Meet The Artist Behind Kanye West’s 'The Life of Pablo' Merch
Cali Thornhill Dewitt worked for Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain in the ’90s and based his ‘TLOP’ designs off Chicano memorial sweatshirts.
Kanye West may have an eye or intuition for fashion, but without the help of professional designers and artists, his pieces cannot come to reality. His The Life of Pablo merch were some of the most coveted pieces this year, and now, the designer of the collection has decided to speak up about it. Vogue recently caught up with Cali Thornhill DeWitt, an artist from Los Angeles who has worked for Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain in the ’90s, to talk about his involvement with the project. Dewitt has only started to show his art over the past three years but has already become well-known for his designs, which were based off memorial sweatshirts made in the Chicano community for family members who have died. Check out a few excerpts below and the full feature here.
On how he prefers to remain unknown
“I didn’t come out and say that I did it. I didn’t come out and say that I didn’t do it. But everyone who hit me up for interviews, I just told them, ‘No, thanks.’ Because to me, it’s a symptom of the times: People wanna be known so much, you know?”
On collaborating on the TLOP merch only five days before the event
“One of the first things I said to Kanye was, ‘Whether we do this or not, I appreciate your reaching out.’ ‘Cause I’m sure they could have just ripped it off and done it themselves. So I thought that was nice.”
