Castelbajac 法国人, 1949

Since the 70s and 80s Jean-Charles de Castelbajac has been producing garments integrating Walt Disney cartoon characters or for instance the iconic Snoopy dog. Since the beginning of his career, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac has been keen on promoting his manifesto of collaborations through multiple partnerships with brands and other creative minds. Castelbajac enjoys investing traditional territories incarnated by emblematic houses such as Weston or Hermes in order to spice up the fashion and art history and reflect on modernity. He calls his approach a "contemporary archeology".

 

Castelbajac has always pursued his goal: building a new aesthetic based on collaborations. Jean-Charles de Castelbajac likes the idea that two names together - because their coexistence - are the starting point of a new story. In the footsteps of Paul Poiret and Duffy, Schiaparelli and Dali, Castelbajac has initiated during his long career numerous collaborations.

 

Castelbajac's career in fashion has been characterized by the constant mix between Art and Fashion. Very early on he made dress-paintings with such artists as Hervé Di Rosa, Ben, Barcelo, Jean-Charles Blais, Gerard Garouste, Robert Malaval and Annette Messager and collaborated with artists as Keith Haring, Robert Mapplethorpe, Cindy Sherman, etc.

 

Since 2009, with his exhibition, "The Triumph of the Signs" in London, in a visionary gesture, Castelbajac started combining brand logos with major classical paintings such as Manet's Déjeuner sur l'herbe and Louis Vuitton, Ingres's Odalisque and Gucci, or Delacroix's Liberté guidant le peuple and Nike. In 2010, he pursued with the exhibition "The tyranny of beauty" coupling Botticelli and Walt Disney, creating a new hybrid aesthetic, announcing the beginnings of a cultural confusion, in a society flooded with sometimes meaningless collaborations. Jean-Charles de Castelbajac is himself a major player in this sprawling system of collaborations, after having been one of the initiators by bridging the gap between Art and Fashion for many years.