All the times Mondrian has meddled in fashion

Eighty years after the passing of Dutch painter Piet Mondrian, his influence and artistic presence are far from forgotten. From exhibitions to illustrations and reinterpretations of his iconic grid-like colorful motif, Mondrian’s work remains ever-present in popular culture. And when it comes to popular culture, contemporary fashion cannot be ignored: whether through official collaborations or obvious inspiration, Mondrian’s primary colors and abstract shapes have been endlessly reimagined in recent years. At a time when collaborations between artists and fashion houses—like the highly anticipated return of Louis Vuitton and Takashi Murakami—are increasingly popular, let’s take a moment to revisit all the ways Piet Mondrian’s touch has influenced fashion and its ideas.

The most famous and memorable example is undoubtedly Yves Saint Laurent’s Mondrian collection, created in 1965. This collection included a series of trapeze dresses adorned with Mondrian’s emblematic lines and colorful blocks, quickly becoming a hallmark of 1960s fashion. The prototype was developed with the help of Azzedine Alaïa, who devised a special sewing technique to place the zipper on the back without disrupting the dress’s motif. The Mondrian collection featured 10 dresses, yet only one design remains etched in the public’s memory. Though launched when Saint Laurent was only four years old as a house, it is still considered one of the designer’s most iconic creations. Mondrian, who had already been deceased for over 20 years at the time, never saw the collection himself, but it remains a historic example of modern art’s influence on fashion.

While Saint Laurent is the first example that comes to mind when thinking about Mondrian’s influence on fashion, he was not the first designer to make the Dutch painter his muse. In the early 1930s, designer Lola Prusac, working at Hermès, drew inspiration from Mondrian’s geometric figures and colors to create a line of bags and luggage. Decades later, in 2020, the French house paid homage to Mondrian once again in its FW20/21 collection, under Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski’s direction. Presented in a set tinged with the artist’s signature primary colors, the collection included items with unmistakable inspiration, such as a red sweater with blue and yellow sleeves and a white dress adorned with vertical stripes in Mondrian’s palette. Even a Mondrian-inspired version of the Birkin bag was created.

The Italian fashion house Moschino also drew from Mondrian’s bold yellows, blues, and reds in its SS93 collection, which included a dress strongly reminiscent of Saint Laurent’s trapeze dress and a white blazer decorated with a large red heart and yellow and blue squares. This reinterpretation of Saint Laurent’s Mondrian tribute by Moschino was, in fact, an act of provocation. Known for his desire to challenge the fashion industry and its conventions, Franco Moschino used these pieces to embrace the art of appropriation, claiming Saint Laurent’s homage as his own and highlighting the complexity and ambiguity of creative ownership in art and design. Regarding accessories, Loewe in 2017 paid tribute to Mondrian with a color-block version of its iconic Puzzle bag, featuring the famous primary colors. Once again, fashion proves that painting and couture make a perfect pair and that a mere 15 minutes of fame pale in comparison to nearly a century of homage.