Dario Calmese pivots between roles as artist, writer, director, and brand consultant with the unrepressed ease of a trained dancer—which he also is, among other capacities in a deeply varied creative skill set. In the fashion sector he is a frequent collaborator with the brand Pyer Moss and recently completed a history-making photo shoot. Together his creative ventures weave a story of Black excellence, Black beauty and Black wisdom. In this episode Dario tells hosts Susan and Todd about the many launching points of his multidimensional output—from academia and historic and present cultural appropriation within the fashion industry, to empathy and meditation—and intentionally working outside of the fashion system to learn the language of brands.
Show Notes
Jamie Hawkesworth for British Vogue
I'm Susan Barrett, and I'm Todd Thomas. At Barrett Barrera Projects, we believe that ART IS A VERB— it’s the ongoing process of de-constructing and re-constructing our world.
This season, we'll delve deep into the creative processes of some of our most inspiring friends and collaborators, to understand how they are navigating this pivotal moment and working to transform our existing systems, reimagine the status quo, and support each other across disciplines, in order to create a more sustainable, and equitable future for us all.
Welcome to ART IS A VERB, a Barrett Barrera Project.
In this episode, we're speaking with Dario Calmese, a renaissance man working across the disciplines of fashion, art, photography and academia, who just made history as the first Black photographer to shoot the cover of Vanity Fair.
Dario's show "Amongst Friends." about his friend and muse, Lana Turner, showed at our own projects+gallery in St. Louis.
Dario's deep and thoughtful approach to fashion is imbued with intentionality, and his show direction for fashion brand Pyer Moss has been consistently regarded as the “Best Show of Fashion Month.” He is also host of his own podcast: The Institute of Black Imagination. Dario, it's a pleasure to speak with you today. Thank you for being here.
Dario: Sure, sure, sure. It's a pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Todd: You've been identified as a slasher.
Dario: I'm not that dangerous.
Todd: Well, what does that mean? I think I have an idea. I mean, looking at your bio, there's a lot of stuff that you do. And I'm curious to hear about what that is.
Dario: I think maybe something that doesn't sound so violent would be maybe a multihyphenate. Or maybe an old school Renaissance man, but I'm just essentially curious. And there are certain mediums that have just kind of caught my attention and I've run with them. So starting out on stage as a performer, singing, dancing, acting, then moving into photography, but having a real interest in scholarship and academia.
And so, that kind of pivoted into writing and then, via photography, fashion, directing fashion shows. And then, as my own personal desire for expression kind of birthed itself, moved into the fine arts space. So as both a fine artist and a curator.
Susan: That's what slasher means? I think I remember back in the day a slasher was something very different, but Todd, what do you remember slasher being?
Todd: I don't know. I mean, this was just a phrase that was given in the bio breakdown for Dario, and it struck me as funny and interesting.
Dario: Oh yeah, it's like director slash artist slash this slash that.
Todd: So Dario, with that being said, the overview of everything that you do, I completely relate to that because I find it hard to specifically define so clearly and concisely what it is that I do. How do you answer that age-old question, what do you do?
Dario: I say I'm an artist, writer, director, and brand consultant. Even though it actually is a bit more than that, those encompass at least most of it in terms that people could understand.
Todd: Right.
Susan: And is that important for people to understand what you do?
Dario: It's not important for me, but it seems to be very important for them. I've been myself since I've known myself, but you know, there's just a human desire to compartmentalize. And I don't mean that in any kind of derogatory way, but just to identify, people want to symbolize you in some way. And so if I said I was a visual director, people would be like, what does that exactly mean? You mean creative director? Because words are literally just agreements people make between themselves to stand for something. So that's it.
Todd: Right. Do you feel like that has the idea of a multidisciplinary person gotten easier for people to comprehend in your career as you move on? Have you noticed any particular shift or are people still?
Dario: I think it's getting easier because of technology, and because of social media, people have had to acquire multiple skills just to survive. I remember I was doing a show at a gallery here in New York, and we were trying to get the programs together, and the gallery director went back in the office and did all this stuff in InDesign, but then it wasn't working. So then she went into another program and printed it. And there was a time, I bet, when a gallerist could just be a gallerist, but you have to be a gallerist/word processor/amateur videographer for the social channel.
