Claudia Hill

Claudia Hill is a German costume and fashion designer, based in Berlin and New York City.

Style

Critics have described her designs as having a “captivating clarity”^[3] and as being “not meant for only one season”.^[4]

She “effectively bridges the art/fashion world divide without sacrificing wearability”,^[5] her own view of this being that she is “a fashion designer who finds fashion too commercial and an artist who finds art too intellectual”.^[6]

Her New York Fashion Week shows are deemed unconventional and take the form of performances or installations^[1] (e.g., instead of a Fall/Winter 2000 runway show, she screened a film in the Bryant Park tents that featured her new collection^[7][8]). She places a strong emphasis on the body's motion and prefers dancers over runway models for her shows.^[9]

Biography

Claudia learned to sew from her mother, a tailor from Prague, at age 11.^[4] She moved to New York in 1993 to study dance.^[9]

The catalyst for Claudia Hill's move from costume to fashion design was Miguel Adrover, who would later receive the CFDA's Emerging Talent Award for Ready-to-wear, but in 1997 was running his small boutique Horn on 9th Street: “She used to live near Horn and closely knew the owners Miguel and Duglas, as well as Pierrot, who was a sales person there. When she was wearing a self-made dress, Miguel asked her if she could sell her garments at the shop. That’s how she started production.”^[10]

Works

Lines

• 1998 to 2005: Claudia Hill (Ready-to-wear)
• 1998 to 2002: The Number After 10
• 2005 to present: Claudia Hill (Limited Editions)

Ready-to-wear pieces have sold at her own store,^[11] and in high-end boutiques, such as Barneys New York,^[12][13] Louis Boston,^[12] Fred Segal,^[12][13] Seven New York,^[14] Horn,^[10] Desperado^[3] and POV Beams.^[3]

Notable Costume Designs

• Assistant Costume Designer for the musical RENT^[3] (one of the costumes designed by Claudia Hill is in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution^[14]).
• Costume Designer for William Forsythe's Decreation.^[9][15] The only other fashion designer that William Forsythe has worked with before is Issey Miyake.^[16]
• Costume Designer for The Wooster Group's production of Hamlet.^[17][18]

Collaborations

Claudia Hill has been a frequent collaborator with a diverse set of artists:

• Japanese Photographer Ariko
  • Co-Designer of the The Number After 10 Line^[19]
  • Ariko has been filming^[7][8] and photographing the Claudia Hill line from the inception to the present.
• Icelandic musician Skuli Sverrisson
  • Music for her Spring/Summer 2000 show
  • Music for her Spring/Summer 2001 show^[7]
  • Music for the opening of her Berlin store in 2004
• Architects Hani Rashid, Lise Anne Couture and Ruth Berktold of Asymptote Architecture
  • Art direction for the Spring/Summer 2001 show^[7][20]
• Israeli Artist Nelly Agassi
  • Collaborative Designs^[3][21]
  • Performance “Schlafsahne”
  • Performance “Wasserwünsche” with Israeli musician Ori Drumer
• Japanese Artist Daisuke Nakayama (official homepage in English)
  • Art Director For the Fall/Winter 2001 Show^[7][22][23]
  • Director of the Fall/Winter 2000 Movie^[8]

Notes

1. 1 2 Quinn, Bradley (2009), Textile Designers at the Cutting Edge, London: Laurence King Publishing, pp. 68 to 73, ISBN 978-1-85669-581-7 
2. ↑ sal (November 2001), "Claudia Hill:Konzeptmode aus N.Y.", Bolero 
3. 1 2 3 4 5 Wesley, Jay (2005), "High on the Hill", Zoo, no. 8 
4. 1 2 Schipp, Anke (June 27, 2004), "Auf Tuchfühlung", Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung 
5. ↑ Jesella, Kara (April 2000), "Cut to the Chase", Nylon, pp. Page 52 
6. ↑ Feigelfeld, Paul (May 2003), "Hill Top für das pro-fashional Ballett", Style and the Family Tunes, pp. Page 36 
7. 1 2 3 4 5 Giordano, Kevin (Fall 2000), "Collector Items", *Surface 
8. 1 2 3 Composite, April 2000  Missing or empty |title= (help)
9. 1 2 3 Magel, Eva-Maria (April 26, 2003), "Kleidung, nicht Kostüm", Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 
10. 1 2 Sanada, Yoko (August 2001), "Claudia Hill", gli, pp. Pages 36 & 37 
11. ↑ "Glanzpunkte, Mixen Sie Perlen, Duft, & Haute Couture", Elle Decoration Germany, pp. Page 46, January–February 2005 
12. 1 2 3 "Eiskalt für die Avantgarde", Deutsch, August 2004 
13. 1 2 Storey, John (September 2004), Madame Figaro, Taiwan  Missing or empty |title= (help)
14. 1 2 "Not All Black and White", Wallpaper, April 2001 
15. ↑ Associated Artists of The Forsythe Company, retrieved 2009-04-06 
16. ↑ Siegmund, Gerald (2004), William Forsythe: Denken in Bewegung, Berlin: Henschel Verlag, pp. 78, 114, ISBN 3-89487-472-4 
17. ↑ Brantley, Ben (November 1, 2007), "Looks it not like the King? Well, More Like Burton", The New York Times, pp. Pages E1 & E12 
18. ↑ Associated Artists of The Wooster Group, retrieved 2009-04-06 
19. ↑ Chen, Aric (Summer 2001), "Claudia Hill", Black Book 
20. ↑ Rashid, Hani; Couture, Lise Anne; Katsanos, NA; Karaiskakis, G (2002), "Flux", Journal of Chromatography A, London: Phaidon Press, 934 (1–2): 31–49, doi:10.1016/S0021-9673(01)01277-8, ISBN 0-7148-4172-2, PMID 11762762 
21. ↑ TimeOut Tel Aviv, pp. Pages 54–56, 2007  Missing or empty |title= (help)
22. ↑ gap, pp. Page 167, Fall–Winter 2001  Missing or empty |title= (help)
23. ↑ Yomiuri Shimbun, February 19, 2001  Missing or empty |title= (help)

External links

• http://claudiahill.com/