In 2001, he was hailed as the greatest fashion discovery of the new millennium, compared to Alexander McQueen, John Galliano and Stella McCartney, his clothes and accessories were worn by Christina Aguilera, Ashanti, Bjørk, Janet Jackson, Pink and Adrien Brody.
On 9th June, the world’s first exhibition dedicated to the work of an extremely talented Polish designer opened at the Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź – Arkadius. Great Passions. Confrontations.
Arkadiusz Weremczuk, for that is his full name, was born in Parczew, near Lublin in south-east of Poland. He is a graduate of London’s St Martin’s College of Art, perhaps the most desired art college among fashion design apprentices. While still a student, he was successfully selling his designs, but it was his graduation show and his first professional collection, Lucina,O! , presented at London Fashion Week in 2000, that opened him the door to a worldwide career. A year later, industry experts ranked Arkadius among the top 10 fashion designers in the UK.
The exhibition in Łódź presents 14 of his collections, totalling more than 200 objects, although there are more than a thousand in the museum’s collection. They had been stored for many years by a friend of Arcadius in Scotland. In Łódź, they have undergone extensive conservation and have been incorporated into the collection of contemporary fashion, which is being consistently built up. We will see, for example, the graduation collection ‘Semen of the Gods’, full of mythological references, the already mentioned collection ‘Lucina,O!’, which is a metaphor for the designer’s birth, the collection ‘Queen of Sheeba’, whose heroines are mortal women and goddesses, or the idyllic ‘Paulina’, inspired by the Polish countryside and Arkadius’ grandmother named Paulina. But there are also objects belonging to the most daring collections, such as: ‘Prostitution’, which is an affirmation of pleasure and sex work, ‘The House of Pleasure’, exploring themes of love, ecstasy and passion, or ‘Virgin Mary Wears the Trousers’ referring to the image of Mary and the Child. They exemplify the manifestation of freedom: sexual, gender, artistic, intellectual and spiritual.
– The designer juxtaposed and combined the sacred and the profane. His muses were both the Virgin Mary and the sex worker. He reached back to the source of faith and religion, i.e. love, and used it to proclaim pacifist ideas and anti-discriminatory demands. He talked openly about sex, eroticism, pleasure and other great passions,’ says Marcin Różyc, curator of the exhibition.
The events of 2003 inspired the creation of the United States of Mind collection, which is the artist’s commentary on the war in Iraq that began at the time. It is a politically engaged collection in which Arcadius provocatively combined symbols of the Western world and US statehood with visual attributes of Eastern and Israeli culture. An American flag next to a keffiyeh, also known as a hatta (Arafat style cotton head scarf), a dollar bank notes next to a crescent moon.
It was not only the world of fashion that Arkadius was attracted to. In 2002, he made his debut as a theatre costume designer, creating costumes for the opera Don Giovanni. The production was staged at the opera house in Warsaw and at the Los Angeles Opera House.
On the wave of his artistic and commercial success, Arkadius opened a boutique first in London (2002), then in Warsaw (2003). Unfortunately, due to financial difficulties, both had to be closed after only a few years. And here again, great talent proved to be the greatest asset that helped Arkadius out of his troubles. In 2005, he launches a signature product, Arkadius Goggles, sunglasses made of surgical stainless steel, lightweight and nickel-free, and therefore also suitable for people suffering from severe skin allergies. The philosophy chosen for the brand is Dare to be Different, the glasses turned out to be a hit and are used by global celebrities such as Kate Blanchett and Brad Pitt. They keep selling well until today.
In 2006, Arkadius withdrew from the world of fashion and media. He settled on a picturesque island off the coast of Brazil, where he successfully designs interiors and furniture. He also devotes a great deal of time to photography, painting and writing, and labels his work Afkaa (Artist Formally Known As Arkadius).
Could the Łódź exhibition signal his intention to return to fashion? We shall see. In an interview (Viva!Art 5.07. 2023), the artist confessed that he has been recently longing to design clothes again and does not rule out this possibility.
The exhibition will be open until 27 July 2025 – come along!
Monika Gimblett