So, I think now we're being called generalists, right? Meaning that we can kind of move in multi, many ways, but coming up as a photographer, people really wanted to put you in a box. They really wanted to understand you. Even as a performer, I was trained to be as equally proficient as a singer, as a dancer, and as an actor, and whatever you were not strong in, you wanted to strengthen that. But even when I got to New York, people would say, “Yeah, but you're more like a singer/actor/dancer, right, than more like a dancer/actor/singer, or are you more like an actor/singer/dancer?”. And I can do all three, that's what I'm here for.
Todd: Right, also I think the good news about the way we operate today is we transmit ourselves. We're more reliant on ourselves more than other people.
Dario: Absolutely.
Todd: And kind of more empowered because of that.
Susan: So, with all of these different genres, what is it, what's at the core of each one of them that makes them interesting to you?
Dario: I think the throughline is storytelling. Not all mediums allow for the same kind of storytelling. They each have their strengths. So if you're thinking about photography, what you're really playing with is time, the stopping of time, which is really kind of a trick. Because as we are living our lives, nothing stops. So with photography, it's really about––what does, Cartier Bresson say?––the decisive moment. So you're really playing with time with photography, and also time as it relates to generational time moving forward. So, for example, a friend of mine at Magnum Photos says, “We don't know if a picture is good until 20 years later.”
So a lot of times they [Magnum] don’t even accept work that's less than 20 years old because not only stopping time, but time itself informs the image. So, it's looking in a way, whereas video, you're using motion. If it's a fashion show, you're using the live experience of fashion, you're playing with emotion, like the emotion in that moment. So then you can bring in music and all of these things to kind of guide people through. An art exhibition is a bit more reflective, a lot more projective, so people are really bringing themselves into that space and wrestling with those internal dialogue that this external thing is prompting.
Todd: Dario, in your fashion related work, you've worked with different people, LaQuan Smith, Pyer Moss, the CFDA. I've seen some of the fashion projects you work on, and they're all really inspiring and uplifting, and I'm just curious within the trajectory of your career, my experience has been that the world of fashion has been unkind and elitist and difficult. And I'm just curious, I see people like you doing things and other people doing things that is a complete shift from that, which makes me hopeful. I'm just curious about your experience in this sort of like exclusivity area of fashion and art, as far as that goes, and how that's been for you personally, on a personal level and on a level of thinking about equality that we're faced with now?
Dario: I would say yes, fashion does have threaded within it notions of exclusivity, elitism, just sheer expense, but really, there's multiple levels to fashion. So I should probably say this: there's a difference between fashion with a capital F and fashion with a lowercase F. I'm interested in fashion with a lowercase F, because there is the fashion system, and the fashion industry, and then there's fashion, like Susan, you love fashion because you love to express, right? It is an outward expression. It is your own art form in a way, right? It is an art of expression. And for me, that fashion with the lowercase F, that's fashion on the ground, and then there's fashion with a capital F, which is, you know, Karl Lagerfeld doing a $5 million show in Paris with a clump of people outside and they can't get in, but there's nothing happening on the inside that's really worth talking about on the outside, nor has anything to do with what's really happening on the outside.
But it's fashion with a lowercase F that I integrate myself with. I don't put much energy into the other side of it. And I found particularly like even working with the CFDA, there are so many people behind the scenes that make fashion work that are so much more interesting, so much more humane, and they work really hard, and they fucking love it. You know, like they don't need to have their faces on the cover of our magazine or being featured. They just love the actual craft of the thing, and those are the people that I love. Now I will also say that fashion itself, the system can't be divorced from its colonial history and its colonial past.
And so, a lot of that informs the way that fashion operates now. So that's how you continue to have “cultural appropriation.” The system is literally built on cultural appropriation. It was conquered lands and the things they brought back and the court. We also can't separate the court from fashion, you know, Marie Antoinette, these things all inform the system that we all inherited and it continues to perpetuate it. So when you think about the French court and French aristocracy, and being in good graces with this Duke and that Countess, and how close you sat to the King and the espionage, and the gossip, it sounds like the fashion industry right now.
