Amazing Rodarte’s Renaissance Art

For their Spring 2012 Rodarte collection, Kate and Laura Mulleavy drew on the work of Vincent van Gogh, but the designing sisters have also been dabbling in Fra Angelico’s Renaissance frescoes of late. This weekend, they unveiled RODARTE: Fra Angelico Collection, an installation of gowns inspired by the Italian artist’s work, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). The silk dresses (which first debuted at Pitti Immagine last summer) are on display in the museum’s Italian Renaissance gallery next to works by Angelico and his peers. The painter’s style comes through in the Mulleavys’ use of the same rich colors. Unfortunately for Rodarte devotees like Kirsten Dunst and the Fanning sisters, no one’s getting their hands on these frocks, because they’re going in the museum’s permanent collection after the installation comes down February 5.

—Kristin Studeman