Christopher Kane’s discovery of outsider art began on the Internet, and then it got real. He flew to Vienna to shoot his Pre-Fall looks at the nearby Art Brut Center Gugging, a psychiatric institute that became known for its artistically talented residents. The trail that led him there was his stumbling across the work of Johann Hauser, a Gugging artist who died in 1996. “He had drawn a woman in a yellow dress that was so close to the Princess Margaret on Acid collection I did in 2011,” he said. “It freaked me out!” Kane visited Gugging last summer, met the artists who work in a studio converted from a schoolhouse, and donated to the institute before designing a collection that references some of their art. A big, naive smiley face on a sweater signed “Reisenbauer” is one; the glittery flower prints set out in rows on organdy are inspired by another resident.
The lookbook was shot in the gallery (which is open to the public and funds the institute), the studios, and against the surrounding country landscape. If there’s something Kane is saying here, it’s probably to do with getting back to spontaneous creativity and the value of nurturing it. Whatever, the end result is far from dark and angsty. There’s a playfulness in the sparkly flowers; a touch of ’30s eccentric elegance in the long lines of pleated midi skirts and the puffs of ostrich feather; a dash of brilliance in the
metallic and plastic cut-outs that become collaged earrings or dingle-dangle trims. The more Kane allows his mind to wander and free-associate, the more curiously compelling his work becomes.
