OFLUXO

Daisy, 34 years old, muse and multifaceted artist, has long remained a secret figure in the eyes of the general public. Past the age of the romper, however, the young model has spent her life in the spotlight. After her long projects took a new turn with her numerous film appearances and a critically acclaimed debut album. Never tired of new things, this fall she appears in the cast of an extraordinary artistic project led by Cyril Debon. We meet her again to ask her a few questions, more complete and passionate than ever.

Daisy, each of these new steps has gradually changed your image with your fans. How do you live this change of perception ?

For several years I played a rather traditional, flirtatious, fragile and somewhat stuffy character that was beginning to stick to me in an unpleasant way. As I grew up, I realized that I was lucky enough to be able to fully invest my profession with my true personality. I’ve actually been trying to break out of the first mold I made for myself for a long time. Pink Napkins, Cyril’s project, came at the right time. When he started talking to me about a portrait gallery, I understood that he was not thinking of Velasquez or Pierre et Gilles, but of something else. Something sensitive and extravagant. He spoke to me about urban life as if it were an entity with multiple figures, crossed by all sorts of emotions, and he proposed that we all embody these emotions of the city in our own way. That was exactly what I wanted to be and express: the emotional joy of living in this supernatural world.

Critics have detected in Pink Napkins a link with 1990s science fiction, but many other references can be recognized. What is your own reading?

I would say that if some people have seen these references, it is by a kind of coincidence. The project came to this point because it was guided by a free and baroque vision, the same as it takes to conceive a science fiction film, but there was no special will to be SF-like in the artistic direction. For me, it’s Cyril’s touch that comes to the forefront: an art of wet places that reconciles the classic and facetious spirit of artificial caves, the gloss of city nights and the sweat mixed with glitter of a second-rate cabaret.
The way he deconstructed all these registers – the academic, the pop, the media, the vernacular… – is not only aesthetic in reality. It is a line that is also political that I had never taken on before in my career. I was a little apprehensive about taking this step, but now I feel that I couldn’t be more at home than in this place.

It seems like a real revolution in your relationship to creation. Where do all these changes come from?

It’s nothing but love. I was extremely flattered that Cyril thought of me for this new series. When I first met him, I felt like we had known each other forever. I felt right away that we were connected. When he told me about his project, I didn’t ask myself any questions: I understood that this was a decisive moment for him, and I wanted to be part of it. He was to return to painting after years, tackling the infinitely complex subject of the human body. Spontaneously, the whole team rallied around this cause.
It’s really difficult, what this species is going through now, and we wanted to show our support by representing ourselves in hominid silhouettes. It made sense to everyone, Patrick Juvet, Virginie Despentes, Rick Owens, Cameron Diaz and others. In an extremely moving turn of events, Cyril ended up directing himself in his own role, and the painting was integrated into the series.

In various speeches, you have suggested that the theme of napkins resonates in a particular way with your personal story.

I’ve always cultivated a look at ordinary objects, but it’s only been a few years since I’ve really been working with these instruments in my various collaborations. I think it comes from a certain nostalgia for my grandparents’ house in the marsh – the egg cups, the cuckoo clocks, the waxed cloths, the glazed lamp bases… In the same register, napkins also concentrate a lot of emotions for me, especially when they are pink. They are there to accompany the sacred moments. Salmon pink at coffee time, powder pink at a romantic dinner, floral pink for a picnic in the country. I wish everyone could see them as a chic accessory that necessarily calls for tenderness and love at every stage of our lives. Phone numbers should be exchanged on napkins. Car seats should be made of napkins. Bridal veils could be napkins too.

Are the very eclectic projects you’ve been working on lately a way for you to say goodbye to the fashion world?

Not at all! For me, it has never stopped being fashion. The whole project was supervised by the Mannequin Madeleine agency. Whether it’s clothing or paintings, Cyril always relies on a precise choice of materials. He is constantly looking for the best material to dress our image. In this series for example, the dressing room is informal, but very refined. Cyril left the cotton canvas and primer in the closet to make room for Korean and Japanese papers, delicately stretched on small wooden panels and covered by earthenware frames, the signature touch. This is what makes me say that deep down, I like dresses like I like life: seamless, lightly textured, very close to the body.