Fashion designer describes invitation to work on Notre Dame cathedral's reopening as 'a calling'

PARIS (AP) — When Jean-Charles de Castelbajac watched as Notre Dame cathedral burned in April 2019, he felt compelled to act somehow.

Returning home, the French fashion designer began sketching ideas, imagining the monument’s reconstruction.

So, when the Paris Archbishop’s emissary approached him to design the liturgical garments for the cathedral's reopening next month, Castelbajac — a believer with personal roots with the church — felt the moment transcended mere coincidence.

“It’s bigger than a job. It’s a bit mysterious … mysterious,” Castelbajac said, his eyes brimming with wonder as he previewed some of the 2,000 colorful pieces for 700 celebrants at his Paris home. “It's a calling. To be called like that is synchronicity.”

This duty, as he calls it, led to a collection of work crafted in collaboration with the esteemed artisans of 19M studio. The garments, often in thick off-white Scottish wool gabardine, blend his signature eye-popping pop-art aesthetic with a reverence for the cathedral’s centuries-old legacy with medieval touches.

The unorthodox designs are fun, modern — and perhaps shockingly minimalist.

They undoubtedly break with the richly embellished styles associated with the cathedral's near-900-year-old liturgical garb. At their center is a large gold cross, accented by debris fragments of vivid color-blocked red, blue, yellow, and green velvet.

“It’s something that is exploded that reconstructs itself,” Castelbajac said, likening the dissipated shards coming together to the cathedral’s own rebirth.

The commission was not subject to an open call. Instead, Castelbajac was handpicked by the Catholic leadership, due to his history of designing for the church.

In 1997, he created the rainbow-colored robes worn by Pope John Paul II for World Youth Day in Paris, garments later enshrined in Notre Dame’s treasury as a relic. That connection carried a special weight during the fire.

“As I watched the fire, I was thinking, ‘Are the relics burning? Are the relics safe?’ So my link was not just material. It’s really a strong spiritual link,” he said.

For Castelbajac, 74, the memory of those two hours in 2019 spent watching the fire with his wife amid people praying on their knees still evokes both grief and determination.

“It was not Notre Dame burning. It was hope burning. It was spirituality burning. It was such an intense moment … I was thinking, what can I do?” he said.

The vestments, which will be worn in liturgies permanently — forever, as Castelbajac put it — carry a sense of continuity with his past work. The designs are a variation on the pontiff’s robes, infused with Castelbajac’s signature aesthetic: bright, almost childlike hues that evoke optimism.

Castelbajac’s fascination with color began as a child in a military boarding school in Normandy, an experience he recalled as stifling and gray. “It was the absolute loneliness. It was colorless,” he said.

For the young boy, color became a lifeline.

“Color was like my teddy bear, my transitional element in a world of conflict. Each morning, there was the stained glass in the church and the coats of arms in the refectory that filled my world with primary colors,” he explained.

This obsession would define his career, earning him a reputation as a provocateur in the fashion world.

Castelbajac’s creations have dressed pop culture royalty for decades: Madonna in her teddy bear coat, Beyoncé in sequins, Rihanna in a Donald Duck costume. Collaborating with Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, he fused art and fashion into a playground of exuberance.

While his designs have graced runways and music icons, Castelbajac’s work for Notre Dame strikes a different, more personal chord.

The playful vestments might raise eyebrows among traditional Catholics, but he has no doubt about the faith Notre Dame’s leadership placed in him. “Maybe I have the trust of the archbishop,” he mused, reflecting on the “carte blanche” he said he received for his designs.

This combination produced a modern-looking body of work that reflects the unity, hope, and rebirth symbolized by Notre Dame itself—just like the phoenix-like rooster gleaming like fire atop the newly constructed spire.

When the cathedral reopens on the weekend of Dec. 7-8, Castelbajac hopes the vestments will be viewed by the world as a testament to renewal and the “power of color” to heal and inspire.

Designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac displays his book with drawings of the Notre-Dame Cathedral during an interview with the Associated Press, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024 in Paris. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

Designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac displays a liturgical vestment for priests and to be worn at the reopening of Paris' Notre-Dame Cathedral in December, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024 in Paris. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

Liturgical vestments for bishops and priests designed by Jean-Charles de Castelbajac and to be worn at the reopening of Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral in December hang, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024 in Paris. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

Designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac displays a liturgical vestment for priests to be worn at the reopening of Paris' Notre-Dame cathedral in December, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024 in Paris. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

Designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac displays a liturgical vestment for priests and to be worn at the reopening of Paris' Notre-Dame Cathedral in December, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024 in Paris. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

A visitor takes photographs of Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Louise Delmotte)

Workers stand on Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Louise Delmotte)

Sketches for liturgical vestments designed by Jean-Charles de Castelbajac for the reopening of Paris' Notre-Dame cathedral in December, are pictured during an interview with the Associated Press, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024 in Paris. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

Designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac gestures as he speaks during an interview with the Associated Press Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024 in Paris. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

Designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac displays a liturgical vestment for priests to be worn at the reopening of Paris' Notre-Dame cathedral in December, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024 in Paris. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

Designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac displays a liturgical vestment for bishops to be worn at the reopening of Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral in December during an interview with the Associated Press Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024 in Paris. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

Designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac displays a liturgical vestment for bishops to be worn at the reopening of Paris' Notre-Dame Cathedral in December, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024 in Paris. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

JERUSALEM (AP) — Over two dozen families from one of the few remaining Palestinian Bedouin villages in the central West Bank have packed up and fled their homes in recent days, saying harassment by Jewish settlers living in unauthorized outposts nearby has grown unbearable.

The village, Ras Ein el-Auja, was originally home to some 700 people from more than 100 families that have lived there for decades.

Twenty-six families already left on Thursday, scattering across the territory in search of safer ground, say rights groups. Several other families were packing up and leaving on Sunday.

“We have been suffering greatly from the settlers. Every day, they come on foot, or on tractors, or on horseback with their sheep into our homes. They enter people’s homes daily,” said Nayef Zayed, a resident, as neighbors took down sheep pens and tin structures.

Israel's military and the local settler governing body in the area did not respond to requests for comment.

Other residents pledged to stay put for the time being. That makes them some of the last Palestinians left in the area, said Sarit Michaeli, international director at B’Tselem, an Israeli rights group helping the residents.

She said that mounting settler violence has already emptied neighboring Palestinian hamlets in the dusty corridor of land stretching from Ramallah in the West to Jericho, along the Jordanian border, in the east.

The area is part of the 60% of the West Bank that has remained under full Israeli control under interim peace accords signed in the 1990s. Since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted in October 2023, over 2,000 Palestinians — at least 44 entire communities — have been expelled by settler violence in the area, B'Tselem says.

The turning point for the village came in December, when settlers put up an outpost about 50 meters (yards) from Palestinian homes on the northwestern flank of the village, said Michaeli and Sam Stein, an activist who has been living in the village for a month.

Settlers strolled easily through the village at night. Sheep and laundry went missing. International activists had to begin escorting children to school to keep them safe.

“The settlers attack us day and night, they have displaced us, they harass us in every way” said Eyad Isaac, another resident. “They intimidate the children and women.”

Michaeli said she’s witnessed settlers walk around the village at night, going into homes to film women and children and tampering with the village’s electricity.

The residents said they call the police frequently to ask for help — but it seldom arrives. Settlement expansion has been promoted by successive Israeli governments over nearly six decades. But Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government, which has placed settler leaders in senior positions, has made it a top priority.

That growth has been accompanied by a spike in settler violence, much of it carried out by residents of unauthorized outposts. These outposts often begin with small farms or shepherding that are used to seize land, say Palestinians and anti-settlement activists. United Nations officials warn the trend is changing the map of the West Bank, entrenching Israeli presence in the area.

Some 500,000 Israelis have settled in the West Bank since Israel captured the territory, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war. Their presence is viewed by most of the international community as illegal and a major obstacle to peace. The Palestinians seek all three areas for a future state.

For now, displaced families of the village have dispersed between other villages near the city of Jericho and near Hebron further south, said residents. Some sold their sheep and are trying to move into the cities.

Others are just dismantling their structures without knowing where to go.

"Where will we go? There’s nowhere. We’re scattered,” said Zayed, the resident, “People’s situation is bad. Very bad.”

An Israeli settler herds his flock near his outpost beside the Palestinian village of Ras Ein al-Auja in the West Bank, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

A Palestinian resident of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank burns trash, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Palestinian children play in the West Bank village of Ras Ein al-Auja, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Palestinian residents of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank pack up their belongings and prepare to leave their homes after deciding to flee mounting settler violence, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Palestinian residents of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank pack up their belongings and prepare to leave their homes after deciding to flee mounting settler violence, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)