Astor Yang on his journey in the fashion industry, his love of dolls and the power of Anna Wintour
BY MARK ARIEL | PHOTO BY DUSTI CUNNINGHAM
Multi-media artist Astor Yang’s iconic style and creative vision exist in the realms of performance, video and artistic direction, fashion, costume, product development, toy, and experiential design.
His one-of-a-kind dolls, featured around the world, have modeled miniature looks from every major fashion house since their debut and discovery by Anna Wintour in 2010.
His work has been featured in Vogue magazine, the New York Times, and SHOWstudio Gallery in London, Galeries Lafayette Paris, Barneys New York & Japan, and K11.
In 2019 Yang brought his dolls to life through puppetry and costume combining visual art and dramatic performance in an immersive fairy tale that debuted at the IATI Theater in New York for his production of the Diamond Stag. He went on to collaborate with renowned drag queen Katya Zamo on the artistic direction for her Vampire Fitness EP, and create Reverie with singer Brian Justin Crum.
Currently residing in Los Angeles, Yang is the great-grandson of actress Mary Astor.
In an interview with THE FIGHT Yang talks about his journey in the fashion industry, his love of dolls and the power of Anna.
At what age did you become interested in fashion?
When I was 16 my parents split up before getting back together again and I lived in Taipei, Taiwan with my family for a while. There was a factory there filled with many floors of fabric, and then a floor of seamstresses. You could pick fabrics out, bring a sketch, and then have an outfit made, for not a lot of money. I had never created something this way—turning a sketch into a reality with fabrics you could touch—it was incredible and I was hooked.
How did your career evolve after returning to the states?
I worked as an intern for Proenza Schouler when I attended FIT in the early 2000s. Then I worked as an assistant designer for Dennis Basso, a furrier at the top of the luxury market, and then quit to “find myself,” selling silkscreened t-shirts at a young designer’s market and doing odd jobs. I had started making fabric dolls for fun, and one night, outside of the The Cock, I was approached by the creator of a very popular blog, East Village Boys. He did a kind of “viral” article about my dolls, and then I was commissioned to do a few for a Canadian fashion magazine. This spread went viral amongst the fashion internet set, and through a chance meeting, I ended up bringing my dolls into the offices of Vogue.
I’m guessing that meeting Anna Wintour was a pivotal moment in your career.
Well, I love dolls, and when I started making dolls, I was selling them at local doll shows, but people didn’t really “get them”—they are 28”, fabric, hand painted faces. I didn’t know how much I should charge for them. Some people recognized them as art, some people thought they were creepy. But after meeting Anna Wintour—she saw the “fashion” in them, and connected me with Barneys New York. Suddenly it clicked—I was making a luxury fabric doll, akin to a luxury skirt or a sweater. As soon as I took the doll out of the doll space and put her into high end retail, things made sense. It was a wild ride—for many years I was the “official” doll maker of the fashion industry—I worked with retailers who all secured permission from the major fashion houses for me to make dolls in their looks and have them for sale in stores. Azzedine Alaia, Rick Owens, Ricardo Tisci, Rodarte—a lot of these designers personally commissioned dolls and many approved them to be sold in these luxury spaces. I went from being a kid from Brooklyn freelance gigging to suddenly traveling all over the world and commandeering $30,000 orders, running my own studio, in a matter of weeks. That’s the power of Anna!
What are you currently working on?
I’m always making new dolls, and I’m pretty active making video content about the making of those dolls—I am launching a Patreon in the coming weeks where I share a lot of my tools and tricks. But more recently, I have been collaborating with my friend Edward Vigiletti and making music under the name of my internet handle, which is a highschool nickname that has followed me everywhere—@Yangabang. He is a phenomenal producer, and I like writing and creating melodies and pushing myself out of my comfort zone—but mostly it just gives me focus for the side of me that is a performer—and that person always has to be answered to! Instead of me just doing random photoshoots or videos with friends for Instagram, creating a song, telling the story around it with photography and visuals, and turning myself into a doll/character who gets to own that music—allows me to concentrate my energy a bit.
We just came out with a song called “Muscle Queen” that I randomly wrote and recorded with a girlfriend of mine years ago. I shared it with my Edward, who remixed it and wanted us to release a video. I shot the video with Katya, and a bunch of my friends who work in porn…
I am not trying to be a pop star tomorrow—music is a medium like painting, or doll making—and for me, all of it is art—and fun!!! I’m just here to enjoy the ride.
