Paying Artful Homage - NYTimes.com Thursday was art appreciation day in fashion. It started with a morning press conference at the Guggenheim Museum, where Dior, with the designer Raf Simons present, announced its sponsorship of the Guggenheim International Gala honoring James Turrell and Christopher Wool. And it ended a few blocks south at the Neue Galerie with a conversation between L'Wren Scott and Rachel Feinstein. Ms. Scott's fall collection was inspired by Gustav Klimt, so it was appropriately surreal to see the designer and four of her dresses stationed right in front of "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I" from 1907. The swirls of gold on a short black cape matched the painting alright. Ms. Scott is hardly the first designer to be inspired by Klimt, but she and Ms. Feinstein managed a substantive talk about some interesting parallels between Ms. Scott's work and Klimt, who was not a stranger to the concept of the designer muse. His close companion was Emilie Flöge, the bohemian fashion designer who influenced some of his works. They were aided by audience participation from Ellen Barkin and Ms. Feinstein's husband, John Currin. "We have an interesting combination where we are women who do things secretly behind great men," Ms. Feinstein said. Ms. Scott said she had admired Klimt since seeing his work at the Musée D'Orsay in Paris when she was 13 and "having a love of his work, and also an obsession with his golden period, and my personal love of gold, that's how my collection started to come about." Ms. Feinstein was interested to know how a designer like Ms. Scott, who is known for a defined waist and a silhouette that is closely fitted to the body, could relate to Klimt, a character known for wearing caftans or open robes with no underwear (supposedly leading to 14 illegitimate children). "He was very avant garde and scandalous, in more ways than the children," Ms. Scott said. Asked about the fashion of the period, Ms. Scott said: "It was a movement coming from something very strict to loosening up, but as you see, Klimt was a man who missed the waistline. He painted it in everyone of his portraits. He wanted to see the female form. He didn't want to have it hiding behind a robe. But he was very happy hiding his behind a robe. Ms. Barkin, a longtime L'Wren Scott client, later jumped in to describe Ms. Scott as a feminist designer, because she felt her clothes had the effect of empowering women, and this is where things went a little off topic. "I think the biggest compliment is to say somebody looks beautiful, versus wow did you see that dress," Ms. Scott said. Because it's about the girl. It's about the woman. It's not about what I did. A century later, of course, looking at a Klimt painting, like the portrait behind Ms. Scott, we're still struck by the dress. Who wouldn't love Adele wearing their clothes? Ms. Scott said.