Conversations - David Casavant + Jacolby Satter White

Artist Jacolby Satterwhite discusses the intersection of fine art and high fashion with clothing archivist and stylist David Casavant.

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DAVID CASAVANT: It seems like I’m obsessed with Raf Simons, but I’m not, really. I don’t really care about Raf Simons, and people don’t really understand that. I just like the clothes, and I see that these are good clothes to use for what I want to make.

JACOLBY SATTERWHITE: I love the proto renaissance from when art and fashion melded because they used to separate the two when I was in school, and it was considered blasphemous to have fashion-anything inspired in your work because it was lesser than fine art.

CASAVANT: That’s why I did fashion instead of fine art. Or that’s what I like about [fashion], that it’s wrong. I did art mainly in high school, like sculpture, painting, but I was always told I was doing it wrong, so I thought I wasn’t good at it even though I liked what I made. It was one of those things where I was like, ‘If you say I’m bad at it, then I’m gonna do fashion!’ I didn’t view things as wrong or different, so the same way I liked doing art was the same way I like doing fashion.

SATTERWHITE: Everything is blurring to the point where it’s not even edgy to blur, you just have to blur. It’s like we’re in a humanities spirit where we understand the academics among every practice, and I think we have more respect for practitioners and curators alike because curators are conceptual artists and artists are curators and artists are fashion designers, etc. So now it’s about the alchemy and how you put things together and connect the dots.