Flooring showcases art

Art in the Spotlight

The Museum of Applied Arts in Frankfurt was designed by the American architect Richard Meier. It was within this architectural setting that the exhibition ‘Life doesn’t frighten me. Michelle Elie wears Comme des Garçons’ took place.

The fashion label Comme des Garçons (German: ‘Just like boys’) was founded in 1969 by Rei Kawakubo. Through deconstruction, displacement, destruction and bulges that pay no heed to traditional body shapes, the designer breaks with the conventions of pattern-making and challenges the perspective shaped by Western ideals of beauty.

The Museum of Applied Arts in Frankfurt showcased more than 50 outfits from the extensive Comme des Garçons collection, exploring the question of how we use clothing to express ourselves. The individual garments belong to the fashion designer, jewellery designer and stylist Michelle Elie. She shares stories about selected pieces – from the moment she first spotted them on the catwalk in Paris, through to her purchase of them, right up to her own experiences and the varied reactions that wearing the pieces elicits.

“Life doesn’t frighten me,” says Elie – and indeed, it takes courage to wear Comme des Garçons, to stand out and thereby consciously set oneself apart from established conventions.

Art on display

As part of the exhibition, the mannequins were displayed wearing the extraordinary garments by Comme des Garçons on a floor covering by objectflor. A black floor covering from the POLYSAFE APEX collection, which appeared understated at first glance, marked out the catwalk.

It was only on closer inspection that the numerous, glittering granules in the flooring became visible. These form part of the surface design and, within the museum, echoed the light reflections from the garments on display. This created a subtle contrast to the colour-intensive fabrics and a connection between the flooring and the exhibition design.

Floor coverings are an important component of interior design concepts. In addition to design, technical properties such as slip resistance, classification and chemical resistance also play a role. POLYFLOR floor coverings combine a variety of design options with product-specific technical properties, making them suitable for a range of applications.