Thursday 10 December 2015
Calling Time on Taxidermy
Monochromatic fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld famously said that "trendy is the last stage before tacky". Well, taxidermy has certainly been trendy for a while, and whatever your opinion of plywood deer heads on gastropub walls, this homage from Maison & Objet in Paris made me chuckle.
Perfectly straddling the lines between trendy and tacky, the Jean Paul Gaultier inspired mâché walrus bust is topped off with a kitch cap from the French Naval Marines [complete with obligatory red pom pom]. Mounted on an equally J.P.G. striped background, I'm not sure it'll be featuring in forthcoming artist's Barbican retrospective. That said, animal forms have an enduring and iconic place in design. So, is taxidermy dead? By definition, it always was. And it isn't going anywhere soon.