Cecilia Dean Biography

Cecilia Dean is a co-founder of Visionaire, the multi-media art and fashion company. She currently lives and works in New York City.

Early Life

Born in Central California, Dean grew up in Davis before moving to Long Island, New York when she was 12. . Her parents have both worked in academia: her mother as an English professor and her father as an Asian studies professor. In high school, Dean would venture into New York City with friends every chance she got, and was scouted by a photographer who introduced her to Louise Despointes, owner of City Models, who took her on.

While a senior in high school at the all-girls Sacred Heart Academy in Garden City, Dean began modeling for Seventeen Magazine . It was at this time that Despointes arranged for Dean to do photos with then budding fashion photographer Stephen Gan and makeup artist James Kaliardos who were both students at Parsons School of Design. One of her first jobs was with Mario Testino for the cover of a special teen edition of the Italian magazine, Lei in 1986. (They went on to work on many more shoots together in Europe.) Throughout the years, Dean has modeled for Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, Peter Lindbergh, Steven Meisel, Ellen Von Unwerth, Steven Klein, Mert & Marcus, Inez & Vinoodh , to name a few.

Between modeling and ballet classes, Dean was also very involved with speech and debate, winning several trophies (in switch-side varsity debate and oral interpretation in prose and poetry), and competed in both state and national championships . When not wearing the plaid skirt and button-down shirt of her school uniform, her aesthetic as a teenager veered a little Goth and a little glamorous. After graduating high school, Dean moved to Paris, France to pursue modeling, giving her the opportunity to travel throughout Europe and Japan. But after a year and a half, Dean returned to New York where she had been accepted to Barnard College at Columbia University to pursue a double-major in English and French literature . She co-founded Visionaire in 1991 with James Kaliardos and Stephen Gan, during her last semester.

Personal Life

Dean lives in Red Hook, Brooklyn, with her longtime partner, real estate and food entrepreneur David Selig.

Visionaire

Visionaire, "the ultimate art and fashion publication"?, was created by Stephen Gan, Cecilia Dean and James Kaliardos. The three first met when Dean was still a senior in high school on Long Island and was just starting to model. Her agent, Louise Despointes, arranged to have Dean do photos with Gan and Kaliardos, one of her first test shoots -- just to do a few photos for all of their books.

Artists who work in collaboration with Visionaire to produce interpretations on a theme are given freedom to push its content and original formats . Though artists aren't paid, many notable figures in art and fashion have worked on an issue with Visionaire. Dean continues to run Visionaire with Kaliardos and has grown it from a publication to a company that curates luxury art fashion experiences

Other Work

In 2010, the director of MoMA PS1, Klaus Biesenbach, approached Dean and then New York Times columnist, David Colman, to bring fashion to the museum. With the self-imposed rule that no clothes would be shown on mannequins and no art hung on walls, Dean and Colman went about creating and curating MOVE!, a different kind of show that paired fashion designers with artists to create participatory experiences.

POSE by Ryan McNamara and Diane von Furstenberg : the participant changed into a signature DVF wrap-dress and were treated to quick hair and make-up. Once ready, performance artist McNamara would take photos of the participant in precise poses. These photos were immediately uploaded to a program that transformer the photos into a textile pattern of the participant. The participant could then order a DVF wrap-dress with their pattern printed on the fabric: a one-of-a-kind DVF wrap-dress of oneself wearing a DVF wrap-dress.

LOOKS by Rob Pruitt and Marc Jacobs: the participant is instructed to walk down a long green hallway. As they do so, someone barks orders to "walk like a supermodel", "don't smile", "give attitude", etc. Upon exiting the hallway, the participant is faced with large projections of themselves superimposed into the Marc Jacobs fashion show.

Dean and Colman mounted MOVE! over 10 days in So Paulo, Brazil in 2013 and then again in 2014 and produced a 4th version over a long week-end at Brookfield Place in downtown New York City in 2015.

From 1995 to 2016, Dean taught "Publication Design: The Visual Story" at New School's Parsons School of Design