View Slideshow Courtesy LACMA

Sketch by Kate Mulleavy of Rodarte, promised gift of Rodarte (Kate and Laura Mulleavy) by Ann Binlot

Rodarte’s Los Angeles County Museum of Art-acquired 10-piece spring/summer 2012 couture collection, which debuted last June at Florence fashion fair Pitti W, is finally scheduled to make its North American debut. LACMA will present the pieces in an exhibition titled, “Rodarte: Fra Angelico Collection,” from December 17 to February 5, 2012.

Kate and Laura Mulleavy, the California born and bred sisters behind Rodarte, found inspiration in Italian Renaissance art for the collection, specifically High Roman Baroque sculptor Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini’s “The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa," as well as early Renaissance painter Fra Angelico’s frescoes in the monks’ cells at the Convent of San Marco. In a seemingly appropriate twist, LACMA will display the gowns against works from the same period that inspired them — including the circa 1491-95 painting by the Master of the Fiesole Epiphany, “Christ on the Cross With Saints Vincent Ferrer, John the Baptist, Mark, and Antoninus” — in the museum’s Italian Renaissance gallery. - - follow more about this