A lot of us go through a tagging stage. Maybe it developed into a well-rounded love and appreciation of street art and its influence on the broader cultural landscape, or maybe you just wrote your name on a few train windows and called it a day. Frances Bean Cobain has taken a different approach, marking up her own billboard. Over the weekend the 24-year-old teamed up with her friends, creative consultant Abreea Loren and artist Illma Gore, to rework her Marc Jacobs billboard.
Before Frances and her crew got to it, the advert — which sits above the designer’s Melrose Place boutique — pictured her in the recent David Sims-shot spring/summer 2017 campaign. When they were done, her face was replaced with a swirling birdlike profile and the words “WITCH WITCH SHE’S A WITCH” were painted across her babydoll dress. Considering Frances’s Insta handle is @space_witch666, it was all pretty on brand.
As the trio worked unharassed, above the store, in broad daylight, and the label later shared a video of them on Instagram, it’s no surprise to say the father of grunge Marc was in on the move.
Two decades ago, Frances’s parents Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love also “collaborated” with the designer, burning a pile of his pieces. Love explained to WWD, “Marc sent me and Kurt his Perry Ellis grunge collection. Do you know what we did with it? We burned it. We were punkers — we didn’t like that kind of thing.”
In the early 90s the couple was making a point about fashion’s commercialization of alternative cultures. This week, Frances was blurring the lines between art, vandalism, and publicity stunt. We’re kind of glad no clothes were hurt in the making this time.
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Text Wendy Syfret