this modesty. What usually remains hidden inside the fabric is now placed outside for everyone to see. This was the only design of its kind on the runway that season, making a mark for its simplistic reversal of norms. It made a statement about the female body in the fashion industry, on the female body in a fashion show. This sentiment echoed in a quote by artist Dan Graham placed on each of the seats at the show— “I want to show that our bodies are bound to the world whether we like it or not”. 

According to fashion blogger Sébastien Girard, “From one artist to another, Phoebe Philo seems to have wanted to show that fashion is a mere dialogue with the entire artistic sphere, especially with reality— far from being cut off from the universe that she never ceases to extract each and every grain of creativity from”.

To understand the deviation of Philo’s designs from the rest of the season's trends, I will compare her work to designs from Vogue France’s ‘28 Spring/Summer 2017 trends’. In general, fashion trends for the Spring/Summer season tend to focus on lighter fabrics, brighter colours, and more playful or breezy styles— reflecting the warmer weather and more relaxed attitudes of the season. According to Vogue’s compilation, the following fashion trends dominated the 2017 Spring/ Summer runway; bold stripes and graphic prints in a variety of colours and shapes, statement sleeves including ruffles and bell sleeves, sheer fabrics and lingerie-inspired pieces with lace and embroidery detailing, oversized and exaggerated proportions including wide-leg pants and oversized jackets, bright and bold colours including primary colours and pastels, off-the-shoulder and one-shoulder silhouettes, as well as asymmetrical designs. None of the looks from the runway season incorporate an allusion as stark and obvious as Philo’s.

Coming back to Klein, the ‘edge’ that is associated with his work comes from his experiential approach to art and his rejection of the academism that other artists conformed to, making him stand out amongst them. Art historian Hannah Weitemeier suggests that the experience of war and the need to create something new and different than what had been before shaped his thinking. In Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers, art historian Kerry Brougher argues that Klein's experiences during the war led him to reject established norms and develop a unique artistic language that emphasised the physicality of the body and the transcendence of the spirit. Klaus Ottmann in his book Overcoming the Problematics of Art, argues that while Klein’s Anthropometry series can be seen as problematic due to the exploitation of the female body, it can also be viewed as a revolutionary artistic approach that challenged traditional notions of art and authorship. He suggests that Klein's use of the human body as a tool for art-making is a rejection of the artist as a solitary genius, instead celebrating collaboration and community in the creation of art. This shows us all the ways in which Klein was a pioneer of revolutionary art making, and perhaps the stamp of one of his most famous works is an attempt at the fashion house Céline associating itself with this ‘edge’. 

The fashion industry has frequently incorporated the concept of avant-garde into its designs, marketing, and branding. Avant-garde fashion refers to designs that are innovative, experimental, and non-traditional, often featuring unusual silhouettes, materials, and techniques. Perhaps by directly drawing on Klein’s work and by extension his reputation as an influential avant garde artist, Philo aims to associate her designs with a similar sense of boldness as Klein’s. Avant-garde fashion designers often challenge established norms and conventions in the industry, and their designs may be considered radical or subversive. Some may say that Philo simply pasted another artist’s work onto a dress of her own, calling into question the innovativeness of the design. This would be an appropriation of the ‘avant-garde’ as a concept by the fashion industry, used to market and sell clothing labelled as ‘edgy’ or ‘fashion-forward.’ 

Klein’s Anthropometrie series, as radical for its time, was also extremely controversial. In his book Yves the Provocateur: Yves Klein and Twentieth-century Art, Thomas McEvilley argues that Klein’s work reduces the body to a mere object and reinforces patriarchal attitudes towards women's bodies. According to him, Klein's use of the body is problematic as it fails to recognize the body as a complex and multifaceted entity with its own agency and subjectivity. Here we see how it might be seen as questionable for a woman to be wearing a dress that connotes the objectification of the female body. A journal article by Julia Steinmetz titled “Behind Enemy Lines: Toxic Titties Infiltrate” argues that Klein's work perpetuates harmful attitudes and reinforces a culture of misogyny. Steinmetz asserts that by directing the movement of nude models, Klein asserts ultimate control over his subjects, limiting the female body to an object for the male gaze and a tool for enforcing patriarchal values.

