Suzy Menkes is a woman who’s name owes a nod of respect and recognition from all whose career or vocation lies in the field of fashion and it’s design, production and diffusion. As fashion editor of the International Herald Tribune for over 20 years, Suzy’s voice is a pivotal one in the global direction of style and fashion – integral to the dialogue of the seasons, the commentary on new and old blood, the review awaited by many a designer with bated breath. It is with a dogged dedication and divining eye that Suzy has arrived at such a position in the international sphere, coupled with her inate sense of ‘the moment’ – of context and suitability, of relevance and commercial realities in our modern economic and creative landscape.

It is with such knowledge and conviction that Suzy contributed an article entitled ‘L’air du Temps’ to Yohji Yamamoto’s A#2, in which she deconstructs the relationship between fashion and art. Translating to mean ’something in the air’, the article discusses everything from Rococo paintings and their kinship with Lanvin dresses to the disparate yet harmonious coupling of Tracey Emin for Longchamp.

Menkes touches on the way creative social circles inform a designer’s vision and, through nothing else but this ‘l’air du temps’ and the cross-pollination of cultures, how fashion and art serendipitously arrive together at certain aesthetics and ideals at certain times. She maps the evolution of this culture through the 20th century, from Elsa Schiaparelli and Salvador Dali in the 1930s, to Alexander McQueen and the the work of Jake and Dinos Chapman in the 2000s – these more direct links between talented personalities that have produced some of fashion’s most inspiring creations.

“To be really effective, designers and artists have to create similar cultures – even if they do not know the other’s work. Designing a polka dot dress and comparing it to the coloured dot paintings of Damien Hirst would be ridiculous. Yet the twisted sexuality in Alexander McQueen’s work mirrors the disturbing sensibility of the Chapman brothers – who just happen to be the fashion designer’s close friends.”

“Fashion is instinctively in tune with art.”