Tord Boontje

Cast out of the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve would have been fortunate to come upon Tord Boontje's Fig Tree Wardrobe, where they might take shelter and find something appropriate to wear. Perhaps a tunic by Alexander McQueen for Adam, and for Eve a gown by Charles Worth, the two designers whose creations were cited by Boontje for their "romantic wildness and extravagance" as appropriate to hang from the cast-bronze branches inside this magical realist wardrobe.  One of the most celebrated works of twenty-first-century design, "The Fig Leaf" was conceived as an unlimited edition to be executed by an army of the finest English and French craftsmen, using such rarified techniques as the lost-wax process to cast the branches, and a hand-dyed jacquard silk to create the interior landscape background. However, cooler heads prevailed, and this much-exhibited, much-discussed work was only made once.