Looks Fashion News

For all the years that Akris’s Albert Kriemler has collaborated with artists, he’s never partnered with someone who specializes in textiles. Painters, sculptors, and photographers, yes, but not a fellow fabric obsessive.

Olga de Amaral is a 93-year-old Bogotá, Colombia based artist who finds herself newly in vogue. She was the subject of a 2024 exhibition at the Fondation Cartier in Paris; a 2011 piece of hers, titled “Pueblo H,” in linen, gesso, acrylic and gold leaf, sold for $3.1 million at Christie’s, more than five times its high estimate, last year; and now, she’s being touted by Kriemler. He’s followed her work for a decade, even since he developed Akris’s signature horsehair bags, a fiber de Amaral often uses. There’s another parallel. “She has a studio where she works with seven ladies, and she told me, ‘without my 14 hands, I couldn’t do my art. And, of course, I couldn’t do what I do without my tailors, my people.”

The cocoon coat that opened today’s show, with its gold-leafed surface, looked like an homage to de Amaral’s Estelas, which formed the centerpiece of the Cartier Fondation’s exhibition. Underneath was a dress of layered organza tiles that, like many others here, took its cues from the shimmering gridded surfaces of de Amaral’s Alquimia tapestries. Her Nudo sculptures, which feature cascading fringes of silk suspended from a knot, recalling waterfalls or a horse’s tail, were another recurring motif, decorating the front and back of a chunky ribbed poncho, trimming the waistline of a velvet neoprene pencil skirt, even accenting a small evening clutch—all in black.

Providing a counterpoint to the collection’s black and gold were the vivid shades and Caladium red, magenta, turquoise, and Amazon green, which were also pulled from de Amaral’s work. “She said, ‘I love colors, I live colors,’” Kriemler noted. So will the Akris customers who wear these extroverted pieces. As ever, even with the brighter garments, texture is the thing. Note the subtle sheen of the green viscose stretch corduroy pantsuit and the glossy eel leather of a turquoise jacket and skirt. “We speak in sync,” Kriemler said.

With previous collaborators, Kriemler’s clothes have sometimes seemed like a canvas for others’ art. Because of their shared medium, the de Amaral references were well integrated, seamlessly blending with Kriemler’s designs. It was indeed a fruitful pairing.