An interview with Micaiah Carter, who photographed Coach's latest collaboration with the artist.
Why is the fashion world still so fixated on Jean-Michel Basquiat? How does an artist, 30-some years after his death, continue to be such a constant collaborator? In part, it is the fact that his estate has long been partnered with the licensing agent Artestar, thereby ensuring that his signature and imagery would appear on Off-White T-shirts, New Era caps, and even Peloton uniforms for years to come.
But Basquiat also had a certain way of moving and was a great beauty, which made him the perfect runway model for, say, the spring 1987 Comme des Garçons show. He also combined his passion with a cool remove, posing for the New York Times Magazine in 1985 wearing a paint-streaked Armani power suit, barefoot. It’s the kind of impertinent dance with consumer culture that artists today are usually too self-righteous to undertake.
Most recently, Basquiat’s work appears in the fall 2020 collection of Coach, which today debuts its collection of bags, T-shirts, and sweatshirts printed with the artist’s imagery, like the crown and dinosaur. The campaign was shot by Micaiah Carter and features Michael B. Jordan, Jennifer Lopez, Paloma Elsesser, Jon Batiste, and Basquiat’s niece Jessica Kelly, to name a few. In addition to the images, Coach will release a number of videos on social media in which subjects meditate on subjects like the family and art.
Basquiat, Carter says, “was a springboard for people to open up conversations that I think people weren’t having as often. And it resonated with the people that we shot, who are all people in the community who are all advocating for equal rights, not just for people of color but for all types of people.”
But Carter, who is 25, also points to something else: “A lot of it was New York.” He recalled arriving in the city from his small California hometown and thinking, “You have no choice but to adapt into your own ways” of approaching style. “Given his success, he still really made it his own with these designers and with these luxury brands to make it come back down to earth and really put his mark on everything. I think today people are inspired by that bravery that he had, to just do what he wanted to do.”
Carter’s signature is combining an easy sense of intimacy with a warm majesty. (It was firing on all cylinders in his photographs of Pharrell, posing in a Moncler gown, for the November 2019 issue of GQ as well.) Carter captured his subjects with an attitude that echoes the easy, stylish cool he attributes to Basquiat—Elsesser grinning, Jordan in a perfect crouch, and Lopez with her hoodie yanked over her head and nails painted electric blue. “They’re all artists,” he says, “and so there’s this respect—this level of collaboration.”
The other secret, Carter notes, is the perfect playlist. “I think that sets the mood.” Erykah Badu, City Girls, Playboi Carti, James Brown, and gospel music are all standards for him.
J. Lo brought her own playlist, however, and, Carter says, “I was able to vibe with that and really connect with her.” On the playlist? “Remixes of her own songs. I mean, that really gets you in the zone.” Barefoot Basquiat would approve. BY RACHEL TASHJIAN
