INTO THE LIGHT 2014
Yellow evening dress with knit gloves and ostrich feather neck piece.
Vestido Beso 2007
Yellow pleated dress with padded fuchsia heart and red lips
100% polyester
Ángel Sánchez and Ágatha Ruiz de la Prada explore dimension through color using the same bright yellow hue in striking contrast to one another. In line with the Spatialist notion of a ‘fourth dimension’ to be drawn out in art, Sanchez uses solid yellow panels almost as a singular canvas revealing slashing lines across the wearer’s body. The resulting shadows are akin to that of “Concetto Spazial Attesse” (c. 1968) by Lucio Fontana, the founding figure of the Spatialist movement. Following Fontana’s monochromatic approach, Sánchez engages color as a tool to demonstrate the act of construction, with the cuts and visible paneling serving as an acknowledgement of what transpires in the making of a garment. Appreciation of the connecting panels of a garment, and the lines and shadows evoked by such connections, is heightened by separating them and leaving this space central to the body.
Comparatively, Ruiz de la Prada creates the idea of dimension through color-blocking and texture in her “Vestido Beso (Kiss Dress).” The bright yellow pleated panel acts as a background, with the vibrant crimson and pink lips on the foreground as the main subject. In the style of Andy Warhol and the Pop Art movement, the repetition of lips within Ruiz de la Prada’s design lexicon speaks to a specific quote by the artist himself: “The more you look at the same exact thing, the more the meaning goes away, and the better and emptier you feel.” Echoing Warhol’s ideas of reproducibility in iconography as seen in his career-defining Marylin Monroe (1967) and in Yves Saint Laurent 1971 iconic “Lip” dress, Ruiz de la Prada’s emblematic puckering lips play on the notion of a memorable and identifiable motif that is enhanced by its minimalist color and flat forms. The simplified elements within this dress converge with those of Sánchez’s designs, telling two different messages using the same methodology and even the same color.
FIRE 2008
Sin titulo (Vestido corazón patchwork multicolor) 2024/25
Multicolored patchwork heart dress
100% silk
LUCIA 2024
Gold metallic cocktail dress with pearl-embroidered collar
Vestido ojo con lágrima 2009/10
Multicolored velvet and lurex eye dress
100% polyester, lining 100% rayon
REDIT 2023
White vinyl mesh jacket and Orange mikado mini skirt
Sin titulo (Tunica sagrado corazón mexicano) 2024/25
Blue dress with burning heart icon
CLOUD 2012
Beige tulle coat made from tulle strips which create this mushroom like pleat
Autorretrato II 2013
Pink portrait dress with wig
100% silk, wig 100% polyester
Strongly influenced by the sensibilities of designer Yves Saint Laurent—as seen in his noteworthy “Homage to Tom Wesselmann” Autumn/Winter 1966 dress shown above—Ruiz de la Prada follows suit by printing her self-portrait onto a salmon-colored shift dress. Here, however, the designer proposes a forwardly three-dimensional element to the garment, incorporating a polyester wig attached to the sleeves that mimic her blonde locks. Playing on the Warholian notion of the ‘icon’ also explored by Saint Laurent, the ensuing dress ensures a dynamic piece that performs as a character in its own right, resulting in Ruiz de la Prada as not just the designer, but as the garment itself.
Similarly, Sánchez experiments with form through multi-tonal tulle strips layered and sewn together to create a voluminous jacket that accentuates the lower torso of the wearer. Akin to Kinetic artist Jesús Rafael Soto’s concept of incorporating the spectator into the artwork, Sánchez’s jacket encourages an intimate relationship between garment and wearer. The latter’s physical movement is necessary to thoroughly activate the former’s dimensionality, ultimately merging the two into a single, dynamic body. Soto, whose public installations lay throughout Venezuela, most notably explored this idea in his serial “Pénétrables” (pictured above), in which people could walk through enormous metal rods or nylon strings suspended in space.
