All Images: Félix Dol-Maillot for Barrie
Dear Diane,
If Damien Hirst and Maurizio Cattelan are, as Ambra Medda once said, both contenders for the title of “the art world’s Karl Lagerfeld”, Hirst’s new Barrie collection may tip the balance. The Hawick cashmere experts, beloved of Lagerfeld and owned by Chanel since 2012, launch a capsule with Hirst this week, coinciding with the opening of Frieze London. Designs feature butterflies and coloured spots reminiscent of some of his best-known work.
It is a little jarring to see this former YBA in a cosy cardi praising “art you can wear,” on barrie.com but Hirst has long been a savvy brand manager. Younger Barrie clients may not even connect the pieces with the live butterflies of In and Out of Love (1991) or the roughly 1,400 large-scale Spot Paintings he’s released over the decades. The motifs have been intricately rendered in wool for each gender-neutral garment.
Barrie’s cashmere is extremely special with or without artistic connections, thanks to the soft water of the River Teviot, the tight, dense knit of the Mongolian cashmere, and the painstaking hand-joining of the knitted panels. If you’ve only ever worn mass-market cashmere, the substantial and almost stiff feel of a Barrie garment may surprise you. However, you’re sure to be delighted by how it “blossoms” over time, maintaining its shape while becoming more supple with wash and wear.
Getting technical for a moment, Barrie is also known for optimising their use of both 70-year old vintage Bentley looms and Japanese Shima Seiki machines. These can seamlessly feed up to 40 different yarn points into a single garment, creating unique patterns, textures and colour combinations for this and Barrie’s seasonal collections, which are designed in Paris and knit in the Scottish borders.
In an interview for Barrie, Hirst told Blau’s Cornelius Tittel that the brand approached him, having seen him wear their products, “probably in the press”. He expressed a longheld affection for the knitwear, particularly the versatile embroidered patches. His collection includes scarves, zippered cardigans and hoodies, logo t-shirts, jumpers, jogging bottoms, a patchwork blanket and cashmere butterfly and spot patches.
Each item is numbered and limited edition: wearable art, certainly, but also collectible merchandise. Not that Hirst seems inclined to make a distinction.
Barrie+Damien Hirst is available from barrie.com from 14 October.
