Fashion Flies To Venice For Biennale Arte 2024

Thought Venice Biennale was just for art nerds? Think again. Although this year's exhibition will of course gather many art aficionados overseas, let's not forget fashion's burgeoning stake in what once was an exclusively art-only fair. As Burberry take to the stage by continuing their support of the British pavilion for the second year running, Tod's have replaced Bottega Veneta in backing the fair's native Italian pavilion. Louis Vuitton - a brand who has long taken pride in championing artists via many collaborations with the likes of Jeff Koons, Yayoi Kusama, Cindy Sherman and more) will also make their presence known thanks to their exhibition Je Est Un Autre with artist Ernest Pignon-Ernest, conceived especially for the Espace Louis Vuitton Venezia. Then you have designer Satoshi Kuwata's LVMH Prize-winning brand Setchu, who has tapped Saville Row's Davies & Son to create a total of three non-gender looks that will be unveiled at the Biennale in an installation featuring an array of Japanese objects. Charmed by even one of these events? Read on for more details below.

British Pavilion

This year, filmmaker John Akomfrah will represent Britain at the Biennale with his multidimensional sonic exhibition Listening All Night To The Rain (which you can read more about in our guide here). Continuing the artist's own investigation into themes of memory, migration, racial injustice and climate change with a renewed focus on 'the act of listening and the sonic', the exhibition - supported by returning headline partner Burberry - is reflective of Akomfrah's own collaged ways of storytelling, playing with the idea of rewriting history to form connections - critical as they are poetic - between different geographies and time periods. Although Burberry's Venice Biennale support alone does not necessarily signal a total art reset for one of Britain's most beloved luxury brands, it does come after a host of other art-led collaborations that, when you take a birds eye view of it all, only point in one direction. Saatchi's The New Black Vanguard: Photography Between Art and Fashion may have been predictably supported by the British fashion titan but Tate Britain's Sarah Lucas retrospective Happy Gas less so, and that's all before you take into account the brand's Highgrove scarf collection featuring designs from Royal Drawing School graduate Sammi Lynch, who lent her illustrative talent to depicting the Royal Residence throughout the seasons. However you see it, Burberry's prevailing support of the British pavilion doesn't exactly come as a surprise when you consider all this, but it does anchor their name in the contemporary art scene - one fashion seems to be chasing at a quickening pace.

Italian Pavilion

When it comes to luxury, elegance and craft in contemporary fashion, many think of Italy - and Italian design - as the beacon of hope that keeps today's luxury market afloat, and they'd be right. One brand known as a true pillar of such design is Tod's, who came out last month to announce their official support for the Italian pavilion at this year's Venice Biennale. Although 2024 marks the first time Tod's will align themselves with the Biennale in such a way, the brand's previous efforts to establish themselves as supporters of not just fashion but culture at large, too, certainly not gone unnoticed in recent years. In 2022, Tod's launched its Aria d’Italia project - which saw the brand tell the personal and professional stories of young Italian artists and crafts people - and In 2023, they made an artisanal and surreal contribution to Milan Design Week with a beautifully eccentric interpretation of the brand’s codes and DNA by Tim Walker. This month's art partnership, arguably their biggest yet, aligns the Tod's name with chosen artist Massimo Bartolini's exhibition 'Due qui / To Hear,' curated by Luca Cerizza and aims to take a literal approach to interpreting the theme of Foreigners Everywhere by creating a sound and environmental installation that investigates the notion of estrangement not only within interpersonal relationships, but also within the self.

Foundation Louis Vuitton

You'd be hard-pressed to think of a luxury brand more committed to championing artists around the world than Louis Vuitton. From those infamously graffitied Stephen Sprouse bags to the Monogram Multicolore collection courtesy of Takashi Murakami, the luxury French house's position as patron of the arts remains emphatically unmatched and so it was only a matter of time before they took part in the Venice Biennale in a more literal way. Yes, we know they were present at the fair's 2022 Milk of Dreams exhibition, hosting an installation with German artist Katharina Grosse, but this year marks an even more triumphant show of support, channelled through the Espace Louis Vuitton Venezia's exhibition Je Est Un Autre with artist Ernest Pignon-Ernest. Produced as part of the Fondation Louis Vuitton’s Hors-les-murs programme, which unfolds at the Espaces Louis Vuitton all over including in Tokyo, Munich and in this case, Venice, the artist has responded to this year's overarching theme by adding major poets Russian Anna Akhmatova and Iranian Forough Farrokhzhad to his repertoire of migrants, itinerants, and poets his artwork represents. Both Akhmatova and Farrokhzhad will be joined by figures Pier Paolo Pasolini, Arthur Rimbaud and Jean Genet - all of which will stand at the heart of the exhibition, delivering on the Fondation’s commitment to bring international artistic projects to a broad audience.

Setchu X Davies & Son

Last but not least you have LVMH Prize-winner Setchu, who will be unveiling a collaborative project with Saville Row tailors Davies & Son (if this doesn't scream luxury craft, we don't know what does) which comprises of three looks; one single-breasted black herringbone jacket with matching trousers; a collarless single-breasted black herringbone long jacket with matching trousers; a double-breasted white cashmere coat with trousers. Accompanying such pieces is a curated series of Japanese objects that may sound out of place, but only add to the emerging label's core principles of wanting to entice a fluidity of language and craft that is at once abstract and pragmatic. The aim? To bring Setchu's ethos to the forefront of the collaboration by highlighting the brand's roots in Japanese traditions. Setchu's founder, Satoshi Kuwata may have dotted around the industry for 20-plus years, but it's in the liminal space that bridges the gap between excellence and modernity, fashion and craft that Kuwata exceeds in. The collection itself is tied to an array of artisanal details that yes, may be heralded by Kuwata's expert addition of origami, but its beauty lies in the fact that so many people say they believe in 'savoir-faire' excellence and yet few truly know it when they see it. Here, you simply can't miss it.