One of the most renowned paintings of the 19th century’s is Birth of Venus which was painted by William-Adolphe Bouguereau. Venus represents the Roman name for the Greek goddess, Aphrodite, the deity of love, beauty, and fertility, and is mainly considered the feminine beauty ideal in Classical Greece and Rome. Being part of the permanent collection of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, it is said that Bouguereau’s Venus depicts the finest expression of the female body.
The French academic painter’s masterpiece shows one of the most glorious and beautiful, yet naked goddesses of all time. Well, at least until now, because Japan’s renowned fashion designer, Junko Koshino, decided to clothe the Roman goddess, as part of her unique project titled Dress for Venus.
The state-of-the-art technologies allowed the designer to overcome a real challenge of dressing up the famous goddess, who had been naked for more than 130 years. Combining classic art with sleek fashion and modern technology, the artist created an original ‘haute couture’ clothing piece in Venus’s style, developed using just virtual reality.
Designers need a real life model in order to create a piece of clothing. Therefore, to obtain the necessary information about Venus’s body, a real model was needed, as Koshino’s partners struggled to transform the 2D image of the perfect painted woman into a 3D model.
Owing to a virtual camera, the artists were able to analyze her body lines. Then, using Google’s VR drawing tool Brush Tilt, the Junko Koshino drew the dress directly on the goddess’s virtual statue. Moreover, the clothing was projected using the “pepper’s ghost” technique — an optical illusion tool frequently used in theater performances — enabling Venus to be seen as a 360-degree image.
Finally, thanks to the AI’s platform memory, which contained Bouguereau’s drawing techniques, the group of artists managed to create a graphic filter which was used to replicate all painter’s touches. This way, the Japanese capitalized on the opportunity to create the perfect apparel. In collaboration with advertising agency Dentsu, Tokyo, the robe for the divine being was brought to life, and you can also admire the remarkable process through a 2-minute-long video:
The Japanese fashion designer Junko Koshino was born in Osaka-city, Kishiwada, and is known best for her eponymous clothing line, which includes modern and futuristic uniform designs for various Japanese corporate companies.
The exquisite artwork created as a part of the collaboration between the Japanese designer and the Tokyo-based agency was part of the Art Fair Tokyo event, which took place from 16th to 19th March 2017 and its main theme stated that “Art is Alive – We approach art, art approaches us.”
Credits:
Advertising Agency: Dentsu, Tokyo, Japan
Creative Director: Kazuyoshi Ochi
Planner: Shinpei Murata, Takato Akiyama, Kenji Ozaki
Copywriter: Shinpei Murata
Creative Technologist: Ryoya Sugano
Art Director: Naomi Okamura
Technical Adviser: Momoko Yamaguchi
Application development main director: Kawamura Shuwa
Application development producer: Mizuno Hiroyuki
Application development director: Kobayashi Nobuhiro
Software Developer: Iwamoto Tomo
Software development lead: Hirohashi Naoyuki
Engineer: Takuya Ando
Frontend Engeneer: Kosuke Takahashi
Modeler: Yuya Takahashi, Keita Sugiyama
3d Director: Yusuke Koike
Technical Director: Keishu Nakajima
Coordinator: Ryota Yamamoto
Photo Producer: Misa Murayasu, Kenji Hashimoto
Photographer: Takao Nagase
Film Producer: Tatsuhiro Ishikawa
Film Director: Shuhei Yamada
Music: Yahyel