Fashion’s Favorite Pop Artist Is Shilling $175 Silk Boxers

Richard Phillips with The Webster’s CEO Laure Heriard Dubreuil at the cocktail party for THE EIGHTH collaboration. Photo: Courtesy

If there was a contemporary artist who could best encapsulate the symbiotic relationship between art, fashion, and celebrity, it would probably be Richard Phillips. His paintings are steeped in culture commentary and serve as bright, glossy reckonings of saturated moments in time, like when paparazzi culture was at an all time high in 2010 — his show, Most Wanted, featured hyperrealistic paintings of Kristen Stewart, Miley Cyrus, et al over brand logos — or sort of rescuing Lindsay Lohan from herself with a series of collaborative paintings in 2011. Most recently, he attempted to perfect Taylor Swift’s side eye in a special project for V Magazine.

Phillips is also no slouch in the fashion collaboration department, having previously worked on projects with both M.A.C Cosmetics and Jimmy Choo. We caught up with the artist at Art Basel Miami on Thursday night, where the shopping mecca The Webster hosted a cocktail in honor for his latest endeavor with silky smooth luxury mens underwear brand, THE EIGHTH.

Yahoo Style: This is like an underwear party. How did it come about?

Richard Phillips: I learned tonight that Leesa Wagner [the CEO] is somebody who studied art and knew my work. I was contacted and they proposed the collaboration so I was like, yeah let’s see how it goes. This is really luxurious underwear, and I’ve never worn a pair of luxurious underwear, so I did I didn’t realize that things could be that way! I noticed that the quality of the material and the beauty of what they were doing with the prints, and how great they felt on. All of these things are kind of akin to the kind of care that I put into my paintings. To get the subtly of the color of these two colors of the designs, there was a lot of back and forth to get it right. I personally don’t wear boxers, but I think they’re great for women. They’re highly wearable. Most guys do wear boxers I think. I love the fact that these could go ways.

It seems like there is a double entendre there with the engine print on the boxers. And then of course the marijuana plant…

There’s a lot of that, especially with the weed boxers too. There’s a movement going across this country….I was in Aspen for Art Crush and in a way, that’s what lead to the direction of the thinking, but ultimately a friend of mine inspired me very much to create the original painting on 4/20. But for me, the combination of retinal art and conceptual in empirical design is something that you don’t really see in art. And so if you locate that in underwear, which is kind of this unseen artwork, I think there’s something to be said. That’s why I really liked the project. The designer and the level of production are really amazing.

I know you’ve done other fashion collaborations too. How did this compare?

I’ve done makeup for M.A.C and Jimmy Choo handbags. Quite honestly I like these because they’re wearable. The makeup thing was interesting because there was one girl with a blog who was a teenager with tons and tons and followers and she reviewed my makeup, and then it went everywhere. With M.A.C it was super high profile things, but what I like about this is that it’s ultimately a very hands on, wearable thing. I think that mens luxury underwear is something that is really happening right now. When you have artists like Travis Scott doing their versions, it’s quite cool to have been invited.

A model wears the ‘Weed II’ boxers by THE EIGHT and Richard Phillips. Photo: Courtesy

And then since we’re at Art Basel, I’ve always loved your celebrity series Most Wanted with images of Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, etc in front of fashion brands. What was your commentary on that and do you think it still rings true?

Yeah! They were kind of misunderstood as fan paintings of stars. But the reality and the things that I will say about those paintings was that they were akin to Robert Rauschenberg’s white paintings except they acknowledge what contemporary art need to relegate. One is celebrity endorsement and luxury sponsorship. Literally there was a star in front of the luxury brand and otherwise it could have been a nimble white painting. It was basically just saying for art, here we are. Looking to have a star to show up, and looking to have Gucci or YSL to sponsor the thing. It was basically a commentary the kind of the inner workings on the art world. That was a show that I did in 2010 and I so I think it was a bit ahead of game. It was like, Oh my god there’s Taylor Swift or Oh my god, there’s Miley. Which you can say about those paintings now and I love that. On the flip side of that, it’s kind of a stark reminder of where art has come to.

It was a reality!

It was probably read 99% the other way as fan art. In order for my art to operate, there have to be productive misreadings. And this is a thing that I have to cope with. I’ve had other artists come up to me and say, Why are you making all of this celebrity work? By that same token, those same artists have celebrities at their openings, trying to pump up their shows. So, you know, it’s just a matter of that turn of the mind and thinking about what we’ve come to as a culture.

The celebrity obsessed.

Right and when we think back to 2010, we reached the apex of that. This kind of crescendo of paparazzi culture that’s been absorbed into something else.

The Lindsay Lohan paintings also caused quite a splash.

Yes, that was the next iteration. The idea of that was to not just work from the outside, but to actually work with Lindsay and her infrastructure, which at the time, was really quite intense.

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