Richard Nicoll followed a well-worn path of fashion designers collaborating with ballet visionaries when he created costumes for a performance by The Northern Ballet this week. 

The dance piece, The Ultimate Form, was conceived by the artist Linder Sterling, a frequent Nicoll collaborator (his autumn/winter 2009 collection featured prints designed by Sterling) and was shown at the West Yorkshire Hepworth Wakefield gallery. 

Linder and Sterling were joined in the collaboration by Kenneth Tindall, a choreographer from The Northern Ballet, and the piece was inspired by the sculpture of the late Barbara Hepworth. 

Such an alliance is reminiscent of the great partnerships formed within the Ballet Russes. Famously, that ballet company, overseen by the Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev, called on the greatest artists and designers of the time during the 2o years it was in existence, from 1909 to 1929.   

With the composer Igor Stravinsky making work that revolutionised ballet, the company had sets by the most important artists of time – the curtain for Parade, a piece written by Jean Cocteau, was designed by Picasso, for example. (Oh, to have been in those development meetings...) 

Coco Chanel – who was rumoured to have had an affair with Stravinsky – and Paul Poiret, one of the 20-th century’s greatest couturiers and the man once dubbed ‘The King of Fashion’, designed costumes for several other Ballet Russes shows. 

More recently, the Rodarte sisters Kate and Laura Mulleavy, who had collaborated with the costume designer on the ballet psychodrama Black Swan, created looks for the New York City Ballet. In 2012, they dressed dancers in black and white costumes featuring clean lines and cut-out panels for a piece directed by Natalie Portman’s husband, the choreographer Benjamin Millepied. 

The late Alexander McQueen was tempted to theatre by the renowned experimental director Robert Lepage and his collaborators, the choreographer Russell Maliphant and the dancer Sylvie Guillem, for a dance piece called Eonnagata at Sadler’s Wells Theatre in 2009. 

At the time, McQueen, who had previously turned down opportunities to design costumes for shows, even at the prestigious Paris Opera, explained that he was drawn to the Lepage project because of its darkness and tragic tones. The designer referenced Louis XV, the stylised Japanese dance-drama kabuki and 21st-century couture to create stunningly dramatic costumes for the story about a cross-dressing spy. 

Given the transience of theatre – Nicoll’s costumes were used for a once-off performance – we are often left to rely on still images of the costumes, unless they go on to be exhibited (like at the brilliant 2010 Diaghiliv and the Ballet Russes exhibition at the V&A). Nicoll, however, has plans to use the costumes as inspiration for his future work. ‘The collages and approach will translate to my future mens and womens spring/summer 2014 collections,’ he told us today. 

As the fashion world is inundated with celebrity collaborations, it is refreshing to think of fashion being created in collaboration with artists, dancers, directors and choreographers rather than Kardashians and reality show stars.