Wearing Art: The African City Silk Scarf Collaboration with The Suter Art Gallery
There’s a quiet kind of luxury in wearing art — the feeling of carrying a story, a legacy, and a piece of cultural history wherever you go. In a beautifully refined collaboration, The Suter Art Gallery Te Aratoi o Whakatū has partnered with New Zealand silk atelier LoveSilk to reimagine a work by modernist painter John Weeks as a limited-edition mulberry silk scarf.
Thoughtful, expressive, and beautifully crafted, it’s a piece that speaks to art lovers, collectors, and style devotees across Australia and New Zealand.
A Modernist Classic, Reborn in Silk
At the centre of the project is African City, an arresting oil-on-strawboard painting by John Weeks (1886–1965), one of New Zealand’s earliest abstractionists.
Inspired by his travels across Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia in the 1920s, the artwork blends Cubist geometry with architectural rhythm — a composition that feels almost destined to be interpreted on silk, where colour and form shift gently with movement.
For The Suter — an institution with roots tracing back to 1890 — the project is part of a broader vision: to take art beyond the gallery and into daily life, giving design, heritage, and culture a place in everyday wardrobes.
From Gallery to Garment: A Silk Transformation
The collaboration began as a simple question: how do you honour a modernist masterpiece while allowing it to live in a new, tactile form?
“We saw in African City a sense of movement,” the LoveSilk design team explains. “The geometry almost folds like silk. There’s balance and tension. We knew it would translate beautifully beyond the frame.”
Working closely with The Suter’s curatorial team, LoveSilk reinterpreted Weeks’ composition with meticulous precision — preserving its tonal structure and colour palette while adapting it for the natural drape and sheen of mulberry silk.
John Weeks: The Visionary Behind the Work
Born in Devon and raised in New Zealand, John Weeks became a pioneering figure of early 20th-century modernism. After formal training in Europe — including time studying under André Lhote in Paris — he returned home with a distinctly international perspective.
His extensive travels across North Africa infused his work with architectural depth, bold geometry, and rhythmic composition. He was one of the first New Zealand artists to fully embrace abstraction, prioritising colour, balance, and form over realism.
Today, his influence lives on through public collections — and now, through silk that brings his work into motion.
A Scarf That Carries a Story
Crafted from 100% pure mulberry silk and finished with delicate hand-rolled edges, the African City scarf is more than a fashion accessory — it’s a wearable archive, a piece of modernist history reimagined for everyday elegance.
Knotted at the neck, looped through a handbag, styled as a headscarf, or draped over the shoulders, it moves softly and expressively — letting the geometric forms unfold with every gesture.
With only a limited run produced, it’s a true collector’s piece for those who appreciate art, heritage, and thoughtful design.
Where to Find It
The African City silk scarf is available exclusively through The Suter Art Gallery in Nelson New Zealand.