Forty Five Ten Collaborates with Caitlin Koegh to Support The Whitney’s Art Party
Forty Five Ten and artist Caitlin Koegh celebrate with a cocktail party for their collaborative launch of silk t-shirts—and the proceeds are going to The Whitney Museum of Art. The party took place on the fifth floor of Hudson Yards in one of the four stores owned by Forty Five Ten and guests were treated to Campo Viejo sparkling wine. Since Forty Five Ten is best known for merging fashion and art together pairing up with The Whitney Museum of Art for their annual Art Party seemed like a match made in heaven.
“The art party is one of our annual fundraising events and that supports education initiatives at the museum. That program really works with our young patron groups including our Whitney contemporaries and our artist counsel,” said Ali Bono, who is the Senior Manager of Special Events at The Whitney Museum. The Whitney donated the art to Forty Five Ten and chose Caitlin Koegh to collaborate with the brand. There a few reasons that the team at The Whitney decided Koegh’s work was ideal for this collaboration.
“Caitlin is an artist in our emerging artist track… her work is really visually beautiful and also, she has a history of collaborating with fashion brands,” explained Bono. Koegh believes she was chosen by The Whitney for similar reasons.
“I’ve had a fashion influence in my work for a long time and I used to work as a technical illustrator working for different designers and that sort of has been a big influence on my style,” said Ms.Koegh. She created two paintings for Forty Five Ten and then worked with their team to transcribe the art onto the t-shirts. They only made 40 shirts, which retail for $295. They will be sold exclusively in Forty Five Ten’s New York and Dallas flagship stores, and a portion of all the sales made during the cocktail party will be donated to The Whitney.
The shirt was matte silk and had Koegh’s artwork right in the center. The artwork had a sky and royal blue checkboard pattern with a pane of shattered green glass on top and read: lines in a nymph’s body. “I knew going into it that it was in dialogue with Forty Five Ten, I was really thinking about the body, adornment, and ornamentation and I was thinking about textiles and just different ideas about the body,” said Ms. Koegh.
Collaborating with emerging artist isn’t new to Forty Five Ten. “They commission female and gender non-conforming queer artists and every month a new artist takes over,” said Isinsu Kuzalti, an Account Executive Intern at Cultural Counsel, a PR agency that represents The Whitney Museum. Right now, they are featuring a ceramics and sculpture artist Katie Stout in one of Forty Five Ten’s other Hudson Yards locations.
Forty Five Ten is like an art gallery that meets high fashion. The store itself is filled with art, whether it’s in the display that clothes appear on or in and on the actual clothes itself. The evening was spent with guests clinking their champagne glasses in celebration of the exemplary collaboration and guests made sure to spend their money in order to donate to one of New York’s favorite treasures, The Whitney.
