Art Lessons

Cutting-edge designers are taking inspiration from trailblazing artists

Chris Moore / Catwalking / Getty

A model walks down the catwalk during the Prada fashion show as part of Milan Fashion Week Spring Summer 2008 on September 25, 2007 in Milan, Italy.

The ceiling of the tent inside the Louvre's Cour Carrée, where Marc Jacobs was showing his spring 2008 collection for Louis Vuitton, was lined with giant pulp-romance-novel covers featuring lurid titles like Taipei After Dark and louche images of pinup girls in trashy lingerie. When 12 curvy models strutted onto the runway dressed in opaque white nurses' coats and prim white hats, their mouths covered with black-lace face masks, the audience might have imagined it was witnessing a 3-D rendition of artist Richard Prince's famous nurse-paintings series. And indeed, the real point of the evening was to create a setting for...

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