Todd: Right. Totally.
Dario: That's why it is what it is. And so me, in a way, working with designers, particularly designers of color, because we already sit outside of that system. We're able to kind of usurp it and not have to deal with the back and forth of the bullshit, but I always say I work around fashion, I don't work in fashion.
Todd: Nice. And there's also the transformative nature of fashion, which is what is my favorite thing about it, which is like your kind of storytelling also.
Susan: And there's the fun aspect of it too, you know. I understand what you're saying with fashion with the capital F and the lower case F, but when I think of fashion through history, I go way back to Cleopatra, and I'm sure there were political ramifications and systems within Cleopatra, but fashion itself was storytelling. I'm assuming because art itself was storytelling before language. And so, if art was storytelling then so was how you're dressing. So that I'm sure conveyed messages and, and continues to do in different uniforms and different aspects of who you are. I want to know a little bit about if fashion and what you're doing is all about storytelling, what is the story that you are telling, that you personally are telling? There must be a thread of that story.
Dario: That's a really great question. I'm really quickly circling back on Cleopatra. Even that, Cleopatra was a queen. You know, but what about the subjects?
Todd: Cleopatra was a luxury brand.
Dario: But what about the subjects? And what were they allowed to wear? I believe it was, I could be totally wrong, but I think like in the Bolshevik revolution or maybe the French revolution, a revolution, one of their demands was to be able to wear the color red. You know what I mean? So that's what kept Cleopatra for me is still fashion with a capital F because it is a form of expression that not everyone was able to access.
But the story that I'm telling, it's a tough one. The story that I'm telling personally is one of Black excellence and Black beauty and Black intelligence and wisdom. Mainly because I was not exposed to it, growing up, going to a very American high school, I read Wuthering Heights, like everyone else in high school, I read Great Expectations like everyone else in high school. No one taught me about James Baldwin or Zora Neale Hurston, or Alma Thomas or Geoffrey Holder, or even Gordon Parks, you know? And so, subconsciously somewhere that system was telling me that I was none of these things. Yes, I could relate to it on a human level. So I'm not walking around, like why don't I see myself in Wuthering Heights? You know!
Susan: Who wants to?
Dario: Yeah. Well, I mean, Great Expectations, though, I do love Great Expectations, Ms. Havisham is my jam. But you know, when you have access to a whole breadth of people who look like you, and, I can't even say think like you, because human beings kind of generally think the same way. And so that's really the story I'm telling is just a documentation. I don't ever want a young, Black or brown person to not know that Lana Turner existed. I don't want them to not know that a Thelma Golden existed or a Diedrick Brackens or, you Isoley Sisse or Hank Willis Thomas. So, a lot of my work is archival in a way, just to ensure that future generations don't forget. I don't even say forget, because it's really about making sure that these names continue to permeate history moving forward and not necessarily the version of history that's taught to them.
Todd: Quickly, Dario, a point of clarification for the listeners who might not know Lana Turner is an amazing woman, a muse of, and friend of yours that you met and a subject of your beautiful series of photographs that was in a show at one of Susan's spaces. So, you should feel free everyone to look that up. It's beautiful, beautiful pictures of a really amazing woman.
Susan: I wanted to bring up that you grew up in my hometown, and we share St. Louis, which it's just a ripe place for all kinds of interactions of histories. But, I was wondering if in terms of fashion and beauty, and exploding outside the norm to people that we have, who also grew up in, in St. Louis are Tina Turner and Josephine Baker, both of which command amazing beauty or without fear of what the norm is and pushing boundaries of the norm. I wonder how do they fit into your DNA?
Dario: You know, I don't know. And when I speak about my high school and the way that I grew up, I think St. Louis was an amazing place to grow up. And I felt like I had access to so much, and so much art and culture and just performance, from the Muny to the Fox to even the Black Rep, which has been in St. Louis for a very long time. So, St. Louis as a city, particularly, as it comes to the arts and accessibility because most of these things are free or free at some level, is amazing. As it pertains to Josephine Baker and Tina Turner, and also Chuck Berry and shit, Tennessee Williams...
