Rodarte : Kate and Laura Mulleavy

[HeatherAnne]

Those pictures are flat out amazing, thanks cynthiawood for posting!

 

[classicalbang]

Rodarte for Knoll Luxe

These days, fashion-design collaborations are so common that they’re beginning to seem a little, well, old hat. But the clothing label Rodarte’s collaboration with Knoll Luxe (www.knoll-luxe.com), a luxury textile division of the furniture company Knoll Inc., is anything but.
Kate and Laura MulleavyAutumn de Wilde Kate and Laura Mulleavy.

Since starting Rodarte in 2005, Kate and Laura Mulleavy have become known for developing fabrics for their collections and transforming them in weird and wonderful ways — think burning, scorching, staining, sanding and shredding, to name a few of their unorthodox techniques. Dorothy Cosonas, Knoll Textile’s creative director and the mastermind behind Knoll Luxe (and its earlier collaboration with another fashion label, Proenza Schouler), was intrigued by the Mulleavys’ affinity for textiles and invited them to design a line of textiles that will make their debut in early May. (Knoll Luxe will open a showroom in the D&D Building in New York at the same time.)

The collection’s eight fabrics — three for drapery and five for upholstery — are named after the Mulleavys’ favorite poets. As undergraduates at Berkeley, Laura studied literature and Kate studied art history, and both sisters are avid readers. “Fabrics always take on a life of their own for us,” Kate explained. “We’re constantly reworking our fabrics and are very open to how things are created. When Dorothy asked us to collaborate, we were really excited to be able to focus so intensely on the design of the textiles themselves.” Like their fashion collections, which often strike a precarious balance between toughness and fragility, decay and glamour, or the primitive and the futuristic, the textiles display a meticulous attention to detail and a keen sense of texture and structure. “We didn’t feel one constraint during the design process,” Laura continued, “and we thought a lot about how the different textiles could be combined in an interior in the same way we combine different fabrics and treatments in one dress.”

The sisters identified key pieces from their recent fashion collections as points of departure for each of the Knoll Luxe textiles. Inspired by the ombré dip-dyed dresses from Rodarte’s spring/summer 2009 collection, the unusual hues of Auden, a drapery textile, are digitally printed up the roll of woven ramie, so there is never a vertical repeat. With Parker, also designed for drapery, fine metallic and cotton threads and strands of wool seem suspended within the fabric’s sheer, delicate body. Laura said that she loved “the way that instead of looking like a perfect weave, it looks broken and tattered and makes a connection to our spider-weave dresses.” Cummings, a cotton and silk upholstery fabric with a remarkable depth and iridescence, comes in Shadow, Rain, Cameo, and Parchment, and its surface texture recalls water stains or, at a large scale, the mottled surface of cowhide. Emerson, a sheer drapery fabric covered with 3-D embroidered dots like the studded surfaces of some of Rodarte’s Fall 2009 garments, made its debut in the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum’s recent exhibition Quicktake: Rodarte, where it was burned, reworked and transformed beyond recognition. As Matilda McQuaid, the museum’s deputy curatorial director and head of textiles, observed, “It almost ceased to be a textile and became something else entirely.” McQuaid was so entranced by Rodarte’s Knoll fabrics that she acquired seven of them for the museum’s collection.

“Kate and Laura really nailed it,” said Cosonas, who admires their understanding of color, technique and craft, as well as the many ways the textiles can be mixed and matched to work in residential interiors. That the exquisite, intricate (and sometimes accidental) effects of the sisters’ experiments with fabric have translated so well into mass-produced, machine-made textiles is one of the true beauties of the collection.

knoll.com, nytimes.com

 

[Scott]

i think that is just about perfect for them with their knack for manipulating innovative textiles.

