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Vif-Argent — Prima Materia
An invented fashion house, cast from a 1614 silver ewer and George Barbier's fashion plates.
In 1614 Adam van Vianen hammered a single sheet of silver into an ewer so fluid that the Rijksmuseum writes, "On this ewer everything is in motion," and suggests it shows prima materia, the alchemists' first matter.
I paired it with George Barbier's fashion plates and read their palette as the four colours of the alchemical Great Work: black, white, yellow, red.
Vif-Argent ("quicksilver") is an invented 2026 maison whose first collection is one transmutation in six plates, and at every stage the silver stops being jewellery and becomes the dress.
It ends in Coniunctio, the chemical wedding: she takes the hand of her own silver statue, and the two wear the same gown.
Every image was made in Recraft with chained V4 Styles: the archive first, then each stage's best plates fed back in to keep her face and the silver.
The six plates
I. Opus — the raw matter, crowned with van Vianen's silver
II. Nigredo — a ribbon burns to niello black
III. Albedo — satin turns to quicksilver
IV. Citrinitas — a pleated fan gilds into orpiment gold
V. Rubedo — the silver, molten, worn on the body
VI. Coniunctio — she joins her own silver statue
Full studio board, every iteration → https://www.recraft.ai/project/14f20321-6799-416e-b045-7931082a7ff8
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Costumes Parisiens 2026: George Barbier's Paris fashion plates of 1913, dressed for the way we live now.
In 1913 George Barbier drew the latest Paris fashion for the Journal des Dames et des Modes: flat stencil colour, one elegant figure per plate, and a caption announcing the look, like "Robe d'intérieur" or "Manteau de théâtre". I found his Costumes Parisiens plates at the Rijksmuseum, where they are in the public domain, cropped ten of them down to the bare stencil and built a Recraft V4 Style from them. Costumes Parisiens 2026 keeps his poses and his captions and dresses them for how we actually live now: a silk blouse over pyjama trousers for the video call, a red delivery backpack worn over a fur-trimmed coat, a theatre coat embroidered with 99 unread badges, a necklace of charging cables, earbuds worn as pearl drops, a ring light carried like a parasol. Same magazine, a hundred and thirteen years later; only the accessories have changed.
200 years ago, local artists painted the everyday people of the subcontinent: barbers, porters, chai wallas, knife sharpeners. Each one got a portrait, flat colours, a fancy border, total respect.
So I asked: what if those same painters time travelled to Lahore today?
I found their work in the Wellcome Collection’s public domain archive, trained a Recraft Style on it, and sent it to paint the new pesha of my city.
Same old painter, new Lahore. 😄
Love this. Giving chai wallas and porters that old portrait treatment again feels really respectful. The borders are beautiful.
The New Book of Beasts
A Medieval Bestiary of Modern Human Nature
What if medieval bestiaries described the habits of modern people instead of mythical creatures?
For the Recraft × Contra Styles Challenge, I created Illuminated Bestiary, a custom Recraft Style inspired by public-domain illustrations from 13th–15th-century manuscripts.
I used historical references from the Public Domain Image Archive to explore medieval animal anatomy, ornamental details, ink drawings, and muted natural pigments.
Then I applied the style to eight imaginary beasts, each representing a familiar modern behavior: overthinking, people-pleasing, doomscrolling, procrastination, ghosting, perfectionism, attention-seeking, and impostor syndrome.
The result is a collection of creatures that look like they belong in a centuries-old manuscript, even though their habits are very much our own.
Such a creative idea! Love how you’ve connected medieval art with modern human habits. The concept is both unique and relatable! 👏✨