I stop by Susan on Sacramento Street every week, not only because of the amazing clothes, but because of the incredibly nice staff. This staff so nice that they’ll regularly let me paw at clothing I can, in no way, afford.
This week I was there fondling my favorite designer, Comme des Garcons (CDG) when I found out something that made me so excited I had to run a lap around the store (to the horror of the other customers).
Nancy, one of the wonderful people who works at Susan, showed me that the fabric of the Comme des Garcons jacket I was creepily petting had been designed by a local artist Dan Michiels from Creativity Explored.
This is the jacket I was molesting:
“Holy shit!” I gasped, as I took off running.
I have LONG been a fan of the art coming out of Creativity Explored, an organization which “provide(s) artists with developmental disabilities the means to create, exhibit, and sell their art in our studios and gallery, and around the world.” One of my absolute favorite paintings, the one that hangs in front of my writing desk, came from there.
They even have an online store.
This is another of the designs done by Michiels for CDG:
But I had to wonder, how did these amazing artists, who live a world apart find each other?
As it turns out, CDG’s Japan-based Rei Kawakubo saw Michiels’ work in Raw Vision Magazine, a publication with the express purpose of bringing the phenomena of Outsider Art to a wide public.
Inspired, Kawakubo then commissioned Michiels to produce prints for the Comme des Garçons Autumn/Winter 2013-2014 show:
This collaboration blows my mind, not only because the combined work of such different artists produced something so beautiful, but because it’s proof of what I’ve always believed: that even the most obscure, modest, or unexpected piece of art can touch the whole world.