 

[FrenchCactus]

A First Look at Rodarte's Black Swan Costumes In Action
We've seen a photo preview of one of the ballet costumes Laura and Kate Mulleavy created for Natalie Portman to wear in Darren Aronofsky's upcoming film Black Swan, but now that the movie's trailer just came out, we have a peek at the rest of the 39 costumes they created to outfit the entire ballet corps — in action. Better news for the Rodarte girls that the cancellation of their makeup collaboration with M.A.C. yesterday.

fashionologie

 

[thejarc]

Do I like Rodarte? Sometimes. Do you love Natalie Portman? HELL YEAH. Do I want to see the movie? OH MY GOD YESSSS

 

[Meg]

The Knoll collaboration is super exciting! It sounds beautiful

 

[gius]

I think so too. Love the descriptions.. Looking forward to seeing them
I have a few cut pieces from Knoll, they are always using really unique yarns :=)

 

[heelscatchfire]

oooh the movie looks really good. I can't wait to see it.

 

[marjanthelion]

yea that collaboration looks cool already

 

[Flashbang]

Nylon March 2011



youkioske

 

[mistress_f]

Rodarte will be the headliner guest designer at the Pitti W. event in Florence. They will show an exclusive colleciton there, it'll take place on june 14-17. I'm so excited about this, hopefully i'll be able to attend.

 

[HeatherAnne]

Laura looks lovely in her own design I love that Saoirse is one of their new girls to dress.

MET Gala 2011

tlfan

 

[Scott]

^maybe it's just the shot taken but kate looks so grumpy and uncomfortable for some reason.

 

[Andrea.RL]

I love these girls! they make such beautiful clothes (though I don't get the last collection) feminine, romantic, yet dark, hippy-ish, and the design is amazing. I have to read this thread... The day I can get my hands on any piece of theirs I'll be the happiest camper alice
Anyway, they've inspired me a lot for school projects.

 

[HeatherAnne]

Rodarte pair will design first opera costumes for L.A. Phil

Rodarte designers Kate and Laura Mulleavy are slated to design their first opera costumes for the Los Angeles Philharmonic production of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” in May, which will be staged by modernist director Christopher Alden.

The pair will join a creative team that includes conductor Gustavo Dudamel and architect Frank Gehry, the latter doing the set design.

The production will be a homecoming for the Los Angeles designers, who started their label in 2005 and have been recognized internationally for their artistic approach to fashion and their handcrafted technique.

“It only took a few seconds to say ‘yes,’” Laura Mulleavy said Tuesday. “My grandmother sang opera, and if she were alive today, this would be her proudest moment.”

Although the sisters didn’t meet Dudamel until after they had signed on, they cited their respect for him as a factor in the quick decision. “He’s a larger-than-life figure in Los Angeles. It’s amazing to see someone so artistic, doing something that you’re not used to seeing, on a billboard here.”

Although still in the beginning stages of the project, the designers said the costumes “won’t be oriented to a period in history but will be more abstract.”

In 2010, the Mulleavys designed costumes for the film “Black Swan.” Their work is in the permanent collections of several museums, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where their “Fra Angelico Collection” is on view through Feb. 5 in the Italian Renaissance gallery, alongside the artworks that inspired it.

Alden, who has done extensive opera and theater work, replaces Paul Curran, who reportedly had to step down from the production due to scheduling issues.

Dudamel will be conducting "Don Giovanni" for the four performances, May 18, 20, 24 and 26, at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

This will be the first of the L.A. Phil's Mozart trilogy, for which the composer's operas will be staged with set designs by architects, working with fashion designers. Up first is Gehry, who designed Disney Concert Hall.

"The Marriage of Figaro" is set for next year and "Così fan tutte" will be performed in 2014.

latimesblogs

 

[KemAlnagdy]

^ Great news , would love to see them !

 

[lucy92]

did anyone else read the story in the february vogue about them?

it said they were expanding but were "coy" about it. so no details were revealed. here's some of it (scans from blog.bureaubetak.com)

 

[HeatherAnne]

They've recently joined twitter:
http://twitter.com/#!/rodarteworld
http://twitter.com/#!/OfficialRodarte

and started a wonderfully curated Tumblr:
http://officialrodarte.tumblr.com/

 

[HeatherAnne]

Hints about their upcoming collection:

twitter.com/rodartworld

 

[LolaSvelt]

Oh my god, the Kartrashian tweet is amazing.