Wilder Than You Think JEAN-CHARLES DE CASTELBAJAC
There are few renaissance-spirited creative souls among us, with a back catalogue of such singularly impactful cultural resonance, who can hold a candle to the work of legendary provocateur, artist, and rogue bon vivant Jean-Charles De Castelbajac. The rebel son of an aristocratic French lineage, he has set the world alight for 40 years with explosive art and fashion marbled with a distinct aesthetic that has become synonymous with positivity, radical self-expression, and celebratory creative freedom. The singular penchant he has for transforming what could arguably be considered as the absurd into the iconic, such as his divisive pieces inspired by Snoopy and Kermit the Frog, and has witnessed collaborations with everyone from Basquiat, Cindy Sherman, and Keith Haring, to Andy Warhol, and far and beyond. Infamously, he designed offbeat ecclesiastical robes for Pope John Paul II’s visit to Paris in the 90s, and his coterie of some 5,000 priests. AUTHOR took time out in Paris with the now 68-year-old Jean-Charles to mine the core of what drives him philosophically, and find out what he believes most pertinent to the challenges of the creative, having lived through, and impacted, the constantly ricocheting transformation of culture over the years, as brilliantly captured in his recent non-linear memoir Fashion, Art & Rock‘n’Roll. AUTHOR presents an intimate snapshot of a man whose commitment to radical intervention, political fashion, and the art of collaboration keeps him leagues ahead of the curve, and find out why fashion is an industry full of beautiful ghosts....
AUTHOR: Why has rock‘n’roll been so important to you over the years?
Jean-charles — Before fashion, there is always rock’n’roll, and all through my life, it has run like a river. I remember going to a rock concert of a man called Vince Taylor when I was 17 years old. He was in this cheap club, and on-stage with him was a blonde guy, almost like an angel, who was just there to beat the tambourine; that was his only job. I instantly saw this other kind of beauty; something about attitude, accidents and some kind of wonder. When I met Malcolm McLaren in 1972, it was the same kind of wonder. All through my destiny, rock‘n’roll has been like a wave and fuel to an amazing quest, a quest to see things beyond the mirror, and to get beyond what Malcolm used to call the karaoke society.
AUTHOR: Malcolm and the punk movement had a very distinct mainstream to kick against, how can we retain that spirit in the age of multiple convergent cultural streams?
Jean-charles — I think that, as you say, subculture was linked to a mainstream that was totally parallel, where everything was about a quest of knowledge and intelligence, but this has been abolished by the digital age. Now, it is not about how to create a counter culture, but is about creating an invisible parallel culture. It’s about finding a way to put your own mark on culture as a group of people thinking the same way. In that way, my eternal quest has never changed. The essential quest of life is to build a soulful and intellectual family; people you can go on a creative adventure with. The energy of creativity can play a fundamental role in proposing something different; in proposing something that is not just to escape the reality, but to really build something new.
AUTHOR: For you, who are the most important people currently working towards forwarding cultural expression and resistance?
Jean-charles — The artists I am interested in now, like Kate Tempest or Robert Montgomery, they really see this need to speak about the beauty, and also the terrible realities of now, and how to come to an age of compassion. As artists, we cannot just be there to hear the testimony of cowards. We have to plant the seeds of the renaissance. It’s about creating a kind of poetic virus; it’s about getting into the flow of something. I remember seeing Suicide perform and Alan Vega singing ‘Dream Baby Dream’. That was like a disease poetry; a disease that got inside your soul, and what has remained about that is still there in the new kind of resistance. It’s like a virus of poetry in the system.
AUTHOR: Do you think we are entering quite a dark period in our collective history?
Jean-charles — I do feel that now people are looking for something else, because we feel this shadow of darkness. I lived through the era of the Vietnam War and the darker time of the 80s, when I lost a lot of friends, and then, of course, the 90s, which was a tsunami of marketing and money. The consequence of that decade is that we now have an age of darkness and inequality, so it is the role of every artist today to fight for something, and to speak out in such a time of dystopia.
AUTHOR: How can we find a sense of beauty in such an era?
Jean-charles — There is a poetic definition of beauty that is linked to the soul and linked to something invisible and, in a sense, linked to a kind of harmony. But it’s like we are living in a post-innocence time right now, where even what we think of as having beauty, like the sunset or sunrise, or the drop of dew on a flower, cannot help us forget what is happening in the world any more. I still have hope in humanity though. I see now that the political conscience is waking up, in a sense, so that everything happening is inspiration for artists. Everything is a total paradox, and in that way the dark side allows us to participate.
AUTHOR: Have you always been driven by a desire to rebel?
Jean-charles — It was always about rebellion all through my life. When I was a little boy, I went to boarding school, and that was very much about order and discipline. My only route for resistance was to disrupt the order and always have something different, or seemingly accidental, about my uniform. I was always punished for that, but it was, for me, a way of saying: I don’t want to be like everybody else. I love that. I don’t like harmony so much; I like discord. I love to see my life that way, as a sport of cadáver exquisito. I want to begin something and then someone else will continue it; there is a beauty in that disharmony. The most exciting moments in my life are when I do things with other artists; when I can share. I used to do that when working with Keith Haring and Basqiuat, to begin to draw a line that they would finish.
AUTHOR: Where would you say that positivity and drive to collaborate comes from?
Jean-charles — Hope and humour have always been my natural reaction to disaster and my shield and resistance in the most difficult moments. I have realised that my work has been like a therapy for some people, to help them to reveal themselves. When I see a man I love like Tinie Tempah, and how much my world has touched him, it is a magical thing for me. Keith Haring was inspirational like that. He was the most generous man I have ever met in my life. There was never any greed or jealousy around him. He never cared how much a collector would buy work for because he wanted to make his work for everyone, and he was so fast, so instinctive and musical in the way he did things. Malcolm was similar, but with more of an intellectual point of view, more on political concerns.
AUTHOR: How do those concerns play out in the arena of fashion?
Jean-charles — The catwalk is always kind of linked to a discovery of political concerns, so all of my clothes and shows have a political origin, and it’s always telling a story. Clothes are the most amazing thing because they are the most intimate link to the human, and it is the most important medium for art today because everybody looks at it. Fashion is not just for an elite; fashion has a democratic role and it’s a very good tool for democracy because it’s the beginning of individuality. I never created fashion for any trend, but more, as Malcolm would say, as a manifesto. A manifesto of what I think of my times and, in a sense, what I think about ghosts, because fashion is about ghosts. When I go into a vintage store, I feel sometimes I am in the middle of a temple of ghosts. Surrounded by all these people who have worn these clothes, who have made love in these clothes...
AUTHOR: That’s beautiful... In terms of ghosts, what is your personal opinion of death and afterlife – what remains of us when we are gone, and in what way?
Jean-charles — My feeling is that already I am the link to all my ancestors, and I am the servant of all the people that I love and have loved. I carry them all with me, and they carry me in them. Tomorrow I will be in you, in my sons, in others, and I will be forever there. It’s all about how we have been living our lives. I don’t believe in God, but I believe in the soul; in the idea to always be on the side of the people I have loved... I don’t know in which form. Perhaps as an angel, or a blow on the cheek, or in some kind of light falling into the room. I don’t know about the form, but I do know I will be the same soul I am today, and whatever form I am will then be with many people.
CREDITS
BY JOHN-PAUL PRYOR
PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEAN-CHARLES DE CASTELBAJAC
PORTRAIT BY LINDA BUJOLI
