Fashion & Beauty

The art world is her oyster

Call them prints with a pedigree. The vibrant, layered patterns of look-at-me line Mother of Pearl aren’t just a trendy whim, but a wearable incarnation of an artist’s aesthetic and message. 

Founded in 2002, then relaunched in 2010, the British fashion house partners with new talent each season, and the collaborators are a Who’s Who of contemporary art: from Gary Hume to Jim Lambie, Carsten Höller to John Currin. This fall’s collection, available at Opening Ceremony, Scoop, Fivestory and Shopbop, is inspired by Polly Morgan, the 33-year-old London taxidermist/sculptor whose work is in the collections of Kate Moss and Courtney Love.

Mother of Pearl’s creative director Maia Norman brings bona fides from Parsons Paris, plus a natural California-girl ease as an Orange County native and an avid surfer. (She also has serious art-world cred: Norman was Damien Hirst’s partner for two decades until last year, and has three sons with him.) Her athletic background informs her simple shift dresses, streamlined knits and fluid jogging pants, to which the artists add their own frisson.

“It’s not a simple case of transferring an artist’s work onto the clothes, but translating them in an interesting way,” says Norman. “We look for works that are visual enough to hold their own without any narrative, but are also interesting when they’re investigated.”

Some of the clothes nod to motocross and scuba diving, in silk and neoprene, but what else would you expect from a woman who drove in the famous Gumball 3000 — Britain’s annual 3,000-mile road rally — in a Ferrari 550 Maranello?

For Norman’s fall collection, she and head of design Amy Powney worked with animals from Morgan’s taxidermic menagerie. On cloth, that translates to prints of leopards, giraffes and zebras, along with more macabre bird-and-bee imagery.

Mostly rendered in silk, the weird, wild and wonderful motifs are softened with prim stripes, filigree curves and formal tassels, set on neutral foundations with bursts of purple, coral, gold or mint. And the line is proof that Mother of Pearl’s animal instincts are right-on.