It’s no secret that fashion designers find inspiration in art. But when it comes to Akris’s creative director Albert Kriemler, who often collaborates with artists and architects, the influence can go both ways. By working with Kriemler on translating their artworks into wearable creations, some artists have gained new perspectives on their own practices. Take German artist Thomas Ruff, whose work was the starting point for Akris’s fall/winter 2014 collection: ‘Eight years later,’ says Ruff, ‘I have the motifs of my latest series d.o.pe. printed on carpet, as they require a soft, natural surface – a decision I probably would never have made before working with Albert [Kriemler].’ Or Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto, whose work inspired the house’s spring/summer 2016 collection: ‘It was an experience that made my team and myself realize the characteristics and meanings that our architecture had developed but we didn’t recognize by ourselves,’ he says.
A new exhibition at the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich celebrates Akris’s 100th anniversary with a survey of some of Kriemler’s most iconic artist collaborations and cross-disciplinary dialogues – something which has become somewhat of a trademark for the label. Titled ‘Akris. Fashion. selbstverständlich’, the exhibition spotlights the house’s eloquence in giving shape to ideas inspired by the likes of Imi Knoebel, Geta Brătescu, Carmen Herrera, Reinhard Voigt, Ruff, and Fujimoto through large-format artworks and nearly 100 designs. ‘Fashion always narrates the exact moment that we’re going through,’ says Kriemler, who cocurated the exhibition with the museum’s curator Karin Gimmi. ‘For us, this centennial is a moment to pause and reflect: an appreciation of our roots, and a look back in order to move forward into a new century.’
Longevity is a fraught concept in today’s fast-moving fashion industry. Despite many a luxury brand’s claims to timeless allure, few houses can boast long-term commitment to a coherent image – not to mention a head designer, or even a logo. Akris, the only Swiss-based fashion house at Paris Fashion Week, is an industry rarity also in this respect: building on 100 years of family tradition, it has become synonymous with elegant yet effortless garments worn by high-powered, sophisticated women, including Amal Clooney, Angelina Jolie, and Michelle Obama.
Founded in St. Gallen in 1922 by Alice Kriemler-Schoch as an apron company, Akris has been led by the founder’s grandsons Albert and Peter Kriemler since the 1980s. And they are marking the house’s centenary with the same well-considered approach Akris applies to its designs: In 2022, Akris released a monograph and presented a collection that dug deep into the house’s archives, while also unveiling a new concept for its boutiques, developed in close collaboration with David Chipperfield Architects, and rolled out across locations from Washington DC to Tokyo. The Zurich exhibition, meanwhile, focuses on the house’s connections to artists and conveys the label’s journey since 2009, a year that marked a turning point for Kriemler: ‘It was the first time I took inspiration from the work of a contemporary artist and someone I knew personally.’
The seed for that collection was planted years earlier, when Kriemler photographed the Little Sparta garden near Edinburgh, created by his close friend, the late Scottish poet and artist Ian Hamilton Finlay. It took two years of experimenting with Martin Leuthold, the art director of the St. Gallen-based embroidery company Jakob Schlaepfer, before Akris could introduce a novel process of digitally printing photos onto silk and sequins. ‘I’ll never forget that feeling in my studio, seeing the first digital printed dress. It was a completely new dimension of print: so strong, so different, and so sensual. From that moment on, photo prints were on my creative agenda.’
In the room dedicated to this pivotal collection, the exhibition includes an actual grove with trees, as well as two stone sculptures by Hamilton Finlay, titled Glade/Grove (2004/2008). ‘It feels like a beautiful, calm break in nature on your tour through the exhibition,’ says Kriemler. Elsewhere, visitors encounter the bright colors of German artist Voigt’s abstracted grid paintings. The works are presented in dialogue with the minimalist, asymmetrical silhouettes of the fall/winter 2022 collection they had inspired – First Lady Jill Biden wore one of these dresses at a recent public function. ‘There is an intelligence in Albert’s work and his subtle and creative transfer of my paintings,’ says Voigt. ‘Each of the pieces from our collaboration has entailed something new, something completely independent.’
Akris’s spring/summer 2016 collection was born out of Kriemler’s appreciation for the work of Fujimoto. A mood board featuring a selection of the Japanese architect’s most famous works – from the 2013 Serpentine Pavilion to N House, Oita, and Naoshima Pavilion, Maoshima, Kagawa – was hung backstage at the runway show. The two, who were introduced to each other by Dutch photographer Iwan Baan, collaborated on developing the fabrics for the minimalist collection, which features layered, constructed looks in sheer, diaphanous materials, many of which incorporated embroidery made in St. Gallen. Fujimoto recalls the moment he saw the prototype fabrics: ‘Then, for the first time, I understood that the constructiveness of architecture and coexistence of nature and artifacts, which are the characteristics of my work, can be translated into fabric. It was a big surprise.’ But it wasn’t just about the materials. ‘The fabrics become clothes, and the model walking on the runway in these clothes, this movement, created a surprise that cannot be found in architecture,’ Fujimoto explains. ‘It was also a wonderful experience to see the elegance, delicacy, and lightness embodied in all of the clothes designed by Albert, going from tranquility to dynamism from moment to moment.’
Another gallery is dedicated to Ruff’s work, including his astronomical photographs, taken at the European Southern Observatory in Chile, and the fall/winter 2014 collection that transferred them into sharp, stylish pieces, pushing Akris’s fabric innovations – like LED-embroidery – to a whole new level. A longtime friend of Kriemler’s, Ruff’s initial skepticism gradually turned into excitement, buttressed by the designer’s thoughtful approach to craftsmanship and technical processes. ‘[The collection] showed me that art and fashion can form an inspiring connection,’ says Ruff. ‘My images as a source for his designs took on a new existence outside of the art context, which I found very exciting and inspiring.’
‘Akris. Fashion. selbstverständlich’ runs through September 24, 2023, at the Museum für Gestaltung Zurich. Click here for additional information.
Akris is an international fashion house founded in 1922 in St. Gallen, Switzerland. Its sleek collections for women with purpose are designed by creative director Albert Kriemler, epitomizing an effortless modernity that defines a woman’s presence and enhances her charisma.
The third-generation, family-owned fashion house is globally revered for its refined double-face fabrics, finest cashmere, innovative St. Gallen embroidery, pioneering digital photo printing techniques, and its iconic horsehair Ai bag. Akris has presented its collections at Paris Fashion Week since 2004.
Hili Perlson is a writer and editor based in Berlin and Palermo.
Published on May 18, 2023.
Caption for full-bleed images, from top to bottom: 1, 4, 5. Installation views of the exhibition ‘Akris. Fashion. selbstverständlich’, Museum für Gestaltung, Zürich, 2023. Photograph by Regula Bearth. © ZHdK. 2. Akris, Albert Kriemler x Geta Brătescu, Wink, print, backstage shot, Spring/Summer
2019 © Akris. 3. Akris, Albert Kriemler x Reinhard Voigt, Three Parts, print on wool double face (foreground) © artwork: Reinhard Voigt, Three Parts, 1976/77 (background), editorial,
Fall/Winter 2022. © Akris.