Katie Stout Creates a Sublime Fashion Collection for Forty Five Ten

Katie Stout. Photo: Courtesy of Forty Five Ten

Dallas-based retailer Forty Five Ten is known for a unique blend of clothing and art, as showcased by its seven boutiques in Texas, Aspen, Napa, Miami, and—most recently—New York’s fashionable Hudson Yards district. Founded in 2000, the company presents an artful curation of established and emerging luxury brands (think Monse, Staud, Erdem, Rosie Assoulin, and Victoria Beckham), which share space with decorative pieces by L’Objet, Artemest, and Georg Jensen.

Now Brooklyn artist Katie Stout has conceived a ready-to-wear collection of tops, sweaters, and dresses for Forty Five Ten, as well as several display pieces indicative of her eccentric style that riffs on domestic life.

“I wanted to make a display for the clothes that was like a craggily, trash place one might stumble upon while having a picnic,” Stout tells Galerie. “Basically, I wanted it to exhibit a similar tension between delicacy and roughness expressed in the clothes. While the clothes are composed, the rack is like a temper tantrum. (It just dawned on me that I very well could be subconsciously referencing the tantrums I threw in stores as a child.) Either way, the objects and clothes are meant to waffle between crude and elegant, some tipping more in one direction than the other.”

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Among the artist’s favorite elements of the collaboration are also the ones she designed last. “Usually the hangers are overlooked—but these ones are overwhelming unique,” she says. “It’s like they’re each wearing little outfits of their own.”

Katie Stout’s fashion collection is displayed on some of her furniture creations at Forty Five Ten’s Hudson Yards store. Photo: Courtesy of Forty Five Ten

Stout, whose Design Miami exhibition “Bedroom Curio” was photographed by Juergen Teller for Barneys New York, collaborated in the past on Jeremy Scott’s fall/winter 2018 collection. Her clothing designs for Forty Five Ten include tops and dresses that are edgy yet feminine, including one mesh frock that she says nods to Virginia Woolf as well as an organza dress she once lifted from an aunt’s closet. There are even clay “rocks” sewn into some of the garments.

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“We started brainstorming the collection in the throws of winter, so naturally I was fantasizing about picnics and plaid and pebbles. I really like rocks right now, so I used that as a jumping-off point,” says the artist of the made-in–New York pieces, which retail from $525 to $960. “I wanted the line to be a little bit delicate, a little bit rough, accessible, off-putting, comfy, annoying, subtle, not subtle.”

Forty Five Ten is no stranger to artists—all of the stores include a selection of highly sought after works by such esteemed talents as Tracey Emin, Catherine Opie, Jose Davila, and Teller, among others.

The display at Hudson Yards. Photo: Courtesy of Forty Five Ten

Kristen Cole, who took over as the store’s president and chief creative officer in 2018, has been a fan of Stout’s work for years. “My husband and I bought a Shady Lady sculpture from her Miami gallery, Nina Johnson, which is close to our 4510/SIX store in Little River,” Cole tells Galerie. “I’ve been thinking about approaching Katie for a collaboration of sorts for some time. Her sense of color really works with our aesthetic, and I just adore her sense of whimsy paired with subversion.

“Collaborations and exclusives are our way of providing truly unique product to our client,” she adds. “I love asking an artist to try their hand at a new medium that we deal in, like apparel or ceramics. I’m a collector, and I see these pieces as collectable and unique—our artist collaborations are produced in very limited quantities. I’m always happiest when commissioning an artist for a project.”