INSIDERS

India Salvor Menuez: Artsy Provocateur

The muse and performance artist talks youth.


india salvor menuez

A preternaturally poised creature on the New York scene, the performance artist and actor India Salvor Menuez, 22, cofounded the Luck You art collective (currently on hiatus) when she was just 16 and has matured into an exotically pale muse for the Eckhaus Latta designers Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta, who often include her in their shows; the French auteur Olivier Assayas, who cast her in his 2013 film Something in the Air; and the artist John Currin, who painted her repeatedly for his latest show of portraits, at Gagosian gallery in Los Angeles. (Leonardo DiCaprio was also smitten: He bought one of the Currins and, rumor has it, asked for the number of the scantily clad girl depicted.) While Menuez’s own work as an artist is fluid when it comes to gender—and not exactly short on nudity—she likes to affect a certain Lolita girlishness that belies her serious consideration of the world around her. “I can’t believe I’m 22 and still all pink and rainbows!” she says, rolling her eyes. “I don’t really know what that’s about.”

Backstage at Eckhaus Latta Spring 2016

Eckhaus Latta Spring 2016

Eckhaus Latta Spring 2016

Eckhaus Latta Spring 2016

Eckhaus Latta Spring 2016

Eckhaus Latta Spring 2016

Eckhaus Latta Spring 2016

Eckhaus Latta Spring 2016

Eckhaus Latta Spring 2016

Eckhaus Latta Spring 2016

Eckhaus Latta Spring 2016

Eckhaus Latta Spring 2016

Eckhaus Latta Spring 2016

Eckhaus Latta Spring 2016

Eckhaus Latta Spring 2016

Eckhaus Latta Spring 2016

Eckhaus Latta Spring 2016

Eckhaus Latta Spring 2016

Eckhaus Latta Spring 2016

Eckhaus Latta Spring 2016

Eckhaus Latta Spring 2016

Eckhaus Latta Spring 2016

Eckhaus Latta Spring 2016

Eckhaus Latta Spring 2016

Eckhaus Latta Spring 2016

Eckhaus Latta Spring 2016

Eckhaus Latta Spring 2016

Eckhaus Latta Spring 2016

Eckhaus Latta Spring 2016

Eckhaus Latta Spring 2016

Eckhaus Latta Spring 2016

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Hair By Braydon Nelson at Julian Watson Agency for R+Co; Makeup by Marla Belt at Streeters London; photography assistant: Tyra Mitchell; fashion assistant: Martin Hamery; hair assistant: Brittany Mroczek.