Jean-Charles de Castelbajac: “Making your know-how known”
Published on 8 April 2023
Jean-Charles de Castelbajac – JCDC to those in the know – is an eccentric poet and an icon of multi-form creativity.
An artist, designer and scenographer, his child-like, avant-garde world is comprised of bright, candid colours – much like the man himself. At the last Maison&Objet Paris show, he presented an insular collaboration with leading design brands: from Dadaist Armchair to Arty Angel.
Jean-Charles de Castelbajac has retained the art of misappropriation from his early punk influences. His poetic, transgressive forms create a world that is “beautifully weird” rather than glamorous.
Legend has it that JCDC tailored his first jacket under the blankets of his boarding school in Limoges in 1967, and that it was worn by John Lennon the same year. Thirty years later, he dressed Pope John Paul II and 5,500 clerics. This breadth of vision has led him to work for brands as diverse as Maison Dada, Leblon Delienne, Gien and the Centre Pompidou.
“There's nothing like going to see people to show them your talent,” he says of Maison & Objet, an exhibitions and meetings space that is, in his opinion as both a visitor and the guest of honour, “a historic, surprising and creative melting pot”.
