{"id":5132,"date":"2026-01-09T02:20:56","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T10:20:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/?p=5132"},"modified":"2026-01-09T02:20:56","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T10:20:56","slug":"a-fashion-explosition-in-toulouse-jean-charles-de-castelbajacs-kaleidoscopic-multiverse-gets-a-show-of-its-own","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/?p=5132","title":{"rendered":"A Fashion \u201cExplosition\u201d\u2014In Toulouse, Jean Charles de Castelbajac\u2019s Kaleidoscopic Multiverse Gets a Show of its Own"},"content":{"rendered":"
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For nearly six decades, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac has defied easy definition, both on the runway and off. A proto-multi-hyphenate, he\u2019s newly familiar to a younger generation for iconic pieces like the teddy bear coat (from fall 1988) sported by Drake a few years back. That, plus riffs on cartoons, pop culture, and fashion royalty\u2014Superman, Snoopy, Andy Warhol, Marilyn Monroe, Lady Di, President Obama, Coco Chanel, Vivienne Westwood, and Sonia Rykiel are all here\u2014converged last night in Toulouse in a preview followed by a private dinner celebrating Castelbajac\u2019s first major \u201cexplosition.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cImagination au Pouvoir\u201d (\u201cImagination at Work\u201d) is the headliner at Les Abattoirs, a former slaughterhouse now converted into one of France\u2019s leading contemporary art museums, for an eight-month run. In addition to showcasing the designer\u2019s best-known creations, it includes original works made by and with a constellation of boldfaced artists (Haring, Mapplethorpe, Basquiat). It also has a spiritual dimension, notably in the colorful vestments made for World Youth Day in 1985 and those designed for the reopening of Notre-Dame Cathedral, offering a kaleidoscopic take on the designer\u2019s career and, in retrospect, his foresight.<\/p>\n

Just don\u2019t call it a retrospective. \u201cThose are for the past,\u201d he quipped. \u201cI love things that are understood in the future.\u201d Staged by the 76-year-old designer in collaboration with curator Pascal Rodriguez, the exhibition features some 300 pieces, from early experiments in upcycling, streetwear, and high-performance sportswear to art, social commentary, and politics.<\/p>\n

The museum chose Castelbajac, whose family tree has been rooted in this region for a millennium, for its first-ever fashion exhibition in part because he refuses to be pigeonholed, said Lauriane Gricourt, director of Les Abbatoirs.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s an artist who hasn\u2019t benefitted from enough visibility, be it in fashion or art,\u201d she told Vogue<\/em>. \u201cPeople tend to know him for a specific item, without having a grasp of the whole, which is quite singular and very rich. His work is rather astonishing, and his reflections are expressed through a non-traditional medium, which is fashion. What\u2019s really interesting is to have the discourse of an art historian filtered through a fashion designer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even fashion lovers may know that, from the time he was old enough to build chateaux out of whatever was at hand, Castelbajac found in creativity a refuge from a far more challenging childhood than his aristocratic name might suggest. At 17, with the help of his seamstress mother, he began making \u201cwearable houses\u201d out of humble materials, like a blanket filched from military boarding school, mop rags, or medical gauze. By the mid-1970s, he was immersed in the New York art scene, a chapter that informed his collections for decades to follow.<\/p>\n

In the run-up to opening night, Castelbajac spoke about his life in art, fashion, and culture writ large\u2014and how Farrah Fawcett\u2019s Vogue<\/em> cover changed his life.<\/p>\n

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\"Image<\/picture><\/span><\/div>\n

Jean-Charles de Castelbajac and the vestments designed for the reopening of the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, 2024 \u00a9 Philippe Garcia<\/span>Photo: \u00a9 Philippe Garcia, Courtesy of Jean-Charles de Castelbajac and Les Abattoirs<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For nearly six decades, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac has defied easy definition, both on the runway…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5133,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[234],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-runway"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}