French revolutionary art influencer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, has long been the “King of Caricature” in fashion, thanks to its legendary pop sensibility, which began when he designed a coat for John Lennon.
Since then, this man with an unlimited creative universe, has been responsible for placing the enthusiasm in the look of Farrah Fawcett in “Charlie’s Angels” in the seventies and perfect their kitsch and post-modern collection at a time when its related contemporaries Zandra Rhodes and Malcolm McLaren ruled major british streets. (yes- before Lady Gaga).
We spent a morning with him at Le Royal Monceau hotel to talk the present and the future:
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PARIS SOCIAL DIARY: How have been your days at work and in your life?
JEAN-CHARLES DE CASTELBAJAC: I love my work! It is a bit a problem. I would say a sickness. It’s an addiction.
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PSD: Where do your ideas come from?
JCDC: I find ideas everywhere. I memorize them and Art is just one part of my universe. We’ve been working with Robert Montgomery, Andy Warlhol and Robert Mapplethorpe
There’s always no limits between my art and my fashion. No frontiers: I think I’ve been one of the pioneers of breaking this frontier.
Andy Warhol wears JC de Castelbajac © Oliviero Toscani.
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PSD: How would your work in three words your job and the industry in which you work?
JCDC: My work is something like Serendipity because I many times get deep into a world of ideas. But above all I would punctualize three words:
First, Transversal, which means Art, Fashion, Art Direction. I just see a big universe: Castelbajac Universe which can be resumed in these three colours: red, blue and yellow. The primar ones: I never do “Pastelbajac”.
Pastels are not so much my universe. I like these three colors (blue, red and yellow) because they are the base of everything. The rainbow. You have the stainglass. You have the flag. You have the logo.
I like to constraint when I have many possibilities (for example a Pierre Hermè macaroon). I don’t like too many things. I would be more Baroque-n-rol, then, less baroque.
Second, Invisibility, it means about the ghosts. About what is around us and we cannot see. The mistery. The memoir. The past that I keep to transform in the future.
And third, Pop and Pope, because I dressed the pope years ago and I became the only and first designer to dress a saint.
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PSD: How do you feel about that?
JCDC: I feel it was a grace. Since I’ve been a little boy I’ve been in grace because I did it my way. And always have lived doing what I love and sharing this to people.
In my work there is a lot of sharing: artist today have the duty of sharing and not just a duty of showing
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PSD: What do you think about Social Media in this “new world?
JCDC: I decided to get into Fashion when I was 18 and then when I was 19 got my first cover of American Vogue. I started to be popular when I was post-teenager.
I have always been into Social Media is Internet, Facebook and Instagram. But mostly I prefer Instagram.
I like it because every picture I post I think It is a work of art or something mysterious. I’m very functioned by the quality of image. And I’m very conscious about the music I put on the answering machine in my phone. I’m concerned about everything.
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PSD: What was the breakpoint at your career?
JCDC: Maybe my biggest breakpoint is about to come. My biggest revolution. Because I feel so much energy today: my ideas and my creativity, everything is possible.
I just designed an airport (Orly, in Paris) and re-starting a lot “Iceberg” in Italy.
It is interesting to have my own universe also in my new upcoming project.
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PSD: Could you tell me something about this new project?
JCDC: Yes! It is the multiplication of many projects. They are linked together.
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PSD: How would you describe your Art influence or style today? Has it changed something?
JCDC: You know I give up with something like “highjacking”. Like appropriation.
When I see something, it can be Picasso or Miro, actually yesterday I created something inspired by Karel Appel, from the CoBrAs, and I catch them and I re-change them my way. So inspiration is all over.
My inspiration also comes from Music and History.
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PSD: What do you think about today’s Music? For example, do you like Taylor Swift?
JCDC: Haha! Taylor Swift I don’t know so well. I like more alternative bands like HER, L’Imperatrice, which is French. I traced them on Internet where I find things I love. I found, for example, Flavien Berger and I loved his music. I like Alain Chamfort specially his album with all the remix along with (Vanessa) Paradis, etc..
PSD: What about your playful childhood themes?
JCDC: Since when I was a little boy I always used these color pens. It was my escape. These little tools, red, yellow and blue, are my escape.
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PSD: What would be your favorite color?
JCDC: White! Because My mother was called Jean Blanche and I was born in Casablanca.
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PSD: What is your life engine and how this affects your day at work and home?
JCDC: The main purpose of my life? Well I feel that I’m on a road in this moment, destiny is taking me, as this road is quite fast and I’m approached by a lot of proposal so I have to be careful of choosing the right one. It is an exciting moment but also it is a moment of speed.
What is taking me into my everyday, also, is the beauty of woman. Somethings I like eyes, somethings I like nose. Yesterday I saw Soo Joo, the beautiful model from Korea. She worked for me about five years ago and now she is in New York. She wore my jumpsuit for EachxOther and I’m inspired.
PSD: What is your biggest dream?
JCDC: My biggest dream! It would be certainly to have the biggest studio in the world with the best team. I would love to have an studio with one architect, one designer, fashion studio.
Every discipline. A garderner. A movie director. A musician.
That’s my big project. I want to have the most activist studio in the world with every possibility.
And it would be based in Paris or maybe in Cusco. And one in Seoul.
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PSD: What’s your favorite city in the world?
JCDC: Maybe the city I was born. Casablanca. I love Seoul, too.
PSD: What advice would you give to new generations of students and professionals in the Art & Fashion industry looking to succeed?
JCDC: They have to never forget that we learn so much from History than from our experience. And we learn more about a History book than from a Fashion magazine.
Internet is the best but it is the worst for that. Because you can find so many ideas that it is not your ideas. It is big karaoke. It is authenticity versus Karaoke.
And I think when you create you have to shut down the magazine. Shut down the internet. You have to start to look about history and to yourself. You have to look your roots and your pain.
The failure of when your were a little boy. If nobody loved your. You should not erase that. You should transform.
It is not about beauty or perfection. I don’t like too much that. I like more the imperfection of love experience.
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PSD: What do you think about love?
JCDC: I like to love to die in it. I would start with one of the sequence of love which is tenderness, care and share, and catholic value.
Love is struggle because in this world now there’s so many possibilities.
