HIGH (ON A) CONCEPT

Next in my hero meeting series, the time great Chinese artist Liu Bolin made designers "invisible." And I gave them snacks.

“A star in stripes.” Jean Paul Gaultier and me on set with Liu Bolin in Paris, 2011.

I’m traveling in Australia seeing my Mum so this dispatch is a bit scrapbooky, but gee, my phone has a world of wonder of past shoots and such on it. Wild. Anyway, thank you for subscribing to this kinda journal (and to my paid subscribers, a sincere thank you for the support. I have a lot going on and no energy to velvet rope “content” currently, so it means a lot). Either way, I hope you find my posts edifying in some way.

In 2011 I was in Stockholm visiting my “Stockhomies” from the brand Acne when I took myself for a walk around the city to the cool neighborhood (I was always looking for the cool neighborhoods) of Sodermalm. I was trotting around the harbor and came across the Fotografiska Museum, on some of the best real estate in town. I went inside and wandered around aimlessly, staring as much at the water as I was at the walls when I came across an exhibition called ‘Liu Bolin: The Invisible Man.’

Liu “Hiding in the City” in the remains of his artist’s studio, Beijing, 2005.

I could not believe it. This artist from Beijing, China, painstakingly painted himself into environments – from supermarkets to the Colosseum - to make himself “invisible.” Liu’s first series, called “Hiding in the City” (above) was created in protest after the destruction of the Beijing artist’s village, Suo Jia Cun in 2005, to prepare for the Beijing Olympics. He said at the time, “There is an element of the masochistic to it, and in many ways it is like a sit-in protest.” By making himself invisible, he was making a potent statement about identity in the face of erasure.

Of course, I didn’t know any of that - well, apart from what I read on the gallery wall blurbs. I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing (or not). The skill, the detail, the patience, the quiet statement of it all. I’ve always loved art featuring people minimized in their environments (we are all but ants in the universe kinda thing), so this disappearing man blew my mind.

I was deep in my artist/director/whoever turned my brain on era at Harper’s BAZAAR at the time, so got in touch with Liu’s gallerist. My idea was for him to paint not himself this time, but designers into their signature aesthetics or environments. So, the designers needed to be, one, emblematic and two, well, up for many hours of standing in one spot and being painted. Bring on the sales pitch, baby.

My first thought: Jean Paul Gaultier and his stripes. Indisputably the most iconic (yes, an overused word but true here) pairing of personal aesthetic and design in fashion. Anyway, because JPG is - amongst his other wonderful qualities - a good sport, he was a yes right away. Following him, the late, great Alber Elbaz for Lanvin. Alber was a dear friend of my editor in chief Glenda Bailey and we worked with him often. His picture would be more constructed – mannequins, bolts of fabric, and Alber with his signature glasses, bow tie and shoes, plonked right in the middle. Next, Angela Missoni and the classic Missoni chevron (easy peasy, in theory) and finally, Pierpaolo Piccioli and Maria Grazia Chiuri, then co-designers at Valentino, with the house’s signature red dresses.

JPG. I pinned some of those shirts, therefore I am an artist.

Alber. Needed nothing, ever. Apart from a seat.

Angela at one with Missoni chevron.

Maria Grazia and Pierpaolo in red in Rome.

I met Liu and while we didn’t have a culture in common, we loved each other. You know when you don’t speak the language, but get the joke? That’s Liu: brilliant and good humored, and yes, patient. Over four long days Liu and his team painted each designer, which would take four or five hours each time. I pinned up striped t-shirts to make Gaultier’s backdrop and made jokes and dispensed snacks when it seemed the pictures would take forever.

Liu the legend.

But my God, it was worth it. The artworks are magic. To sit for Liu, to have him immerse you in your world, is an honor. And these brilliant designers knew that: they recognized the power of having one’s personal inspiration be partnered by another’s.

Anyway, I was dumb-scrolling through Instagram the other day, and I saw some “creator” on some generic earth travel site, who’d ripped Liu off. But it’s impossible, you can smell the disingenuousness, the lack of care and feeling. In this age of filters and AI and tricks-for-likes, it’s noble to take the time to make something real.

I remember this when I look up from my computer and see the giant Liu Bolin photograph of Jean Paul Gaultier on my living room wall.

PS. We miss you, Alber.