Objects | Let’s Stay Together

Photographs by Matthew Kristall. Styled by Jason Rider. Hair by Yukiko Tajima. Fashion assistants: Elena Hale and Tas Tobey. Model: Yannick Abrath/Wilhelmina.Dries Van Noten shirt, $720, and sandals, $635; go to bergdorfgoodman.com. Pants, $795; go to jeffreynewyork.com.

To the relief of men everywhere who struggle with pairing their shirts to their pants, this season designers proposed the idea of matching sets. Whether in the form of head-to-toe prints, like Calvin Klein’s digitized floral jacket, shirt and shorts, or the monochromatic uniforms put forth by Dior or Prada, these are tops and bottoms that make the biggest statement when worn together. One less decision to make in the mornings!

The mushroom-shaped cast-bronze pulls by Gabriella Kiss.

The furniture designer Chris Lehrecke and the jewelry designer Gabriella Kiss have been married for more than two decades, and their upstate studios are a stone’s throw from one another. Given their mutual affinity for nature — he treats wood in an organic way, and her subject matter includes plants and insects — it’s a bit surprising that they’ve never done a big project together. Until now, that is. “After the Storm,” a collection that makes its debut on Monday at Ralph Pucci International, is the couple’s first major collaboration. Although the show features solo designs by each (wooden tortoises and lily-pad tables by Kiss, and tree-mushroom-shaped wall shelves by Lehrecke, to name a few), their joint efforts include a series of pieces in white oak designed by Lehrecke with cast-bronze pulls (also mushroom-shaped) by Kiss. The long, lean chest of drawers shown here, which incorporates a branch from a dead oak tree, is $22,000 at Ralph Pucci International (44 West 18th Street).

Courtesy of Sperone Westwater, New YorkAn installation view of Wim Delvoye’s ”Suppo (scale model 1:2),” 2013.

The Belgian artist Wim Delvoye is known for making his friends perform sexual acts in front of X-ray machines, tattooing live pigs to look like Louis Vuitton handbags (and selling the hides and taxidermied animals from his farm in China) and finding the “humanness” in processes, like digestion, that don’t exactly scream “artful.” But the show he opened last weekend at the Bowery gallery Sperone Westwater suggests a new maturity.

The touchstones are two monumental sculptures. “Suppo (scale model 1:2)” hangs from the double-height ceiling like a pendulum. Made with a state-of-the-art laser cutter and using the Cologne Cathedral as a reference, the stainless steel mega-structure is an elongated and spiraling piece that looks like a building that’s been pushed through a manhole. While not as epic as Delvoye’s first iteration of the piece, which was twice the size and hung from the glass pyramid of the Louvre last year, this version is still awe-inspiring. It’s at once classical and futuristic — gothic oratory meets Millennium Falcon.

Courtesy of Sperone Westwater, New York“Dual Möbius Quad Corpus,” 2013.

The second sculpture, “Dual Möbius Quad Corpus,” depicts four Jesuses, four nails and one crucifix in an endless polished bronze Möbius band, the stretched and twisted bodies and contorted hands and feet tangled together. Although it’s not as formally arresting as “Suppo,” it’s another example of Delvoye’s tendency to toy with sacred symbols.

Upstairs, Delvoye’s take on Moreau-style 19th-century marble and bronze sculptures — known for their saccharine love scenes and wistful women — merge kitsch, psychology and mythology into a spiraling nickeled bronze explosion. “Deux Bacchantes Rorschach” is a Hindu goddess in Art Deco form, with dancerlike arms and heads protruding from the base. In two more works, Delvoye applies the crucifix scene to a double helix, cleverly marrying religion and science in a thorned glory. “La Lune Rorschach,” a 3-D version of a Rorschach blot that depicts two bodies seemingly merging into one another, offers the clearest connection to the Belgian provocateur’s earlier pieces. It shows two bodies seemingly merging into one another and feels oddly erotic, despite being under the pretense of a 3-D Rorschach blot. In some ways, it sums up Delvoye’s current mind-set: refined, even subdued, but still risqué and obsessed with the body.

Elegant Ruffles Pleated Strapless A-Line Chiffon Black Prom/Cocktail Dress

Chiffon Prom Dresses

Silhouette: A-line
Neckline: Strapless
Waist: Empire
Hemline/Train: Short/Mini
Sleeve Length: Sleeveless 
Embellishments: Ruching/Pleated, Criss Cross, Cascading Ruffles
Fabric: Chiffon + Elastic Woven Satin 
Built-In Bra: Yes 
Fully Lined: Yes 
Shown Color: Black
Body Shape: Hourglass, Inverted Triangle, Misses 
Occasion: Cocktail, Prom, Homecoming
Season: Spring, Fall, Winter, Summer

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