Colourful in both artistic and sartorial style, David Hockney is an eternal source of inspiration for the fashion world. The Bradford-born painter made his name in the 1960s, becoming known for his simple yet splendid canvases of sunny Californian scenes and towering life-size portraits. His personal style – striped ties, major colour blocking and owlish glasses – is inspiration in itself, while his body of work established him as one of the most significant artists of the 20th century. Here, we look at a few of his most fashionable moments…
1. Topshop’s Spring 2016 Boutique Collection
Inspired by the saturated tones of Hockney’s work, the Boutique collection brings together parrot green, mustard yellow, cobalt blue and navy in a lively palette that punctuates painterly floral prints and block coloured separates. Our favourite is the mustard yellow suede suit, which consists of a boxy Western-style jacket and a tailored pencil skirt.
2. Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy, 1971
Hockney’s stylish portrait of fabric designer Celia Birtwell and fashion designer Ossie Clark, who were both part of Notting Hill’s bohemian quarter, was a groundbreaking depiction of modern lifestyle and portraiture. Currently hanging in Tate Britain, it shows a new way of living at the time. The result is a breath-taking, large-scale painting that has been compared to Van Eyck’s famous Arnolfini Marriage.
3. Vogue Paris, December 1985
For this issue of the iconic French fashion bible, Hockney painted an abstract depiction of the glamour headshots so frequently seen on magazine covers of the time. Here, the model is given a Picasso-esque makeover, with bright colour and warped facial features. Inside the issue, Hockney created 40 pages of cubist photo collages of street scenes, landscapes and interiors that continue to inspire today.
4. David Hockney Meets Cecil Beaton
For the December 1969 issue of Vogue, fashion’s then-gatekeeper Cecil Beaton was sent to interview and photograph Hockney in his studio. The result is a magical portrait of the artist painting (in scruffy white slip-ons) one of his distinctive lifesize portraits, while fashion model Maudie James, dressed in lilac sequins over chiffon culottes, elegantly looks on, gazed upon by Hockney’s muse and boyfriend Peter Schlesinger. See it hanging at the National Portrait’s new Vogue 100: A Century of Style exhibition (11 february – 22 May 2016).
5. Colour Blocking
What we can learn from Mr Hockney, now 78, is how to colour block with style. Canary yellow chinos, paint-splattered overalls, primary coloured sweaters and bold punches of colour via ties, scarves, socks and handkerchiefs are the ways to go. Burberry’s Christopher Bailey called Hockney his “icon”, dedicating countless collections to him and specifically paying homage to the painter’s striped ties, famous sweaters and owlish glasses in the British brand’s spring 2014 menswear show.
6. Hockney: An Unlikely Beauty Hero
“It was in New York in 1961 that he first dyed his hair with “champagne ice”, bought himself spectacles as large as bicycle wheels, and generally created for himself an astounding appearance,” wrote Cecil Beaton in the aforementioned Vogue profile. Hockney’s platinum blonde haircut was arguably the first instance of bottle-blond boys charming their way into admiring hearts. Combined with his Harold Lloyd glasses, it gives a strong message: bold beauty statements are always better.
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