Frida Kahlo | Art that Transcends Time
Today six decades later, Frida Kahlo continues to be one of the most inspiring artists, serving as a powerful symbol of individuality and courage. Her art embodies every fabric of real pain through controversial topics like miscarriages and breastfeeding, while her style resonated with the whims of abstract surrealism.
Despite being faced with a disastrous bus accident that left her in a body cast, she reconstructed her destiny through her passion for painting, when most would dwell in self pity. She created a legacy that stirs creativity, encouraging women all over to defy stereotypes and follow their hearts. It is not surprising then that the second volume of 400 THINGS is inspired by Frida Kahlo’s Garden.
The uninhibited identity represented through her art and in retrospect her garden, goes hand in hand with 400 THINGS belief in freedom and originality.
Frida’s garden in her famed cobalt blue house, Casa Azul is viewed as an extension of her personality and is manifested in the trail of flowers threaded through her hair in most self-portraits. Through our second volume we crafted a collection of experiences stored in each object to create a bridge between the vivid colours of summer and the muted tones of the monsoon in 400 Gardens.
Each chosen object reflects the flurry of activity imagined in Frida’s gardens through natural colours and silhouettes, that are handmade, to enhance the wearer’s comfort. Frida’s self-portraits were characterised by her unibrow and slight moustache; attributes that are considered overtly male. In a time before contemporary feminism, when women concealed facial hair, Frida Kahlo redefined the ideas of femininity using it instead as embellishment. At 400 THINGS, we aspire to strengthen inclusive narratives of beauty, going beyond the traditional gender subscriptions, a philosophy that our collection manifests through its varying objects.
Frida Kahlo was fearlessly aware of her sexuality, and portrayed the same through her art challenging all norms that eliminate female desires. The strong feminist ideology represented through her art can be found in our own gallery of things, it rebuilds the idea of objects as inanimate indulgences and presents them rather as a collection of experiences that nourish the soul with abundance, precisely what Frida Kahlo’s garden was to her art. With 400 Gardens we have crafted unique artistry exhibiting ideas that echo the minds of the movers and shakers, the makers and breakers, the producers and creators of our society, empowering them to stand out without any fear of ‘fitting in.’
