Nordstrom Fashion Blog: The Art of the Showroom: wings + horns and Reigning Champ SS 18

Buying director Jorge Valls and designer buyer Dan Drewes

Many NYFW:M brands use runway shows and presentations for artistic displays, then have business meetings with our buyers in straightforward showrooms. This year the Canadian powerhouse of wings + horns (designer brand) and Reigning Champ (sport brand) put all its eggs in the showroom basket.

That turned out to be a wise move, because they basically curated a grand art exhibition that will stick in our buyers’ minds for a long time. Being there felt like being on another planet – a monochromatic, sporty, severe version of Earth.

The occasion? Reigning Champ’s 10-year anniversary. But also, the brands’ designer Tung Vo is a detail-obsessed creator of worlds. Given the chance to wild out (the CEO said it was OK) he went all the way in.

Check out the clothes below and get into the artwork – we interviewed artist Andrew Dadson about his piece, “Black Plants.”

SHOP: wings + horns | Reigning Champ

Part of our buy for spring/summer 2018

Dan comparing wings + horns’ hoodies to Reigning Champ’s

“Black Plants”

Reigning Champ SS 18

Art by Michael Murphy, @perceptual_art

Artist Andrew Dadson

[“Black Plants”] is a painting. A reverse painting. The plant will grow the black away. It’s non-toxic paint, biodegradable. Without getting too science-project about it, plants grow from the inside, and from the roots. The black is the visible, outward part, which isn’t where they grow from. The UV grow lights penetrate through the paint. Water feeds the roots.

The artwork is an abstraction: It’s already unnatural and uneasy to have these plants here, flown in from Hawaii. And with the grow lights, we make an unnatural sunset. The shadows on the wall are another abstraction. It’s to think about our impact on the landscape. The idea is that if we left this stuff long enough, nature would come back. The green would come through. Nature will come back if we leave it alone, and time is the biggest and most amazing force.

I have a show at the Contemporary Art Museum in Vancouver in October, and I’m doing a version of this in white. And some paintings. And also 16 millimeter film about sunrises and sunsets. In every sense it’s about this ongoing cycle. In general my work is about landscapes, nature, and our own relationship to taking care of things.