Todd: Phyllis Diller.
Dario: Donny Hathaway. Katherine Dunham. (First Name) Kersey, the list goes on and on. And so if anything, hopefully, I can't say, the history books will... Hopefully I'm in conversation with these other grades in St. Louis, and it's interesting, there's something about St. Louis because Missouri, the Mason Dixon line runs right through it. And, storms only take place when hot and cold fronts meet. Right? So that's why I think a place like St. Louis or even Missouri is always such a hotbed for so much, because you're really existing in this liminal space between freedom and entrapment in a way. And so that's where a lot of what Nietzsche says, that only out of chaos can a star be born. So I think maybe that's my answer.
Todd: With the different companies that you work with and the different kinds of consulting jobs that you do, you talk about, having a visual language, and creating visual language. What does that mean for those when you are making that for somebody else? Can you talk about that?
Dario: Yes, sure. What I'm really doing when I work with a brand, particularly in the very beginning is I just do a really deep dive into the brand ethos. And I found right out of grad school that I can actually learn a brand’s language. A brand has its own vocabulary that it works with, and that it's something that I can learn. It is a learnable thing, if you study it, and then what happens is then you start speaking that language, but it's filtered through you. So it's like me speaking French, but with an American accent. So I'm speaking it, and you can understand it, but it still sounds like me, but it also sounds like you.
And so that's really the visual language, not really a chameleon aspect, but I'm exercising myself through the skin of this other brand. And I love those collaborations because what it does is allow parts of me to come forward that perhaps I wouldn't have accessed otherwise, but then also really help a brand get to the place that they want to go.
Even before we had this conversation, I asked, what's the story here? What are we trying to say? Because for me, I love taking someone from where they are to where they want to be. That's a process I fully enjoy. And what ends up happening is we both grow in the process.
It's a win-win. So, even when I started working with Kerby at Pyer Moss, what we're doing now was nothing like what I was doing before, but just by the sheer act of us being in the same space and the team being small enough, we both grew together and that's really been beautiful. So the visual language is just clarifying, clarifying for a brand exactly who they are and what they want to be and how they exist in the world. I've worked really well with emerging brands.
Todd: About brand and brand identity, can you speak a little bit about the correlation of that identity with Black identity and with the idea of social justice and how us three talking here are in a position of privilege within the developmental process, and that we are upfront and making things and conceptualizing and having ideas. How does that translate as it goes down through the different systems of fashion, with a capital F, to the supply chains and the labor and the people? I think that's a double question Darrio about identity and Black identity and then about the effect of that larger picture.
Dario: Yeah, that's a complicated question. I'm not sure that I have the full answer because, like I said before, I really consider myself working around fashion and not necessarily in fashion. And so I'm not at the after parties. Like I don't go to fashion shows actually.
Todd: Right. But what you've done, your work has been groundbreaking really. And so, you're associated with Pyer Moss, which is the award winning, best fashion show––says Vogue––and there's that upfront, but does that come with the responsibility of the effects of what that is to the people down the line to the consumer, to the viewer?
Dario: Yeah. Well, you know, what's interesting Todd about that question is what we do at Pyer Moss. I don't think you can roll that into the larger question of fashion with a capital F because both Kerby, I can't speak for Kirby, but both Kerby and I really exist just outside of it. We're both two people who tried to do it the way it was supposed to be done, right?
It's to be a part of the right organizations and to take the right meetings, and that was getting us nowhere, you know? And definitely was a slow death. And so there came a point where we were like, let's just do whatever the fuck we want to do! And that pivot point happened with his now infamous Black Lives Matter show in SS 16, where he showed 15 minutes of police brutality before the fashion show started. And that really was the detour away from fashion with a capital F. What I find happens also with fashion with a capital F is it always misses the mark because it's too tied to the system of capital. You have to refuse the demands of capital in order to actually speak the truth.
