The handsome, Moroccan-born French designer has been to France what Franco Moschino was to Italy, a tireless agitator of the boundaries of what's acceptable in fashion, pushing the envelope of inflated notions of concept and perception, and sending up the inherent introspection that defines modern fashion design.

Along the way he even managed to snag Pope John Paul II as a client. Famous for his audacious Pop Art prints that whimsically fetishize the images of such cultural personages as Snoopy and the late footballer George Best on t-shirt dresses in such an unlikely showcase as Paris fashion, Castelbajac has also extended his mantra of sunny optimism to home furnishings, tableware and linens.

Collaborations with the 3Suisses catalog and activewear companies like Rossignol and Le Coq Sportif have brought his message to an even wider audience.

With a career spanning some four decades, Castelbajac continues to provide both guidance and inspiration to a new generation of designers: he's Vice-President of the Chambre Syndicale du Prêt-à-Porter des Couturiers et des Créateurs de Mode, one of French fashion's governing bodies, and was honored with 'Propaganda', a retrospective of his work at the V&A Museum in London earlier this year.

I remember when I was a designer in NYC in the 80’s, I had an editor from WWD that was so under the spell of Jean Charles de Castelbajac that he wore his cream coloured jacket with the red, green and yellow stripes as if it were a coat of armour. To him, JC de Castelbajac was sacred. JC/DC, as the Hip Hop and South London Grime scene now lovingly call him, graciously invited IQONS into his home. The first thing that struck me was the rather impressive painting called ‘the Whimper’ by Jake and Dinos Chapman. The painting had arrived a few days earlier and it was so large that it had to come in through the window. This is the first painting that the Chapman brothers ever did. Before arriving here it was living with them in their Tokyo apartment.

JC/DC has been collecting art and other objects since the age of 8. At first he considered his collecting more a matter of surveying. It began with bottle caps and leaves and then developed into whatever he could find that would be useful in constructing his own universe. While still in boarding school at the age of l6, JC/DC purchased his first works of art, a collage and a rayogram by the founder of the Dada Movement, Raoul Haussman. JC/DC said at the time he did not know anything about art he was just reacting to an emotion. More recent acquisitions include a young cowboy by Rita Ackermann, a portrait of a woman with one tiny pointed tooth by Aya Takano, the first working print that Cindy Sherman made using JC/DC’s clothes in l976 and the original print of the Rolling Stones’ Black and Blue album by Hiro.

The most amazing adventure of JC/DC’s life so far was when he was asked to dress 5,000 priests, 500 bishops and the Pope for their visit in Paris. The theme of the collection was the rainbow based on the story of Noah and the arc. God spoke to Noah and told him that “if you see the rainbow in the sky there will be peace between me and the human race”. The idea went over well but JC/DC thought it best to inform the Bishop that the rainbow was also the symbol of the gay community. The Bishop’s reaction was not one of shock rather he said that nobody owned the copyright on the rainbow and that was that. Once the work was completed the Pope spoke to JC/DC: “Young man, you have used colour as a cement of faith.” That was an epiphany for JC/DC:

“As I stood on the side of the celebration on the 24th of August l997, I suddenly understood the capacity of my work. I think to do a Pop Pope has changed my life because it made me realise the potential of my conceptual vision. To this day I find it more challenging to design a t-shirt than a spectacular bride dress. Most of my evening dresses are designed like t-shirts, when I do my Jackie Kennedy dress or my Marilyn Monroe…”

It surprised me a bit to see this IQON of colours dressed in black.

“I’ve been wearing black for the past 5 years now. Before that I rarely wore black but I’ve discovered that it fits with my mood today. I realise that I can spread pop and colour and optimism but for myself I want to be like an arbiter and not an actor. I read a book by Castiglione called the Courtesan, Castiglione was a close friend of Rafael, the painter, and his analysis of masculine elegance was that it always passed through black clothes. Of course that was in the l6th century…”

JC/DC’s personal motto is: “I am and I don’t follow.” History and heroism have been constant influences in his work along with music and rock and roll. JC/DC never followed the trends.

His first show in l973 was purely radical, it was one shape made out of old blankets and bandages. He used high-jacked fabrics and the result fell somewhere between science fiction and Medieval history. The 80’s revealed the birth of his cartoon characters, among them Mickey Mouse and Snoopy, who nonetheless maintained their medieval references

“The Middle Ages were my favourite period because it was a time very close to today because it was also driven by images. Instead of tapestries and stained glass we use videos and the Internet. History has never been so close to my work as it is now, Years ago what I was feeling as anticipation has now arrived. When I see Cassette Playa, Jeremy Scott, Bernhard Willhelm, Wendy & Jim, Giles Deacon, Gareth Pugh or Basso and Brooke, I feel that we are a part of the same community. We are linked by something more than fashion; it is by a concept and is contemporary history, which is very modern. What I like about these designers is that they do not refer to fashion, they refer to culture. Kant said intuition without the concept would never succeed.”

What is an ICON for an IQON?

“When I started my career I had a painting with all of my historical icons and that can go from Joan of Arc to Marie Curie and then there are all the people that I wanted to meet like Antonioni, Andy Warhol, and Audrey Hepburn. Maybe my favourite icon was Jimmi Paige of Led Zeppelin. I find him heroic, beautiful and he invented a gesture taking a violent arc shape coming down on the guitar. He was like a toreador of this century; he moved the sacred into another arena. Raymod Loewy, he is a great designer, he designed the logos of SHELL, ESSO, BP, the Studebaker, the Apollo suit of the men that walk on the moon. It has to be someone that has changed my life and relates to intimacy, that creates the link between the world and me. I am missing modern day Icons now. I’m a huge fan. I think that the icons of today are too much just an image. You have a duty to be an icon, the duty is to give, the duty is generosity.”

“What is fascinating about icons is to make them explode and to make satellites. That is what is so interesting about your project; it is taking the mountain by strategy. It is rare that I’ve seen such a talented generation as we have now. The only thing that they are missing is how to reach their point. I want to be surprised. I think that more than anything what you need to succeed is imagination, a pure vision. There are many things to say again because the classical dimension of luxury that the world is proposing to us now is not very generous and is not linked to a younger generation.”

Last year JC/DC wrote a science fiction novel about a little boy that was born in 2099 who lives in a castle surrounded by suburbs and he falls in love. In January 2006 the Victoria and Albert Museum held a retrospective exhibition of his career and work. JC/DC taught both at the Academy of Applied Arts in Vienna and Central Saint Martins. Recently he sold his brand to a UK Company, Marchpole. JC/DC felt after all these years going against the current he would now choose to join the system. The industry of fashion has always fascinated him and now with his new partnership he wants to make good quality clothes at reality prices.

Currently JC/DC is working on his upcoming exhibit in April called Gallierock, an Explosition that will include items you have only dreamed of seeing in his curiosity cabinet. I’ll leave the surprise for his opening.

february 2007