On Oct. 31, 1999, race driver Mika Hakkinen finished first at the Suzuka Speedway to win the Japan GP and that year's F-1 Driver's Championship. It was a close and dramatic victory for the likeable Finn, and among his delirious fans on that day was the French artist Sylvie Fleury. Soon afterward, when clothing designer Hugo Boss asked Fleury to design a limited-edition outfit as part of a German exhibition they were sponsoring, she decided to make the garment a tribute to Hakkinen.
The result was "Formula One Dress" -- a hand-tailored dress in Formula One fabric with logos and a two-way zipper, in an edition of 50. One of the dresses is hanging in the window at the Gallery Side 2, and is the first thing you see as you approach the Akasaka art space where Fleury, 42, is currently holding an exhibition of her work.
"Formula One Dress" is a variation on a standard McLaren-Mercedes F-1 one-piece driver's suit. Although this may not be immediately evident, the lower half is tailored not with a pair of legs, but as a long, tight dress, accented with a race-car flame motif on a field of black. On a wall beyond the dress, Fleury has painted the same orange-and-red flame pattern. The piece is, the artist explains, a satire on the idea that car racing is "a man's world."