An unassuming stained-glass window in Adriana González Hulshof’s house in Amsterdam was the starting point for the collection of haute couture dresses designed by Mauricio Limón and Adriana González Hulshof realized by Atelier Caraco in Paris.
Westerstraat 87 is one in a growing collection of flimsy open edition dresses, each inspired by a different Art Deco stained-glass window found mainly in Amsterdam and other Dutch cities.
A certain playfulness characterizes Art Deco’s decorative idiom, which is reflected in the fanciful title chosen for the collection as a whole, as opposed to the individual dresses. Les petits pois sont verts… Les petits poissons rouges… nods to the eponymous oil painting by the French architect and painter Yves Laloy (1920-1999), which André Breton owned and found suitably ambiguous.
For Limón, these works are an extension of his practice as a painter. In fact, the four dresses made to date were conceived in dialogue with a series of twelve paintings executed with white potassium alum and occasionally black ink on wooden panels.
Words by Agnieszka Gratza.
