Tack is Creating Kinky, Genderless Jewelry For Everyone

Charlotte Chanler is all about the luxury. The creator of Tack makes adornments and panties for everyone, making a point out of gorgeousness and genderlessness. Their pieces are not just about look (though they do look amazing), they're about the feel, incorporating a vast range of opulent textures to appeal to the senses. Drawing on kink culture, equestrian culture, and romantic oil paintings, Charlotte's collection is a unique representation of their interests and their dreams for the jewelry industry.

Related | We Need Tack's Gorgeous Gender-Inclusive Jewelry

Though Tack pieces speak for themselves, we sat down with Charlotte to talk about their love of grapes and thoughts on gender-inclusivity in fashion.

OUT: How did the idea for Tack first come about?

Charlotte Chanler: The idea for Tack came from a couple different places, I think that it really formed from my background in fine arts. It's a manifestation of what I think is a good representation of the type of art I'd like to be making, which is inclusive art. Specifically, the jewelry is reflective of non-gendered design, which is something that's really important to me and that I saw a need for in our culture.

There's a ritual and process in doing horse tack. Do you want people to have the same sort of adornment process with your pieces?

Yes! That's a really beautiful connection, horses in my life have been really important, but I think that the symbolic relationship between humans and horses is such an undeniably powerful connection. It's something we can all relate to in one way or another. I really do think that the methodical practice of finding things that will fit best and feel best is what's important. It's not what someone is telling you is the right thing.

Photography: CJ Riehl

I've read that you're inspired by dark oil paintings, as well as equestrian and kink cultures. What styles and painters are you drawn to specifically?

I totally adore romanticism, I love the old Dutch masters' paintings. I can find endless inspiration anywhere between the 15th century to the 18th century, I think that's really where I'm at. There's an artist who I love so much whose name is Johann Georg de Hamilton, or Bronzino. Often in these paintings, there aren't rules in the same way that our culture includes them. I think that involves gender and clothing or adornment especially -- it's so lavish and thoughtful.

I totally see that. It's luxurious and there are lots of boys looking very soft and femme. I love that.

Yeah, and even in the still lifes, there's this incredible chaos. There's always a beautiful bunch of grapes, but there's a fly in the corner.

Is that what you wanted the picture with the grapes coming out of the underwear to look like?

Totally! Yeah, that's a total reference to those still lifes. I definitely have some grape obsession that shows itself through that.

Photography: Ceca Photography

I've never heard of a grape obsession, that's great. I love all these textures you use -- the silk and metal and horsehair. Did you intend for people to have a visceral physical reaction to the combinations of your pieces?

Yeah, absolutely. It's very tactile and also, going back to those paintings, I think that I can really picture all those pieces living within those pseudo-surrealistic scenes. I think that the feeling of those materials, which are all also pretty inherently ancient materials, have their own relation to most people. They can identify with all of those, with the alchemy of gold and of silk and of horsehair.

It's modernizing the ancient.

Yeah, totally.

What are you working on right now and what do you see in the future of Tack?

Right now, I'm working on more pieces and collaborations. There's a tattoo artist I'm friends with who I'm going to work with on some underwear. I'm just developing my artistic community. That's been one of the most beautiful things about Tack for me. Beyond having a space and a context to be artistically expressive, it's so rich and nourishing to develop a community of such wonderful friends within the queer community through art. That's something I want to continue in the future -- expanding and learning and really exploring my own fluidity in that space.

Can you tell me a bit more about this collaboration with the tattoo artist? Are you just making underwear or will there also be tattoos in the works?

Ooh, that's interesting. They have a really incredible art style and I'm going to be using their drawings and designs on my underwear. I think I'm going start getting into some screen printing instead of embroidering. I'm excited about the transfer to a new process in that way.

Photography: Danny Scott Lane

What do you want your jewelry to express to people?

I want to express how strongly I feel about creating empowering pieces for people of all genders and redefining linguistics.

Yeah, adornment is very woman-oriented, like "get a necklace for her."

Exactly, and it's such a bummer! That's what I mostly see whenever I see jewelry. It's always she/her pronouns and it's so unrelatable. It's ironic to me because adornment is something that's been so inherent in our human species going back to antiquity. It's been for all genders always. It's strange that our modern world has missed the mark or lost that along the way.