Lukas Gschwandtner on creating ‘soft furnishings’ for Acne Studios’ after-hours lounge show set

In 2021, the Austrian artist Lukas Gschwandtner – whose work often resembles design in its inspiration from furniture – showed a series of works titled ‘Pillow Portraits’ at the Maniera Gallery in Brussels. 

Inspired by images of women reclining on chaise longues throughout history – Gschwandtner studying their ‘postures, behaviours, gestures’ – the installation comprised a series of stitched-together canvas sculptures recalling pillows, which the artist would take on and off, their unique forms directing the body to mimic the women in the paintings he was inspired by. 

Lukas Gschwandtner designs Acne Studios S/S 2024 set

‘The moment the sculpture is worn it immediately directs the body to impersonate the corresponding painting or artwork,’ he said at the time. ‘Because the canvas sculptures extract simplified forms from the paintings and art pieces, their historical, class, and gender context becomes more abstract and creates room for personal interpretations and experiences.’

‘Pillow Portraits’ provided the inspiration for Gschwandtner’s latest project, an immersive set for Acne Studios S/S 2024 show, which took place during Paris Fashion Week S/S 2024 earlier this evening (27 September 2023). Conjuring a mood of ‘after-hours liberation’, the ecru canvas-covered set – which also featured an enormous deconstructed disco ball – was scattered with ‘soft furnishings’ by Gschwandtner, ‘a place to lose track of time and inhibitions, with a magical mood of anticipation’, as Acne Studios described in the collection notes. 

‘I met Jonny [Johansson, Acne Studios’ creative director] a few years ago, and we’ve kept in touch ever since,’ Gschwandtner tells Wallpaper*. ‘The directions that the team was aiming for had some of the same details and specifics as “Pillow Portraits”, [where I] pasted the whole Maniera Gallery space in canvas, [reflecting] my pieces, which were wearable pillow sculptures. They basically faded into the soft canvas architecture of the gallery.’

After a series of conversations with Johansson – and when Gschwandtner discovered the designer’s ‘after-hours’ inspirations – they settled on creating a similarly enveloping space, filled with canvas sculptures by the artist, which sit like discarded soft furnishings across blocks of seating erected in L’Observatoire de Paris. ‘[We were thinking about] soft furnishing that you sink into – you almost become them. Each of the pieces also has the function of being wearable. I wanted the soft sculptures to support the lounging body posture in every way possible.’

‘It should be a room within a room which captures Acne Studios’ vision for this season,’ he continues. ‘I like the idea of seeing the canvas space as a silent component, almost a silent partner of the collection. The lounging body language of the audience while being seated is important for this project as each guest almost becomes a portrait of themselves draped on the canvas.’

As for his own connection to Acne Studios, he says he has long worn the essential pieces – like denim, the fabric that remains at the heart of the Swedish label. ’The fact that Jonny sent 100 jeans to friends and family as the beginning of the brand is beautiful,’ he says. ‘It reminds me of testing a prototype that needs to be worn to understand how it works – it’s the same with a lot of my work, too.’

The collection itself saw Johansson draw inspiration from British artist Katerina Jebb’s ‘Physical Evidence of a Woman’, a series of scanned images of the trappings of feminine dress – from a pair of red stilettos to false eyelashes and stockings. Here, they came printed across the collection: ‘These artefacts are something that I feel is almost lost today, they feel dated, yet they are still there,’ explains Johansson. ‘So we used them as prints and subverted them – [it was an] exploration that felt timely with where we are in fashion right now; lines between genders are blurred, there are no labels anymore.

‘The industrial mood this season comes mostly from my passion for denim and the many ways we can manipulate this amazing fabric,’ he continues. ‘It also comes from the idea of a construction site: things are unfinished, a work in progress. I wanted to convey the beauty of that.’

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