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Kia Vahland
He probably never wanted to be: not a style icon, but a kitsch icon. Posterity has unrestrainedly appropriated the Viennese Art Nouveau artist Gustav Klimt. Reproductions of his paintings are emblazoned on silk towels, shower curtains, Punch and Judy dolls and bathing suits, and they have even been spotted on toilet seats and coffins, as the Wien Museum found out in a Facebook survey. A lot of gold flashes there, and again and again, of course, his most famous painting: “The Lovers (The Kiss)” from 1908. Couture houses such as Dior, Akris and Givenchy also experimented in their designs with the dissolving geometries of the master. And designer Tory Burch has just explained which influences were particularly important for her fall collection. One of the sources of inspiration: Gustav Klimt.