ECAL LECTURE – JEAN-CHARLES DE CASTELBAJAC
18.03.2025
IKEA Auditorium, ECAL

Multi-disciplinary work of Jean-Charles de Castelbajac - art, fashion and design - revolves around a short chromatic range of blue, yellow and red, one of the finest representations of which was to dress Pope John Paul II, bishops and priests for the 1997 World Youth Day.

Passionate about heraldry, the science of coats of arms, vexillology, the science of flags, semiotics, the study of signs, pop art and the world of childhood, his art and fashion bring together these dualities: the epic, the historic, the traditional and the alternative. He has collaborated with many artists, including Keith Haring, Lady Gaga, Robert Mapplethorpe, Pedro Winter and Pharrell Williams.

He began his career as a designer alongside his mother, setting up Ko & Co in Limoges. His first obvious garment was a coat cut from his boarding-school blanket, as well as clothes made from mops, thus launching the concept of upcycling. He went on to found the Jean-Charles de Castelbajac fashion house in 1978.

As early as the 1980s, he anticipated the current decompartmentalization of art and fashion by collaborating with artists of all disciplines on his shows: musicians, photographers and visual artists. He worked with Miquel Barceló, Ben and Robert Combas to create tableau dresses, with Robert Mapplethorpe, Keith Haring and Cindy Sherman to create invitations for his shows, and with Malcolm McLaren to create the music for his shows. In 1986, he was exhibited at New York's Fashion Institute and Technology. In 2006, at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, then at the Musée Galliera in Paris in 2007.

Also an artist, he created a 3700 m2 fresco for Orly airport in Paris in 2015. In September 2018, he created a monumental work for the Biennale des antiquaires de Paris at the Grand Palais.

From 2018 to 2022, he is artistic director of United Colors of Benetton. His artistic work is the subject of an exhibition entitled Le Peuple de Demain at the children's gallery of the Centre Pompidou in 2021-2022, presented at the West Bund Museum in Shanghai and at the Centre Pompidou Malaga in 2023.

In 2022, he will also be present at the Mobilier National with the scenography for the exhibition No taste for bad taste, retracing 40 years of French design, and with a carte blanche entitled L'atour d'assises, focusing on French styles.

In June 2024, he installs a 15-metre trellis sculpture on the wall of the Société de Géographie in Paris, called “L'Ange Géographe”.

He was chosen by the Diocese of Paris to design the liturgical vestments and ornaments for the reopening of Notre-Dame de Paris in December 2024.