Chloe Wise on Painting Jacquemus's Summer '19 Campaign

If you regularly peruse Jacquemus's instagram looking for your fix of giant straw hats, you might recently have come across a thrice-posted image of two women in repose on a luxe balcony, the sea and sky gradated into Rothko-like shades of blue behind them as the orange-one-piece-swathed woman in the foreground sips her drink—is it an Aperol spritz, the Campari-sponsored drink of summer? Or just a good old-fashioned glass of rosé?

These are the questions provoked by Jacquemus's Summer '19 campaign, "La Riviera," which—instead of being traditionally photographed—was painted by artist Chloe Wise, who's known for working from Google phone photography to compose her aloof yet intimate portraits.

"The collab came around very naturally," said Wise of her work with Jacquemus. "Simon and I met a few years ago in Paris, and since then, we had been flirting a lot online, especially last summer while we were both in the south of France, texting, Whatsapp-ing, DMing, you know, photos of European things. I've always felt that we shared a lot of the same inspiration and imagery in our work; the narrative that both of our practices create is at once contemporary and rooted in art history. And at that moment, we were both feeling the Côte d'Azur scenery deeply."

"Simon reached out to me about working together on the campaign for this collection, called La Riviera, which takes its inspiration from a sud-de-la-Fraance vacation ambience, and voila," Wise continued, adding, "It was a very easy decision for me, because I've always loved his work. Also, I really aspire to be as good of a dancer as he is. (Unrelated, but related.)"

When asked about the identity of the drink in the painting, Wise responded: "Aperol Spritz, of course! Rosé? What is this, 2015?"