And what we are about is about telling the truth. Now, as that relates to identity, we found that, and I think Kerby has found that, the more that we were ourselves and the more that we celebrated ourselves, interestingly enough, the more accepted we became. But the thing was is we weren't looking for acceptance in the fashion industry. We'd already tried that, we were just like, fuck it, we're just going to do our own thing. And we did. And instead of skirting around our Blackness, we became even Blacker. And that an entire community of people who look and think, and are us, resonated with that, because for the first time they actually saw themselves fully represented and elevated.
It's the same thing that I did with the series with Ms. Turner and the ways in which that relates to the Black church, just the life we're living is gorgeous. Just the lives we're living are worthy of being elevated in places of beauty. And I can contrast that with Andre Leon Talley, who is also a really great friend of mine and a mentor, but a lot of Andres, I would just say ways of being had to do with his proximity to power and whiteness and even his most recent autobiography, he said that he is saying a lot of things he couldn't say for fear of 1) retribution, and 2) messing up his own paycheck.
Todd: Exactly!
Dario: So that’s the version of Blackness that's existed in the fashion industry and many industries for a very long time.
Todd: And people have been complacent with that too on every level.
Dario: Yeah. And so we're at a major pivot point. I mean before now, I think starting with Black Lives Matter, and kicked off, I think with Obama being in the White House, which was wonderful because it was the first time we saw an actual Black family in the spotlight that wasn't entertainment. The last time we had that with the Cosby Show, and there were advertisers attached to it.
Susan: I wanted to ask you about your process and essentially everything that you've been talking about feels like you're trying on the skin of a brand. You're an actor, you're a photographer. You're in essence, you continue to become, or you're trying on these separate costumes, no matter what the aspect of it is.
So to me, that relates to being an empath and I, as an empath, what would happen is that you tend to not only try on, but you become, you take on the emotions of whatever it is that you're trying on, and that can be exhausting. And I'm wondering, does that resonate with you? And if so, How do you recharge? How do you put up the barrier so that it doesn't continue to be your problem or your feeling? How do you know what's what?
Dario: Susan, that is probably the best question I've ever been asked, ever. The most insightful and intuitive question I've ever been asked in my entire life. And that is so spot on. It's something that the Greeks called the defects of your attributes. And that is something that I've really had to learn, and most recently be conscious of it. So, meditation is really helpful because that empathetic spirit works both in professional spheres and also personal, right? So I also take on the energies of people that I'm around. So, I found the act of meditation is one that really allows me to be so full that I can actually share. Without losing myself, without emptying myself. Before, it would be this kind of full exchange. It's interesting that even with brands, I think what makes it work is I do take it on as my own. I take full ownership of everything and that's also a wrestling, because sometimes I have to step back and say, okay, wait a minute. This actually isn't even my brand. Why am I not sleeping? But the designer is asleep, and I'm up? Come on. So, like I said, it's the defects of your attributes. It's both a benefit and a defect. Meditation, staying conscious about what I'm about, and it's been a practice. It has been a practice over and over again. And I think I'm sorta kind of getting the hang of it now.
Susan: Well, this is an exhausting time too.
Dario: Absolutely.
Todd: It is. And through your work, Dario, you shared critical observations of racialized, patriarchal and misogynistic parameters of the fashion industry. Can you expand on how fashion can shift and provide a point of access for more diversity? What that future would look like?
Dario: Essentially I think we just need more people of color in places of power with decision making capabilities. Not a figurehead, not a token, or a flop. But someone who can actually say no, this is what we're doing, and then everyone else obeys. For me, a perfect example of that is the current three covers of British Vogue, led by Edward Enninful, who is a black queer man, and the stars of those covers are essential workers. A black train operator, conductor in London; a North Irish midwife; and the third is a grocery store worker, who's Muslim and she's in hijab. For me, it's not LIFE Magazine. It's not a cover of TIME. It's not even New York Times. It's folk. So, to put those people on the cover of Vogue, says that moving forward, to be in style is to be of service, to be in style is to appreciate those people who make your everyday life possible.
And that's a shift. Anna Wintour’s revolutionary Vogue cover was putting a couture Christian Lacroix sweater with a pair of jeans. And that's fine because that was the moment and that's the world in which she lived. But, when you have an intersectionality that's at the top, you're able to really take a broader look at the zeitgeist and really define it.
