As the award winning creator of the London Aquatics Centre dips her toe into the fashion pool, Albert Hill asks whether architects stood stick to the day job

Is there no end to this woman’s talents? Well, in the case of Zaha Hadid, a grinding halt seems to have been reached with the eminent architect’s flirtations with fashion. Hadid has long pushed the boundaries of her considerable talents, with credible adventures into furniture design and oil painting, but her latest swimwear range for Viviona shows that sometimes even the deepest wells can run dry.

Architects have long been obsessed with fashion. The most celebrated architect of the 20th century, Le Corbusier, treated the sartorial side of his life with the utmost seriousness. His tailored suits, bow ties and, of course, his trademark spectacles define much of what we think about him today. The famed Austrian architect, Alfred Loos, was enamoured with Savile Row suits and was clearly something of a frustrated tailor at heart. In amongst his renowned architectural musings he even wrote an essay: “Why A Man Should Be Well-Dressed”. But while Loos did design some fashion boutiques in early 20th-century Vienna, he never went as far as actually designing his own clothing.

Frank Gehry for J.M. Weston

Why, then, do today’s architects feel the need to take the next step from simply having a healthy relationship with their wardrobe to actually getting their hands dirty and getting involved in design? Hadid is well known for her ability to pick out an outfit – indeed The Guardian recently listed her as one of Britain’s best dressers – so why not just leave it at that? To answer that question, it might be worth taking a look at the other architects who have recently turned their hand to fashion....Continue Reading

> via Telegraph