Art and fashion is a marriage made in heaven, at least according to Jenny Mannerheim and Ilan Delouis. The Each x Other duo strongly believes in creative collaborations; from their first collection in 2012, they’ve involved an impressive roster of artists and performers, including Maripol, Ari Marcopoulos, Alizé Meurisse, Lucy and Jorge Orta, Davide Bertocchi, and many others. The conceptual visual poet Robert Montgomery is a sort of permanent artist-in-residence, providing the inspirational wording that, right from the start, has graced collections whose looks are a mixture of urban Nordic cool and hard-edged rock ‘n’ roll.
Mannerheim comes from a Swedish family where poetry was served at breakfast: “My grandfather was a famous poet, quite advanced and modern; he translated Goethe in Swedish,” she explained during the Resort presentation. In 2004 Mannerheim opened an art gallery in Paris, “more a cultural place than a proper contemporary art space,” she explained. A few years later she met Montgomery; she was fascinated by his art practice and his idea of bringing visual poetry almost mainstream, making it more inclusive, embracing the everyday culture. “Poetry was considered old-fashioned, removed from reality,” she said. “Robert wanted everybody to own it.” Another fateful encounter was with Delouis, the founder of the French label Faith Connexion. His rebellious spirit was the yang to Mannerheim’s yin. The dynamic between these two opposites has so far fueled collections based not only on shared artistic values, but also on an integrated, almost unisex fashion vision.
This was particularly evident in the Resort lineup, where cool urban staples were designed with flexible wearability in mind. Open at the sides, oversize sweaters were roomy enough to be worn by a boy or a girl, as was a hand-painted trench, whose fluid, elongated line definitely pointed at the idea of a shared wardrobe. Handwriting punctuated every item; a love poem, expressly written by Montgomery, ran throughout the collection, dismembered into lyrical haikus printed on everything from tank tops to the linings of leather bikers: “I will take your love and fold it in the sheets of nighttime,” “one day we will raise in air balloons of love,” and “safe and warm here in the fire of each other.” Love in the end conquers all.
