Christian Joy (Christiane Joy Hultquist) is an American fashion designer and artist best known for her stage costume designs for Yeah Yeah Yeahs' lead singer, Karen O. Using found articles and occasionally eschewing thread and print for glue and marker pens, she has influenced contemporary fashion with punk and DIY stylings. She has designed for the likes of Karen O, Childish Gambino, Alabama Shakes, Maggie Rogers, and many others. Her work has been exhibited in The Victoria & Albert Museum in London, The Museum of Art and Design in NYC, the Mode Museum in Hasselt, Belgium and the AVA Gallery in NYC. Her work has been featured across major publications including The New York Times, Time Magazine, Vogue, Vanity Fair, The Guardian, Billboard, Spin, Rolling Stone, DailyMail, Refinery29 and The Huffington Post.
Born in Marion, Iowa, Joy started designing in Brooklyn in 2000. With no formal training in fashion design, she started creating one-of-a-kind hand-painted/hand-sewn t-shirts and re-designing old prom dresses. She met Karen O in 2001 and the aspiring singer soon became her favorite model. As the Yeah Yeah Yeahs began playing shows, Joy designed a fresh outfit for each occasion. And as the band's fame grew, so did Joy's reputation and international success, enabling her to pursue her designing work full-time.
In this episode, we chat early fashion influences, moving from Iowa to NYC, befriending Karen O, the importance of humor (shrimp in the shoe!!!), and her jumps between painting, fashion design, screen-printing, writing and more. Find her on instagram here.