Through the fusion of fashion object and its subject, both Ruiz de la Prada and Sánchez investigate movement through garment-making, creating pieces that blur the line between wearable fashion and interactive sculpture.
MAITE 2024
Orange dress with large train/cape with orange metallic fur trim
Vestido Oruga de terciopelo 2013/14
Red velvet worm dress
100% cotton, lining 100% rayon
Botanica 2018
One shoulder crepe gown with big silk faille ruffle
Vestido Menina de patchwork 2009/10
Multicolored patchwork “Menina” dress
100% silk, lining 100% rayon
OTERO 2008
Ivory colored mid length dress with green and blue details
Sin titulo (Vestido piano tableado) 2021/22
White and fuchsia piano dress
100% cotton, piano keys 100% polyester
Sánchez’s ivory dress, titled “OTERO” after Venezuelan abstractionist Alejandro Otero, takes inspiration from the artist’s exploration of linear composition on white canvases. As an architecture student in Caracas, Sánchez’s designs were catalyzed by the immense source of inspiration found within the city, including Otero’s 1954 murals at the Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas. Yet, it is the artist’s 1952 “Study #5” that the garment nearly mirrors in its entirety. Echoing Otero’s study, Sánchez rhythmically places thin vertical stripes to manipulate space perception within each of the carefully cut horizontal panels. Through intentional placement, the designer further shapes the dress’ panels to emphasize the body’s natural contours.
Correspondingly, Ruiz de la Prada’s “Piano” dress substitutes her recognizable organic shapes for a purely vertically linear composition. Paralleling the methodology of French conceptual artist Daniel Buren, the designer uniformly lays fuchsia stripes on a pleated white backdrop. Explored in his “Color Stripes” installations, Buren challenges traditional assumptions of art belonging solely to museums and galleries by placing his brightly colored lines in utilitarian settings. Comparatively, Ruiz de la Prada’s dress—part of a collection that puts patterns and repetition in the forefront—emphasizes the stripe as an ornamental motif, a musical instrument’s silhouette, and a structural necessity, all at once. Like Buren’s lines, the garment’s decorative quality blurs the distinction between functionality and artistic autonomy.
Displacing Modernist principles of art from a space of pure meditation to one of functionality, Sánchez and Ruiz de la Prada continue to marry their appreciation for artistic formalism with the craftsmanship of fashion design.
LUNA 1996
Black strapless dress
100% cotton, lining 100% rayon
Sin titulo (Tunica multicolor) 2024
Long multicolored dress with V-neck
100% cotton, lining 100% rayon
BARBARA 1997
Mink Coat with hanging straps
Sin titulo (Vestido de novia patchwork) 2023
White patchwork bridal dress
100% cotton, lining 100% rayon
Immersed in variations of white, the two designs by Ágatha Ruiz de la Prada and Ángel Sánchez speak to a desire for limitlessness proposed by Russian Suprematism and the material focus of the international artist collective, Zero Group.
Ruiz de la Prada turns to one of the most simple geometric shapes, the square, scattered and sewn atop one another to form a full-length gown. Embracing the philosophy of Kazimir Malevich in his notorious works such as “White on White” (1918), Ruiz de la Prada contradicts her own stylistic application of vibrant color to instead boast a feeling of liberation and escape through the repetition of infinite blank squares.
Sánchez’s design, a floor-length fur shawl titled “BARBARA,” is organic in form and held together with delicate woven silk. Akin to the artistic approach of Italian artist Piero Manzoni in his 1958 series “Achromes,” Sánchez reveals a beauty within allowing gravity to take hold of a medium, void of color. The shawl’s off-white tone suggests weightlessness, contrasting its anchored silhouette.
Tied together by permutations of white, these designers present two vastly different approaches to materials and construction: one in manipulating two-dimensionality found within flat woven panels and the other embracing the cascading form of fur’s organic volume.