This artwork ensemble was created by Fashion Designer, Giles Deacon and Artist Jeremy Deller for the 'Britain Creates: Fashion and Art Collusion' exhibition hosted and curated by the V&A in collaboration with British Fashion Council in 2012. Commissioned as part of the London 2012 Festival in the year of the London Olympic Games, this display saw leading British fashion designers and visual artists collaborate to produce one-off works for the show. The exhibition aimed to to acknowledge and promote the longstanding relationship between fashion and art, and was a celebration of London’s role as a creative capital, a place where artists of all kinds congregate and inspire one another. The 9 fashion designer/artist couplings were given a completely open brief to see what would emerge from the dialogue between their respective disciplines. The results encompassed sculpture, video, music and photography.


Deacon and Deller's piece shows the influence of sportswear in its materials and form and also draws on decorative art forms for inspiration with the print derived from a stained glass window by William Morris. The Arts and Craft’s principle of ‘art for all’ promoted by Morris particularly resonates with Deller’s practice of taking art outside galleries and into people’s everyday lives. Made in the year of the London Olympic games, this ensemble was the only wearable piece created for the exhibition – a full body running suit that is ‘part athlete, part pagan priestess’.