Ways of Seeing by John Berger

Ah, the male gaze—my go-to theory for spicing up any essay, because let’s face it, it’s always lurking in the background. The entire world's aesthetics (and, of course, its existential workings) seem to hum along to the whims of what men like or don’t. A concept coined by John Berger, an English art critic famous for his Ways of Seeing— Berger argues that Western art, especially painting and advertising, has been dominated by a "male gaze" that objectifies and sexualizes women as objects of male desire. According to Berger, it operates by portraying women as passive, helpless objects to be looked at, rather than active agents with their own desires and agency. This objectification of women reinforces patriarchal power structures and perpetuates the idea that women exist solely for the pleasure of men. The irony of a woman donning a dress that amplifies these very ideas—on a runway, no less—raises questions about Philo’s intent. Could her effort to evoke a connection to the body not have been better expressed through a different artwork? Or maybe, just maybe, the controversy around Klein’s work was the whole point—a cunning strategy to stir up intrigue and make this collection impossible to ignore. The aspect of women continually and obsessively observing themselves is summarised in the following quote from Berger, haunting me everytime I think of myself;

“A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself. Whilst she is walking across a room or whilst she is weeping at the death of her father, she can scarcely avoid envisaging herself walking or weeping. From earliest childhood she has been taught and persuaded to survey herself continually. And so she comes to consider the surveyor and the surveyed within her as the two constituent yet always distinct elements of her identity as a woman. She has to survey everything she is and everything she does because how she appears to men, is of crucial importance for what is normally thought of as the success of her life. Her own sense of being in herself is supplanted by a sense of being appreciated as herself by another.” 

The dance of watching and being watched comes full circle in Dan Graham’s pavilion, the striking backdrop to Céline’s Spring/Summer 2017 show. Graham is well known for his sculptures which reflect voyeurism and human interaction— or as Philo explained, “offer an opportunity to question our present day, highlighting the complexities and contradictions of everyday life”. Graham’s sinuous S-shaped glass pavilion transformed the runway into a hall of mirrors, where the audience became part of the spectacle—watching themselves as they watched the models, while the glass refracted and scattered their images in a mesmerizing play of reflections. Although I only caught the runway action through a video (since my invite clearly got lost in the mail), I found it overwhelmingly intense—borderline sensory overload. But hey, maybe that was the whole point! Philo expressed her desire to see her collection “cast through the kaleidoscope of Dan’s installation,” and Graham’s pavilion delivered just that. The poised, fast-paced models multiplied endlessly in shimmering reflections, intertwined with the audience’s own mirrored images, making the ever-present gaze impossible to ignore. What’s fascinating is that the audience becomes both the watcher and the watched, catching themselves in the act. Whether observing each other or their own reflections, they are undeniably part of the spectacle. This multi-layered metaphysical experience was sparked by something deceptively simple. The glass pavilion heightens this innate human impulse of watching—and being watched—by transforming it into an immersive experience. This mimics the theatrics of Klein’s Anthropometrie by using the gaze to create a spectacle. The focus on body as the central attraction and perhaps even as a medium for creative expression runs parallel between Klein’s work and the runway experience. 

Céline x Dan Graham SS 2017 - Zoe Ghertner

In conclusion, Philo’s nod to Klein’s work goes far beyond a shallow attempt to sell an avant-garde aesthetic—it’s an intentional artistic performance staged on the runway. Dan Graham’s glass pavilion isn’t just a clever backdrop; it’s the perfect setting to elevate the two dresses discussed here into standalone works of art. Without the interplay of the pavilion, the gaze, and the body’s connection to the world, this could easily have veered into a mere cash grab, riding on Klein’s reputation and the ‘cool factor’ of his legacy.

Instead, this collaboration between Philo and Graham does more than pay tribute to Yves Klein; it reimagines his work for a contemporary audience. It transforms his concepts into a sensory experience, dissolving the lines between artist, art, and observer. Every time a model walked past, the pavilion created a new composition—an image of the dress layered with the viewer’s reflection, or perhaps someone else watching them. It’s a hall of mirrors that transcends fashion, forcing the audience to grapple with their own gaze. Smart, provocative, and beautifully executed.

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