Now showing: Rodarte: States of Matter at MOCA LA.

Celebrating the art of fashion, MOCA’s newest exhibition presents recent fashion and costume design pieces by Kate and Laura Mulleavy, the sister-dream-team behind the house of Rodarte. Portraying Rodarte’s experimental, daring, and often conceptual garments as charged, sculptural objects, States of Matter features creations from Rodarte’s Spring 2010, Fall 2010, and Fall 2008 runway collections, as well as original ballet costumes designed by the Mulleavy sisters for the recent hit, Black Swan.

This is the Mulleavy’s first solo exhibition on the west coast, and follows last year’s hit installation at New York’s Cooper-Hewitt: Quicktake: Rodarte. The MOCA show was curated by MOCA Associate Curator Rebecca Morse and designed by Alexandre de Betak, and is presented by Swarovski.

Kate and Laura Mulleavy received their bachelor’s degrees in liberal arts from UC Berkeley in 2001. Following their graduations, they returned to their home in Pasadena and launched Rodarte – without any formal fashion training – in 2005. Since then, they’ve launched a dozen instinctively designed, eclectically inspired collections (motivated by everything from Japanese horror films to California Condors) and won multiple awards, including the CFDA Womenswear Designer of the Year in 2009.

Rodarte: States of Matter runs through June 5, 2011 at MOCA, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

*images by Autumn de Wilde, courtesy of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

One of the world’s most renowned architects, Zaha Hadid has been celebrated for a one-of-a-kind architectural language, based on fluid, organic shapes, always seemingly just beyond this world. For Summer 2010, she’s bringing her same creative language to a jewelry collection for Atelier Swarovski.

The Glace collection, as its called, consists of five pieces – bracelets, necklaces and rings – designed to be dramatically worn individually or as complementary pieces together. Each sculpted piece features colorful crystals suspended in clear resin, and every piece is available as one of only 50 in the exclusive collection.

According to Ms. Hadid:
“This enigmatic new Glace collection celebrates a powerful dichotomy between the purity of Swarovski’s precision cut crystals and the subtle, organic forms that envelop them. Each piece within the collection has evolved as an abstraction of the sinuous forms evident in nature, revealing my desire for experimentation and invention throughout every stage of design and realization.”

A selection from the new line is below; for more information, visit atelierswarovski.com.

*above: Zaha Hadid Pendant Jet

*above: Zaha Hadid Flame Cuffs

*above: Zaha Hadid Collar Opal

*above: Zaha Hadid Ring 1 +2 Crystal

*above: Zaha Hadid Jet Bangles

*All images courtesy of Atelier Swarovksi.