Cocoonese x Victoria Hertel: Bringing fine arts closer to people
“I want to bring the arts closer to people’s daily lives. Art is not inaccessible.” -Chloe Wang, Founder of Cocoonese
The serendipitous collaboration of home-grown brand Cocoonese, and German-Venezuelan artist Victoria Hertel, was an initiative by the National Arts Council (NAC) and Textile and Fashion Federation (TaFF). Kick started in October, the project led our founder, Chloe to discover Victoria from a list of eligible artist partners. She was drawn immediately to her work “Breeze” and could instantly visualise it printed on her bag designs. “Although the painting was abstract, it had so many layers to it and the colours were so vivid and vibrant. I thought it would look very pretty on a bag and I knew right away that I wanted to work with Victoria.”
To amplify the concept of nature and flow of these art pieces, Chloe specially handpicked a transparent chain strap and wooden frame for her larger bag designs. “I wanted to use the transparent strap to create an imagery of lightness to the bag, despite its large size. This is also the first time I’m using a wooden frame and I hope it brings out the theme of nature, which is the original intention of the design.”
Being her first time working with original composition, the task proved challenging for Chloe. Designs like Breeze and Cascade were intricate and did not require much modifications beyond resizing them for printing on fabric. But for Raintiles, it took a joint effort between Chloe and Victoria to pick four simple art pieces to put together a richer, tiled design.
Chloe shared that for this collaboration, they explored fabric printing for the first time, and through the process, translated Victoria’s creative into digital art images, and found the perfect middle ground to maximise the use of space while displaying the artwork in their most complete forms.
However, compromises still had to be made to ensure these pieces were best presented on a bag medium. Chloe mused in recollection, “Victoria’s art could easily be showcased on our larger sized bags but not as prominently on smaller purses, and difficult decisions were made to pick the best section to front our bag designs.”
Noting that such partnerships are essential for art and local brands to thrive, Chloe herself is constantly on the lookout for similar opportunities in the future. “I am an avid fan of art myself and I hope that through collaborations like this, I can encourage more people to enjoy art on an intimate level and to support art.”
“ For Cocoonese, this is the first of many more to come in the future. ”