The design duo opened up to L'Officiel USA about bringing the artist's iconic mobiles to their tried-and-true bag styles.

Fashion and art have come together once again, as Rachel Mansur and Floriana Gavriel are putting a sculpture spin on their eponymous brand&#39;s Italian-made&nbsp;handbags. A few weeks after presenting their Fall 2019 wares in an immersive fruit market environment at New York <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/categories/fashion-week">Fashion Week</a>, the duo has announced a new capsule collection in collaboration with the Calder Foundation, which features a selection of Alexander Calder&#39;s&nbsp;iconic works on <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/mansur-gavriel-marc-camille-chaimowicz-2019">Mansur Gavriel</a>&#39;s most successful bag styles.

The designers each have backgrounds in the arts, having long enjoyed exploring exhibitions, so putting Calder&#39;s work on their creations was a natural choice. The collection highlights four of the artist&#39;s creations&mdash;untitled mobiles from 1955 and&nbsp;1972, an untitled gouache from&nbsp;1974, and 1941&#39;s&nbsp;Vertical Foliage&mdash;as graphics on as many bag styles. In projecting these works into two-dimensional images on the leather accessories, Mansur and Gavriel find a new way to captivate an audience with Calder&#39;s motion focus. This time, the world can watch how the established art&nbsp;sways as the bags make their way into <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/street-style-stars-follow-instagram-2019">street style</a>.&nbsp;

The collection is available now at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/three-questions-for-mansur-gavriel">Mansur Gavriel</a>&#39;s <a href="https://www.mansurgavriel.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIzd-X2qn-5AIVC9TeCh1NBQ3OEAAYASAAEgI0NfD_BwE">website</a> and physical stores&nbsp;as well as <a href="https://www.matchesfashion.com/us/womens/designers/mansur-gavriel?rffrid=sem.Google.n=g.cid=931823426.aid=44692192937.k=%2Bmatchesfashion%20%2Bmansur%20%2Bgavriel.mty=b.d=c.adp=1t1.cr=382215988288.tid=kwd-326111481052&amp;gclid=EAIaIQobChMIt6mi6Kn-5AIVCdHeCh1ceA--EAAYASAAEgJlRPD_BwE&amp;gclsrc=aw.ds">MatchesFashion</a> and select Hauser &amp; Wirth galleries. Below, Mansur and Gavriel spoke with&nbsp;L&#39;Officiel USA&nbsp;about the collaboration, their love for Calder, and where they stand on whether fashion can be art.

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How have your arts backgrounds contributed to this collaboration and when did you first discover Alexander Calder&rsquo;s work? 
&nbsp; 
Rachel Mansur: We have always been interested in <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/categories/art">art</a> and are very inspired by museum exhibitions, galleries, and artist books. We love traveling and visiting many exhibitions, taking in different mediums and environments. Calder&rsquo;s work has always been iconic for us. His expression of color and form is both bold and delicate and appeals to our aesthetic very much. 
&nbsp; 
Can you talk about the process of conceptualizing and designing this new line? 
&nbsp; 
RM: We have looked through Calder&rsquo;s work and loved many ideas of incorporating it&nbsp;into the bags. We went through many trials and the process took us months. In the end we decided to work with a combination of his iconic mobiles as well as a two-dimensional work. We silk-screened them onto our iconic bag shapes: the Bucket Bag, a tote, and our Circle Crossbody. We also added them to our classic Attach&eacute;. 
&nbsp;

c) 2019 Calder Foundation, New York : Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York_2.jpg

© 2019 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

With the new collaboration, you&#39;ve gotten literal with art, turning hanging sculpture designs into 2D graphics on your bags. What do you think is the impact of this? 
&nbsp; 
Floriana Gavriel:&nbsp;We wanted to create a clean, powerful statement expressing the works&mdash;we love using simple yet powerful <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/now-trending-winter-2018">forms</a> as a vehicle for color or material, so it was an amazing opportunity to present Calder&rsquo;s work in this way. We love the crisp silkscreen on the warm, glowing vegetable-tanned leather. 
&nbsp; 
Fashion and art are constantly coming together, yet the &quot;Is fashion art?&quot; debate stays as heated as ever. What do you hope this new capsule adds to that topic?&nbsp;

RM:&nbsp;Fashion must address functionality within the context of commercialism in a way that art does not. We enjoy the challenge of creating accessible, functional, everyday beauty. Our inspiration is driven by art&mdash;the abstract emotion of more conceptual ideas such as color, line, form, and texture.

See Mansur Gavriel's Artsy New Collaboration with the Calder Foundation

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