KALEIDOSCOPE and GOAT returned with their annual arts and culture festival, MANIFESTO, for Paris Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2024, from June 22 - 24 at Espace Niemeyer. MANIFESTO 2023 features a capsule collection of styles from Ottolinger, Sky High Farm, ERL and Wales Bonner.

GOAT is the global platform for the past, present and future. Since its founding in 2015, GOAT has become the leading and most trusted sneaker marketplace in the world, and has expanded to offer apparel and accessories from select emerging, contemporary and iconic brands. Through its unique positioning between the primary and resale markets, the company offers styles across various time periods on its digital platforms and in its retail locations, while delivering products to over 50 million members across 170 countries. KALEIDOSCOPE is a meeting place for a global community of creative minds. Having morphed into a full-round curatorial platform and creative agency, boasting collaborations with the most influential creators and brands of our time, the magazine’s experimental approach also expands to projects in print, online and IRL—as is best exemplified by the cultural programming of Spazio Maiocchi in Milan and the annual festival MANIFESTO in Paris.

Against the unique setting of the French Communist Party building, a modern architectural landmark designed by legendary Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, the festival brought together visionary creators from different areas of culture across three days of art installations by Jon Rafman, Crystalmess, Erwan Sene, Anne De Vries, CCCP-Fedeli alla linea, James Bantone, Michele Rizzo, fashion by Ottolinger, Sky High Farm, ERL, Wales Bonner and sounds by Pink Siifu, Moritz von Oswald, and Poison Anna.

Through installations, videos, performances, and a program of talks and live music, the festival transformed the labyrinthine spaces of Espace Niemeyer into a mesmerizing alternate world in the heart of Paris blended with a pop-up store by Rare Books Paris and a pop-up cafe by Kolam.

OTTOLINGER

Meeting as students at fashion school in Basel, Switzerland, Christa Bösch and Cosima Gadient have built one of the most exciting, experimental labels in recent years. Ottolinger’s aesthetic was fully formed from the start: avant-garde deconstruction, ripping and shredding and burning, but always in service of the garment—not merely deconstruction for its own sake—subverting the primness of luxury fashion. Since launching their label in 2015 and relocating from Basel to Berlin, Ottolinger has staged shows in London, Paris and New York, collaborating with a growing list of brands and artists, including Camper, Cheyenne Julien and, as seen in March 2023, PUMA. At MANIFESTO, Ottolinger presented an installation with Dutch artist Anne de Vries alongside a selection of pieces featuring the brand’s signature ceramic-effect materiality.

SKY HIGH FARM

Since its founding in 2012 as a studio by artist Dan Colen in upstate New York, Sky High Farm has quickly expanded to encompass a variety of mediums. Working with Josh Bardfield, the Executive Director of Sky High Farm who holds a Master Degree in Public Health from Columbia University, the farm now operates as a public 501c3 nonprofit organization, donating 100% of their sustainably produced food and supporting food-access initiatives. Last year, Sky High Farm’s co-CEO Daphne Seybold and Colen co-founded Sky High Farm Universe, a for-profit brand a portion of whose revenue goes back to supporting the farm’s initiatives. Since launching, the label has worked with everyone from Denim Tears and Comme des Garçons SHIRT to Balenciaga, Erewhon and Nadia Lee Cohen. At MANIFESTO, Sky High Farm presented a video unpacking the issues they’re tackling with their work alongside an exclusive capsule collection.

WALES BONNER

Born in South East London to a Jamaican father and white mother, Grace Wales Bonner’s eponymous label distills contemporary luxury through an Afrofuturist lens. Bringing tailoring and eveningwear sensibilities to iconic sportswear silhouettes, familiar motifs include crochet-knit patterns and embroidery details inspired by the world of art. Today, this design vision extends to a growing universe of sneakers, apparel, accessories and more.

CRYSTALLMESS

Crystallmess, born Christelle Oyiri, is an artist, writer, musician, DJ and producer merging these disparate mediums into a cohesive whole with a singular ethos. She warps the familiar into the strange. She uncovers latent politics of the human experience and the joy that bubbles up through everything, bridging the gaps between theory and form.

Oyiri’s career leaves an impression of its own. She’s DJ’d with Frank Ocean during his Coachella performance, played around the world from Berghain to Primavera, and staged exhibitions from Glasgow to her native Paris. Her work often explores ideas related to postcolonialism, the realities of being a Black woman in France and the art world in general—but also the nuances that make up that identity. At MANIFESTO, Crystallmess presented a series of artworks exploring these themes through multiple mediums.

JAMES BANTONE

What makes an image fashionable? Where do we draw the line between attraction and disgust? How does a magazine image reflect the power structures of society and determine who is in, out or worthy? Mixed-media artist James Bantone uses photography, sculpture, video and painting to explore these questions and study images as a source of power. His creations juxtapose the beautiful and the ugly, distorting mouths, faces and bodies to turn his subjects into something uncanny. At MANIFESTO, the Swiss artist showcases his Fool of the Month series, exploring the forced act of smiling and the accompanying politics. Below, Bantone opens up about his time as a European transplant in New York, the joys of abstract painting and reframing reality TV as an act of artistic expression.

POISON ANNA

Mixing dub, trip-hop and UK rap, Poison Anna’s music is an amalgamation of her sonic influences as an improvisational dancer, contorting itself seamlessly around chilly, ethereal beats. And like her experience growing up in London, her musical output is a process of self-exploration that exists between the wonders and the claustrophobia of the city. A collaborator of A$AP Rocky and Dean Blunt, she released her debut mixtape, EXCELSiA, in 2021. Since then, her artistic persona has steadily morphed into something beyond the restrictions of audio files, encompassing everything from experimental performances to self-shot videos.At MANIFESTO, Poison Anna makes her Paris debut alongside frequent collaborator, French rapper JWLES. Below, Poison Anna opens about her Ghanaian heritage, finding inspiration in the work of René Magritte and the benefits of traveling light.