Zac Posen's Metaphysical Fashion: Outfits Within Outfits

Last night, at the Neue Galerie's 6th annual Winter Gala, Zac Posen talked to us about art. While a number of art-world folks are abuzz over the current, exploding art market, the 27-year old fashion phenom said he's not impressed with the way things are going.

"Nothing new has happened really since Andy Warhol," he told The Daily Transom, adding that Damien Hirst, the British creator of the infamous $100 million dollar diamond-encrusted skull, "is really a modern-day replica of Andy Warhol, you know, the whole idea of repetition."

"I'm not into chic safety or chic banality, just in creating art," added the designer, clad in his signature scarf, black boots and a stand-out plaid suit that was, of course, extremely well-tailored. "I feel on my artistic side I've been able to take more risks than anybody in the U.S."

Perhaps Mr. Posen's disenchantment with contemporary, post-Warhol art stems from his recent collaboration with Warhol protégé René Ricard. As the son of a painter, Mr. Posen said that he "likes to be a cultural receive dish," consistently gaining inspiration from such past visual artists as Marcel Duchamp, Diego Velázquez, Francisco Goya and Brice Marden, the American Minimalist painter.

"The work that I do is consistently a balance between art and commerce and developing commercial and creative art," explaining that his ability to "inspire" others comes from both his creative pieces on the runway as well as "that great black dress."

"I'm making a piece that's about finding a new structural form and shape on the body that hasn't been seen ever, creating something that's new," he said. "That's what every young artist asks themselves, whether they're in fashion or in art."

This new structural form, he revealed, was motivated by his desire to reunite the human emotion he felt is being stifled by technology. "I think in the age and time where emotions have been taken away through technology I'm into the idea now of emotions coming through technology." Thus, his new creative breakthrough on the runway will be all about something he calls "outfits inside outfits,” which he described as “like going to work in the gas station but, you know, you look like Aerin Lauder.”

What an impossible vision! Ms. Lauder Zinterhoffer, the daughter of the Neue Galerie’s co-founder, Ronald Lauder, was, at last night’s fête, impeccably clad in a short black and white dress and black matte tights—super premium unleaded, to be sure.