Fred Tomaselli's Art Flows Into Fashion
Maia Norman, the woman behind the Mother of Pearl fashion line, is hellbent on breaking down the boundaries that separate fine art from fashion design. As part of that mission, she has already enlisted the gifts of such artists as Walton Ford and Keith Tyson, among others. The latest innovator from the art world to team up with Norman on making Mother of Pearl one of the most eye-catching fashion labels around is Fred Tomaselli.
Tomaselli, who came up on the L.A. scene but now has his headquarters in New York, is an artist known for his detail-oriented work and his collagist tendencies, and Norman found a way to work both of these qualities into Mother of Pearl's new fall/winter collection without losing any of the initial verve, spark, and most crucially, color that inhabits Tomaselli's art. Birds, flowers, and fauna all find their way into the dresses, pants, and other items that make up the collection, as do less representational images. Over the course of his career, Tomaselli has ventured into all sorts of scenarios — early on, his work was seen in L.A. punk 'zines, and his collages have found their way onto album covers by The Magnetic Fields and others, so a venture that enables women to wear his work simply seems like the next step in his artistic evolution.
