Jeremy Scott Meets His Match in Katherine Bernhardt—Go Inside Their Joint Exhibition in Kansas City

So where do their complementary interests in pop cultural artifacts come from? Is there something in the water in Kansas? Bernhardt, who starts with spray paint on upright canvases, then puts them on the floor and adds watery acrylics, which give her work its drippy panache, chalks it up to plain coincidence, though of course there’s nothing plain about what either of them do. “I think a painting of things is better any day than an abstract painting,” she says. Scott has the same kind of aversion to conceptual fashion. “I’m a director at heart,” he says. “I love a scene, a scenario, and I think things should be alive and vibrant and boisterous and fun—that’s where the energy comes from.”

For the 10 years he creative-directed Moschino, Jeremy Scott split his time between Milan and California, where he owns two John Lautner homes in LA and Palm Springs. As a young designer, he put on his shows in Paris, and palled around with Karl Lagerfeld. But Scott has never forgotten his roots. It was the rare backstage conversation in which he didn’t mention growing up in Kansas, and even rarer when his family members weren’t seated in the front row. Tomorrow, he’s giving his mom and pop a new reason to dress up—an opening night party, practically in their own backyard. And, as it happens, Scott actually will be tuning in for Sunday’s big game. Naturally, he’s rooting for the hometown team. “You want to see the three-peat,” he cheered, “because it’s never happened.”