It's the difference between having Roberts on the Supreme court and Sonia Sotomayor on the Supreme Court. If I'm a Black person or any person coming to that stand or coming into that courtroom, Sonya is going to give me a much more in depth reading of the situation than John Roberts will. Why? Because she's had a much deeper understanding of just living period. The world was not set up for her, right? The world was not designed with her in mind. And so there's a lot of pieces of herself that she's had to access and actualize that a straight white male could just coast through. So there's a level and a depth of humanity that she just brings to the table that this other person doesn't. It doesn't say he's any less valuable, it doesn't think he's any less humane. It's just an understanding of the difference. So that's what needs to happen. And unfortunately, I think again, a lot of people will have to lose their jobs or give them up in order for that to happen. And that's what they do not want to do. And so that's why nothing changes.
Susan: It seems like, since we're going through such a huge change now, wouldn't that be nice if we came out of it on the other side, knowing that luxury isn’t equated with money, but it's equated with caring and service, like what you're talking about? So that would be an amazing transformation and, and seeing that which is invisible, which are the things that make us all connected.
Todd: Yeah.
Dario: As I spoke about photography earlier about it being about still, these images are just that, like what Jamie Hawkesworth who's the photographer did was freeze these people that you see every day and you pass, you think nothing of, and freeze them and you are forced to look at them. And you're like, oh my God, like, thank you. For the moment that we're having now to be taking place after three months of self reflection and us having to wrestle with ourselves without the distractions that we used to identify herself with, I think is, is beautiful. And I think Susan, if there's any time for that to happen, it's now. Or that would be possible.
Susan: Agreed.
Todd: Dario, a couple of short things in closing. Your dad was a pastor and the church brought you to your dear friend, and one of your most important muses, Lana Turner. Are there elements of your work that are beyond tactile or intellectual or psychological?
Dario: Oh my God, we're getting to all the good shit at the end!
Susan: Surprise, surprise!
Dario: What’s so cool about spirituality is that it's an ever growing process and one can find galaxies in the smallest and most seemingly banal things. And so it's something that is revealed to me more and more every day. And if anything, the things that I create, I hope it comes out. I hope it comes across. I'm not here to force anyone into any belief or even some kind of spiritual experience. But knowing that it's there, if you are receptive to it, as far as any definition goes, like Christianity or Buddhist or whatever, there's definitely none of that. I was raised as Baptist. But yes, there’s absolutely a metaphysical conversation that I'm engaging with every day and wrestling with everyday action. Actually, not wrestling, actually easing into every day, that I think comes across. At the end of the day, I just want to bring people to themselves. That's it. it's so funny, the very beginning we talked about identity. We talked about me being a slasher, compartmentalization. And so many people are existing in these predetermined roles that truncate their modes of expression, and if anything, I would hope to be able to be some kind of conduit to help people just access themselves.
So when you're thinking about that, it makes all of these concepts of Blackness, whiteness class. It’s so basic and unimportant that it's almost comical. It's almost comical that we're even talking about this. We could be much further along.
Todd: One last thing. Can you share three iconic images that are in your mind that inspire work or are your work or three iconic images that are close to your heart? One from the past and one from the present. And if you could imagine one for the future,
Dario: One from the past. There is a photograph that was taken in Vogue by George Triantafyllou of a swimmer and another woman. And it looks like they're sitting at the edge of a what's a diving board, but I think it was actually shot on a rooftop in Paris, it was a total optical illusion. And there's something about that image that stays with me. Sometimes there are images that are just burned into your retina and somehow they're always coming up. One from the present. I don't know. I'm not too much inspired by contemporary culture, but I will say that I loved Lizzo’s cover on the cover of Rolling Stone shot by David LaChapelle, which I thought was gorgeous. Also, those three images by Jamie Hawkesworth, the cover of British Vogue that I spoke about. An image of the future. I don’t know, will we have images in the future?
Todd: I don't know.
Dario: It's been a pleasure. This guy is totally calling me to come down to deliver these dresses. So I do have to run!
Todd: Thank you Dario!
Dario: Of course, of course, of course.
Susan: Thank you.
Dario: Ciao!
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