Allison Katz collaborates with Paolo Pecora on sweater capsule inspired by 2014 painting

Canadian-born artist Allison Katz (1980), based in London, has created a capsule collection of sweaters for Italian fashion brand Paolo Pecora, inspired by her 2014 work DNA. The painting features a flower motif from an 18th-century plate found in a New York porcelain shop. The project originated from Filippo Pecora, a young collector and contemporary art enthusiast. Katz modified the flower illustrations for three sweater variants, each with distinct compositions characterized by colorful, high-impact visuals and contrasting stripes with doubled and superimposed organic motifs. The capsule debuted at House of Voltaire in London before being presented at Pitti Uomo in Florence. Katz, known for solo exhibitions worldwide including a recent show at Galleria Giò Marconi in Milan, explores conventions of Western painting, rejecting formal and thematic approaches. Her imagery meditates on nature and symbols through fruits, flowers, exotic animals, surreal objects, and enigmatic figures. The collaboration reflects a broader trend in fashion and art toward figurative symbolism and painterly marks, echoing Alessandro Michele's work at Gucci with allegorical animals. The flower on the sweaters symbolizes the importance of small things and objects in our homes as keys to inner depth, linking to a British attention to detail seen in Virginia Woolf's novels, Morris's jacquard fabrics, Wedgwood porcelain, and Katz's knits.