Tana Kim® was born from a conviction: contemporary art should be able to circulate differently — on a body, in movement, where it is least expected.
The brand is an exhibition space on textile. Trapeze skirts and coordinated bags, conceived as art mediums, on which emerging contemporary artists bring their works to life. Not on a wall. On you.
Each piece is unique or part of a very small series. Some go further: through a transformation protocol co-developed with the artist, they can become paintings.
The name carries two of the creator's heritages. Kim, Nathalie's grandmother, carrier of transmissions and stories. Tana, Ta for Tardif, Na for Nathalie. The brand carries its author in its name before it even carries a work.
A brand that tells itself in a language both visible and illegible.
Contemporary art is too often inaccessible, physically, economically, culturally.
Tana Kim® starts from a simple conviction: a work of art can live beyond the wall.
It can be worn, transformed, carried on a body and into the daily lives of those who never enter a gallery.
Each ensemble, a trapeze skirt and its coordinated bag, is a unique exhibition medium or part of a very small series.
The works that inhabit them are hand-painted or printed in limited edition by emerging contemporary visual artists.
Certain pieces from the Expression collection can be transformed into paintings, through a transformation protocol co-developed with the artist.
To wear a Tana Kim® piece is to exhibit a work of art.
Each piece tells two stories at once: that of the artist who inhabited it, and that of the one who wears it.
Tana Kim® does not promise an outfit. It offers a work of art to live with, to wear today, to frame tomorrow, to pass on after.
The traces of childhood
At 9, Nathalie receives a semi-professional sewing machine for her birthday, a Borletti
She never really leaves it behind.
A fingernail being less resistant than a needle, the first lessons in thickness are memorable.
Early on, she understands something that fitting rooms keep telling her, relentlessly: clothes are not made for her.
Not for her silhouette, not for the way she moves, not for the way she puts things together. She spends hours searching, trying, putting back.
She decides her ideal outfit, she will make it herself. Original without effort.
Adaptable without constraint. Free in movement — because for her, movement is non-negotiable.
Not yet Tana Kim®. But already the idea.
Barcelona, 2012
In a narrow street of the Barri Gòtic, Nathalie pushes open the door of a fellow creator, and carries away their exchange, and her work.
Clothes cut from thick, technical fabrics. Clean lines. Matching accessories, simple pieces, comfortable, that truly work. Inevitable.
The spark is there, in that narrow street: a singular fabric, a trapeze skirt, a matching bag. A coherent silhouette, free in movement, recognizable.
The iconic and timeless pattern of Tana Kim® begins to exist.
Technique and Creation
The idea is there. The craft is yet to come.
Nathalie commits seriously, classes, workshops, experiments. She learns the fundamentals of sewing, pattern-making, the creation and adjustment of her own patterns. Not to become a professional seamstress, but to have enough technical mastery to make exactly what she has in mind, on her own terms.
These workshops also give her an audience. She puts her ensembles to the test — other participants, their silhouettes, their feedback, their ways of wearing. What theory does not say, bodies do.
What she refines through trial and error is a shape: the trapeze skirt. A line that falls right, that leaves the body free, that works with the thick and structured fabrics she favors. With its matching bag, cut from the same fabric, the ensemble becomes inevitable.
Her shape. Her mastery. The medium on which everything else will fall into place.
Upholstery fabrics impose themselves as the obvious choice, their weight, their textures, their patterns.
Over the years, Nathalie builds her own wardrobe — dozens of hand-crafted ensembles, some already in dialogue with a visual artist.
In the morning, everything comes together simply: the skirt, the bag, a few plain basics.
A coherent, recognizable, free silhouette. Always.
In 2024, the shift. She realizes that what she has built for herself, this way of wearing art, of carrying a work on a body, of owning something unique, others need it too. The Égotrip 167-40 has had its time. It becomes Tana Kim®.
In January 2025, the brand is born. Tana, Ta for Tardif, Na for Nathalie. Kim, her grandmother, keeper of stories and memory.
Nathalie joins La Turbine, an incubator based in Cergy-Pontoise, supporting projects at the intersection of creativity and entrepreneurship.
A community to build what did not yet exist: an exhibition space on textile, open to emerging contemporary artists who seek, themselves, to let their work circulate differently.
"From a very young age, sewing became a tool of expression. The machine and I found our language: a trapeze skirt and a matching bag. My signature mono-product, crafted in upholstery fabrics, thick, structured, singular.
These ensembles, I named them Egotrip 167-40, my measurements. They answer to demands I admit are almost obsessional: a cut adapted to thick fabrics, a line designed for my body with no defined waist, ease of movement to stay free. An ensemble made on Sunday, worn on Monday. Simple combinations with plain basics, tops, tights, shoes.
And one last demand, the most important: to draw attention. Approving or not. Never indifferent.
Beyond the functional, the practical, the stylistic, these ensembles tell my story in a language both visible and illegible.
This is the language Tana Kim® is ready to share." Nathalie Tardif
Plasticien contemporain basé dans l’Oise, Michel Clouin travaille depuis plusieurs années sur une question centrale : comment la forme, le geste et la trace peuvent-ils dialoguer à travers des médiums toujours différents ?
Acrylic, oil, ink, wax. Canvas, paper, Plexiglass, Rhodoïd. Digital works in limited runs. From series to series, he reinvents himself, never abandoning the essential: the hand, the material, the gesture.
It is this unwavering commitment to craft that led Nathalie to offer him a medium he had not yet explored: the Tana Kim® textile.
Since then, his personal series Danses and Retours live differently, worn, in motion, in the daily lives of those who exhibit them on themselves. Certain Expression pieces can go further still: through the transformation protocol co-developed with the brand, they become paintings.
From series to series, he reinvents himself through mediums and digital technologies he integrates into his pictorial practice, never abandoning the hand, the material, the gesture.
