Manon Macasaet is the multi-tasking NY teen artist putting us all to shame.
17-year-old Manon Macasaet is the coolest girl in school. Her Instagram profile is a permanent fixture on your discovery page, her face fills your Tumblr dashboard and she’s got a collection of street-wear most skater boys (and girls) would swap their Supreme archives for: but she’s not just another Insta-tween. Artist/model/ stylist/student and intern at NY cult store VFiles, Macasaet is making things happen.
“Everything I’ve done that I’m proud of fulfils a different creative passion of mine in a different way,” she says. “I’d say getting my zine into Dashwood books was a milestone,” Maison de Rêve is a now sold-out collection of collages by Macasaet. “That’s one of my favourite bookstores and they carry a lot of books by photographers I really love, so it’s an amazing opportunity for me to be in the same place.”
LEFT (Ears MODEL’S OWN, dress CHANEL)
MIDDLE (Hat STYLIST’S OWN, necktie by ORSEUND IRIS, thermal by MADEME X ME AND YOU)
RIGHT (Coat JEREMY SCOTT and earrings BING BANG X ME AND YOU)
At the request of Erik Brunetti himself, founder of long-loved LA skate wear brand FUCT, Macasaet began to style for the label and became the face of their SS16 lookbook. “I went from admiring the brand to working with it closely, so it marks a lot of growth for me,” she explains. “In general, all of the things I’ve done have made me proud in some way, even the small things, because in the beginning I didn’t expect any of this to be possible. If someone were to tell a younger version of myself that I would end up doing all the things I’ve done, young me would have flipped out.”
“Pinky swear, I haven’t really googled myself ” she promises, when I comment how weird it must be to see her own face splashed over other people’s personal blogs. “But hearing that is very flattering… I still feel like a regular person, but lately I’ve been realising that my life is not what most would consider to be ‘normal’… Being in the public eye definitely adds to the fact I have to be more self-aware than I would have to be otherwise. It for sure enters my consciousness a lot.”
For now, Macasaet is still at high school — she’s a student with 20,000 people watching her adolescence pan out online. “I plan to take a year off to travel and work on my own shit, whatever that may be,” she muses. “A year off to completely entrench myself in my creative endeavours is something I look forward to. I want to go to Japan and sit on a bench underneath cherry blossoms before I hit the books.” Can I come with?
Ear’s MODEL’S OWN and dress CHANEL