IN THE SHADE OF THE PLAZA’S WEST SIDE, through an old wooden doorway and up a narrow, steep flight of stairs, you find the offices of Webster Enterprises. Here sits Christopher Webster III who, with his father, runs an advisory firm offering strategic planning, investment analysis, as well as sales and marketing consulting.
Christopher himself is an editor, a publisher, a musician, a gallerist, a real estate broker, and a shopkeeper. He’s also involved in multiple tech start-ups. “I’ve got a lot of passions and there’s a very interesting overlap between the things I’m working on,” he explains.
Most of all, Christopher is a curator. This office is the home of a revolving art collection, which has just been expanded to house his new fashion line.
He believes the curation of apparel is just as important as the curation of fine art. In fact, maybe the two are inextricably related. He also thinks curation – the mix of the Plaza and the Siler Rufina Nexus, the mix of industrial and adobe, the mix of historic cultures and newly arrived young people(!) – is what makes this town so interesting. Just avoid the old picture postcard adobe version of Santa Fe. Drink up what’s coming, because curation requires constant change. That’s what makes Santa Fe great.
In your gallery, you curate art. Why the jump into fashion?
It’s interesting to think about the intersection and the divide between art and design. Think about fine art and think about interior design or apparel – we specifically silo them from each other. There are totally different ways we think about both of those. I would say we see very little overlap. Why?
Because when you actually look at the difference between art and design, there’s just an artificial divide, when in fact, there’s actually a lot of overlap in that Venn diagram. When people come into the gallery to look at art, many wind up getting interested in the apparel. And vice versa. I realized pretty early on that that intersection in this hybrid model was more engaging and made people more excited.
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Photo Andy Johnson
