Gigi Hadid Wore a Heron Preston Suit Decorated With A Spray Paint Print

Is fashion art? While the Instagram account @arthistoryfashion that matches your fave fashion campaigns’ to fine art certainly thinks so, the question of fashion being art has long haunted the fashion industry and bystanders alike. Though fashion shares a lot in common with art, namely, it’s a creative outlet that has the potential to be expressive and awe-inspiring, it also differs in its practical usages. At the end of the day, clothes are meant to be worn. Also, while the art market usually revolves around individual artists, the fashion industry is typically driven foremost by brands (that have a revolving door of designers attached to them).

Designers are clearly aware of the close kinship fashion has with art, incorporating art right into the cloth of their designs. For example, for the Dior Fall 2012 Couture collection, the brand’s then designer Raf Simons went through the painstaking process of making fabric out of artist Sterling Ruby’s paintings (the task was documented in the 2014 documentary, Dior and I). Sterling’s artworks, which are industrial takes on artist Mark Rothko’s mono-pigmented paintings, showcasing a gradation of colors that somehow didn’t look a hair out of place on a Dior ballgown. Sterling must have enjoyed seeing his art turned into clothes because he recently released his very own clothing line.

Speaking of clothes that double as artistic masterpieces, can we talk about Gigi Hadid’s outfit at the Heron Preston Spring Summer 2020 show in London earlier this week? A work of art if we ever saw one. For the occasion, she wore a cream-colored suit with splattered paint and an assemblage of necklaces and mismatched earrings featuring teardrop pearls, metal carabiner, a red toy car, colored beads, and puka shells. How very Robert Rauschenberg of her.

The print on the suit Gigi wore was actually done by the artist by Robert Nava, who was born in Chicago and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. His abstract paintings use spray paint to create life-size recreations of drawings a child might do. As Picasso said, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” Lucky for us, it seems that Robert is an artist who didn’t grow up.

Immediately upon seeing the colorful suit, we were reminded of other famous paintings by some of our favorite artists. The minimalist, primitive, aesthetic of Robert Nava’s art (as seen on Gigi’s suit) is similar to paintings done throughout art history, which often incite an outraged chorus of “I could do that!” (but sorry, you didn’t).

Scroll through to see other famous artists that Gigi’s fit reminded us of.

Charlotte Park

The pop of Cadmium Yellow in Charlotte Park’s abstraction, painted in 1965, nicely aligns with the disposal camera Gigi carried around. The bold lines and primary-colored shapes on the muted canvas echo the print of Gigi’s suit.

Cy Twombly

When I first saw Gigi’s ensemble, my mind automatically thought of painter Cy Twombly, whose work often took on a graffiti-like quality with their free-hand scribbles. This color-way of this collage done by Cy Twombly reminds me of the entire look Gigi is rocking — including her shoes and makeup.

Joan Mitchell

While spending time outside, Gigi added a pair of 90s-style brown sunglasses to the look. Both Joan Mitchell’s painting and Gigi’s outfit have a chaotic energy that remains slightly restrained but all at once put together. We’d like to hang this painting and photograph together as a diptych: two pieces of art that belong together in harmony.

Lorna Crane

Lorna Crane is an Australian painter and textile artist. Not unlike Twombly in her use of organic shapes, this painting’s use of black scribbled lines on a beige background resembles the glory that is Gigi’s suit.

Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue