Axell’s Illusion

Art x Fashion Edit #18

2023 seems to be the year of fashion contradictions: Loud Barbie Pink & Quiet Luxury are bound to cohabit, propelled by a bipolar pop culture landscape. More than anything, what this cohabitation pinpoints is our collective obsession with the extremes.

Is it the result of an increasingly polarized political scene, the prominence of individuality or the echo chambers powered by social media? It is most likely a mix of it all and their interaction that makes the landscape increasingly crowded and challenging to navigate.

This reality is auspicious for a bubbling of trends and micro-trends that come as fast as they go. One of them is the interest for Space Age and futuristic fashion à la Pierre Cardin and Thierry Muller (who was the subject of a globally traveling retrospective).

Evelyne Axell was a Belgian pop artist who was interested in the representation of women in art. In the 1960s, she was influenced by the spatial missions and some of her works pay homage to Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman who travelled to space.

The above work, La Conductrice et son double / Les DS, realized in 1965 imagine a woman traveling to space and explores the allegorical implications of space, dimensions and plans on the flat canvas. This allowed the artist to explore the transgressive and emancipatory aspect of women’s space travel and women’s reflexive relationship with their image. “DS” also means goddess in French, inscribing her art in traditional representations of femininity but giving her subject agency in doing what is traditionally reserved to men.

Rather than being objects of contemplation, women become owner of their own image, body, and actions. The Citroën DS was also a famous car model in the 1960s, referenced by the round shape of the car’s steering wheel. Her painting is about illusions and what is hidden behind the obvious. In fact, her claim is that there is no reason why women should not be given the responsibilities given to men. This statement still holds true.