By the time Manon Macasaet appears on my screen—calling from a hazy Los Angeles morning, hoodie on, vape in hand—she’s already apologized in advance for any nerves. “I’ve done interviews before, but this one feels… big,” she confesses, eyes darting offscreen toward notes she’s methodically prepared. “I wrote so much stuff down because I really wanted to get it right.”
It makes sense. Macasaet, a 25-year-old multidisciplinary artist, is launching Poison Candy Apple, a brand-turned-universe she’s been quietly constructing for the last two years. It just launched via Heaven by Marc Jacobs. If you know her, you probably know her from Story of My Fucking Life—the surreal, self-shot web series she created during lockdown—or from Tattoo Book, the art-tattoo collection featuring contributions from Harmony Korine and Ed Templeton. Maybe you’ve seen her offbeat lo-fi surreal video work for Pretty Sick, or her photography for brands like Stussy and Marc Jacobs. She’s been building this world—style, mood, and attitude—since her teens. Poison Candy Apple isn’t a pivot. It’s a culmination.
“It’s something I’d been dreaming about for years,” Macasaet says. “I’d been working across so many creative projects—videos, shoots, directing, consulting—and I realized I wanted a home for all of it.” The turning point came during a trip to Tokyo, where she was reflecting on years spent working behind the scenes for other brands. “I was like, wait—why am I not doing this for myself?”
The concept started to take shape: a brand as an emotional outlet, a space to channel everything. “This brand means more to me than anything I’ve done,” Macasaet says. “It’s an outlet for every creative direction project I’ve ever wanted to do. It’s a diary, a party, a fantasy world. It’s… me.”
If you’ve been following the early teasers on Instagram, you already know: Poison Candy Apple looks like the lovechild of early Tumblr, NYC club-kid couture, and a manga-styled fairy tale where Snow White chain smokes and tags dollhouses with glittery graffiti. “To the naked eye, it’s like a Tumblr feed,” she says, “but to anyone who really gets it—it’s an emotional map.”
Raised in New York, Macasaet’s story is soaked in the city’s unfiltered, high-stim culture. “I was born there, raised there, lived there my whole life until recently,” she says. “My mom’s the reason I’m so career-driven—super business-oriented. My dad? An eccentric French artist. Like, truly eccentric. He left for France when I was 14, which was really hard on me, and I think that’s when I started trying to figure out who I was creatively.”
At 14—the same year her dad moved—she interned at VFILES. “It sounds fake,” she laughs, “but it was real. Danielle Greco, who was a buyer there at the time, literally asked me to intern at one of their events while I was wearing this blue Nasir Mazhar dress.” That VFILES era—a time of Hood By Air shirts worn as dresses, Vine stars in Opening Ceremony—was formative. “It wasn’t just about fashion, I was into style. Meeting friends like Mike Hope [aka Mike the Ruler] helped me understand that style wasn’t just what you wore—it was a way of being. A way of staying curious.”
“It wasn’t just about fashion, I was into style. Meeting friends like Mike Hope [aka Mike the Ruler] helped me understand that style wasn’t just what you wore—it was a way of being. A way of staying curious.”
Manon Macasaet
Macasaet credits this mix of internet serendipity, eccentric parenting, and downtown New York energy for her maximalist, referential aesthetic. “Style always mattered to me. Like, I used to make T-shirts with my dad when I was a kid. Then I kind of forgot about that part of myself… until I walked into VFILES and it all came flooding back.”
Her style now? “Honestly? Wild. Sometimes Lolita, sometimes boho. It’s usually loud and colorful—but always shifting.” Her favorite necklace at the moment is by Tarina Tarantino—a fellow maximalist icon with pink hair and a Hollywood Hills studio. “We’re collaborating soon,” she adds nonchalantly.
And it’s more than clothes—it’s stickers, web content, care tags with poems. The launch collection includes French terry hoodies, graphic tees, and a campaign that reads like early-internet nostalgia come to life. One of her favorite pieces? A hoodie covered in ecstasy pills, featuring artwork designed by a past collaborator. “That sounds weird, but it’s cool,” she laughs. “Young people seem to love it.”
Kreayshawn, the cult 2012 icon, stars in the campaign. “When I shot her, it was like this full-circle moment,” Macasaet says. “She was the moment back then. Now kids who were too young for that era are discovering her, and they’re obsessed. That’s the itch I’m scratching—nostalgia that feels sincere, not recycled.”
The visuals match that vibe: ecstasy-print hoodies on Kreayshawn, Rachel Korine backlit by the Spring Breakers car, and Macasaet herself as a vape-toking Snow White, shot by downtown legend Richard Kern. Fantasy, with hard evidence.
On our call, Macasaet shifts from self-deprecating to gleeful when she describes what’s next. “I want to do shows! Insane shows. Like a school play in the East Village meets a prom meets a skate competition…” Her eyes light up. “One day I’ll do a Heatherette-style show where someone rollerblades down the runway and throws glitter and money.”
