• Christophe Demaître • Huang Jing Song • Rose Tang •

Fashion Meets Art

Often perceived as a playful escape from reality, fashion design is a completely misunderstood profession. On the surface, it would appear to be disconnected from the world. Yet, nothing could be further from the truth. Fashion covers everything from a nun's dress to a policeman's uniform. The artisans in charge of the conception and realization of garments are eminently cultured and well informed. Current social, artistic and economic trends are explored and dissected, then woven into the very fabric of a designer’s collection. In the case of Fairilezza’s style, fashion can indeed be considered an art. Huang Jing Song, founder and senior designer of Fairilezza’s is a young Taiwanese fashion designer based in Xiamen that worked many years for Jorya, the internationally renowned fashion brand. Huang's fashion often mirrors his background in interior design and advocates a simple and elegant style. Yet, the neat and smooth line treatment, the exquisite and fine hand tailoring makes Fairilezza’s creations accurately catch the pulse of fashion and expertly blend elements of vogue into an innovative design concept.
In a thematic exhibition entitled Fashion Meets Art, Island6 Arts Center will investigate the close correlation between two outstanding international artists, a fashion designer from Taiwan and a visual artist from Belgium. Christophe Demaître’s recent works are the result of complex alchemic experiments on various materials. The effect is of remarkable aesthetic enchantment. The viewer feels a pleasant astonishment in wondering if he is observing a photo, a painting, or both things at the same time. The imperfections of the canvas and the texture of the brushstrokes enrich the black and white image. The artwork is deep and mysterious; it has a poetic truthfulness given by an arduous technique, ancient and absolutely analogical.
Fashion Meets Art aims to focus upon and analyze the reciprocal influences and the creative relationships occurring between the worlds of fashion and visual arts in both social terms and contemporary culture. Both artists focus on art as a confrontation of the progressive shifts in identity and roles, both culturally and sexually. We can imagine the encounter of different sensibilities in respect of representations of beauty and strength such as the movement and grace of Demaître’s recent photo-paintings and the juxtaposition of the unique cuts, and stunning design of Huang Jing Song.
On August 19th, the viewer will experience the clash of two continents and their collaboration in the subtle juxtaposition generated when Fashion Meets Art. The fictional Metropolis of Demaître approaches Huang’s exquisite details used to endow metropolitan women with a pleasant feeling of vogue on the move. The humanity evoked by both artists swarms with images -these are created, printed, collected, weaved and admired. We live between reality and imagery. Thanks to their spontaneity and truthfulness, the works presented in Fashion Meets Art approach the visitor in a fluid breath, in a perfect unison with the surrounding space. Every subject has his own particular attitude, a well-defined emotional touch. Therefore, every one of them reaches out and affects us in different ways, in accordance with the closeness and familiarity of specific emotions, evoked time after time by each artwork. Fashion Meets Art is a series of urban views that are born in places of constant change and evolution. It evolves through the experience of two artists, tracing then its own shape. An aesthetic biography of reality. [ ↑ ]

People

Huang Jing Song
Huang Jing Song (Taipei, 1972) lives and works in Xiamen (mainland China). Trained as an interior designer, his fashion design work advocates simple, elegant style. In 1998 he became the senior designer of Jorya, an international renowned fashion design brand. During eight years as a fashion designer, Huang has committed himself to listen to women’s dreams and to represent excellence of quality, dignity and elegance, endowing metropolitan women with vitality and creativity and providing people with a pleasant aesthetic feeling of vogue on the move. In 2005, he left Jorya to found Fairilezza. Fairilezza’s Collection presents modern and sophisticated ideas in tailoring, silhouettes and contrasts, while always undeniably romantic. The Fairilezza  Woman is self confident, loves luxury and is always more glamorous and sophisticated.
The romance and mystery of the past and the elegant restraint of the present distinguish the work of Huang Jing Song. The color palette and detailed accents of the collection are what truly define and distinguish each look. Elegance, tailoring, refinement, and sensuality make up the perpetual allure and unmistakable quality of Fairilezza’s collection. [ ↑ ]

Christophe Demaître
Born on December 19th 1968 in Courtrai, Christophe Demaître commenced studying arts in Courtrai and Ghent. He continued his education into photographic research during his travels which took him to Asia, South America and throughout Europe. In 1997, he moved to Italy, where he remained for six years. During this phase of his life he developed various academic techniques in painting. He undertook a year in Barcelona within the context of various international exhibitions. He's now based in Brussels, Belgium, where his photographic and pictorial research that led him to the concept of Metropolis flowered. [ ↑ ]

Rose Tang
Rose Tang was born twice; first as a boy on the beautiful hills surrounding Taichung (Taiwan) in 1967, and then, in Shanghai, at the turn of this century as the most promising Chinese artist of her generation. Rose is extravagant, rebellious and fearless, and she indiscriminately touches on all aspects of Chinese culture. In Fashion Meets Art , Rose tries to understand the impact and influence that culture, relationships and family values had on the development of her sexual identity. Rose Tang's work captures much of the essence and uniqueness of her identity journey by presenting a delicate balance of sociological analysis, social perception, facts, style and history. [ ↑ ]

Special thanks to all who have helped to make this exhibition a reality.
Especially: Christopher Charveriat, Christophe Demaître, Oussama Laftimi, Miriam Llorens, Yang Longhai, Lucas Rodriguez, Margherita Salmaso, Zheng Guo Yang, Zhu Yumei, friends and families.