At Dior’s recent couture show in Paris, creative director Jonathan Anderson unveiled a collection heavily influenced by the work of American sculptor Lynda Benglis, marking a departure from the more anticipated wedding dress designed for pop singer Taylor Swift. Swift had married Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce at Madison Square Garden just days earlier, and while Anderson declined to confirm if any pieces from the collection echoed Swift’s attire, the show was primarily a tribute to Benglis’s artistic legacy.
Benglis, 84, has played a prominent role in contemporary art for over five decades, distinguished by her boundary-pushing sculptures that blend elements of painting and sculpture. Working with industrial materials such as wire mesh, latex, and plaster, Benglis creates fluid forms—knots, folds, and puddle-like shapes—that challenge conventional sculptural rigidity. Her recent experiments involve shaping delicate paper “skins” over structures made from chicken wire. With Benglis’s work as a direct inspiration, Dior’s collection translated these organic, undulating forms into garments, including wraps, hats, and dresses that moved dynamically on the runway.
“I feel very lucky that Dior was inspired by my work,” Benglis said from her home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, praising Anderson’s openness and collaborative approach. Anderson echoed her sentiments, calling Benglis one of the world’s most important living sculptors and expressing hope that the collection would introduce her work to a broader audience.
Benglis’s rising prominence coincides with several major exhibitions planned for the coming year. Pace Gallery in New York will present a show featuring her sculptures dating from 1972 to 2024 starting September 11. Additionally, a comprehensive retrospective will open at Kunstmuseum Basel in March 2025, before traveling to Tate Modern in London and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark later that year. These exhibitions follow recent showcases from venues including the Barbican in London and the 10th Biennial of Painting in Belgium.
Marc Glimcher, CEO of Pace, notes growing demand for Benglis’s work, though much of her most significant series remain in museum collections or closely guarded by the artist. Some of her pleated sculptures, which inspired Anderson’s designs, command prices between $1.5 million and $3 million.
Emerging in the late 1960s and 1970s, Benglis established herself amid the dominance of Abstract Expressionism and minimalism with sculptures defined by fluidity rather than the more rigid industrial materials favored by her male counterparts. Her early work, such as the colorful, glitter-covered “Sparkle Knot” (1972), exemplifies her embrace of vibrancy and theatricality. Anderson first encountered her work in 2015 during a visit to the Hepworth Wakefield museum in West Yorkshire, England, sparking a creative partnership that has spanned exhibitions, runway shows, and a limited-edition jewelry collection for the fashion house Loewe.
The collaboration with Dior, which commenced shortly after Anderson’s appointment in mid-2023, was carefully negotiated, including Benglis’s approval of every piece. Some designs reference her historic sculptural methods, such as hand-pleated wire mesh armatures covered in metallic sprays and gold leaf. Benglis even provided feedback on color choices, suggesting Dior’s interpretations were “too polite.”
A subtle nod to Benglis’s provocative 1974 Artforum advertisement, where the artist posed nude and oiled while riding a large sex toy, was incorporated into a garment featuring a blurred, spectral outline of her torso. The original ad sparked controversy in the art world for its challenge to prevailing gender and sexual norms. Anderson acknowledged he opted for a subdued reference, suggesting that the fully explicit image might have been too contentious for the fashion house’s audience.
Through these collaborations and exhibitions, Benglis’s singular artistic vision is gaining renewed recognition, bridging the worlds of high fashion and contemporary sculpture.