After moving away from large mural commissions, Gustav Klimt designed for the fashion industry.
Klimt’s connection with fashion was closely tied to Emilie Flöge, an influential Viennese fashion designer and his longtime companion. Flöge and her sisters ran the Schwestern Flöge fashion salon, which opened in Vienna in 1904. The salon became known for loose, flowing reform dresses that challenged the restrictive corsets and conventional silhouettes of the period.
Klimt contributed ideas and designs for garments and textiles, and he photographed Flöge wearing some of the salon’s creations. The relationship between his decorative paintings and her clothing designs was especially close: bold patterns, geometric motifs, flowing shapes, and rich colours appeared in both his art and the salon’s fashion.
The question refers to Klimt’s retreat from controversial academic mural work, particularly after the hostile reception of his University of Vienna ceiling paintings. He did not abandon painting altogether; he concentrated increasingly on portraits, landscapes, drawings, and highly decorative works. Fashion therefore became an important applied-art connection, rather than a replacement for his career as a painter.