Where are all the ladies? How a simple question by The Florist and The Gardener blossomed into DAW
Mona Ape — God Damn, God Damn 🎶
These lyrics to the NFT ode Ape Anthem by Mr. Black and Gproject played to an excited crowd of NFT enthusiasts for the first time last December in Miami and have been a highlight of every Desperate Apewives party since.
Mona Lisa is among the most popular art pieces of all time so it’s no surprise that the Desperate ApeWife crafted in her likeness is among the most coveted of the collection.
But how is it that a 16th century portrait became the inspiration for art in a popular NFT collection?
It all started with founders who come from the traditional art world and became immersed in NFT culture.
As a second generation art collector, The Gardener has spent a lifetime immersed in the art world. It wasn’t unusual for his days to be all about art and he’s made a career working with some of the largest fine art museums and galleries around the globe but last year, like so many of us, he was hit with the NFT bug.
It’s easy to fall down the rabbit hole, fast, in the NFT space. For The Gardener, it started with coming across traditional 1/1 art NFT’s through his professional role and he worked with several well known artists to bring their work to this new frontier. It started out as a side passion and then quickly became all he could think about.
His wife and business partner, the Florist, is both a lawyer and fashion connoisseur passionate about the impact of iconic style. She remembers vividly last year when the Gardener discovered the world of NFTs.
For three months straight it was the only thing he talked about day and night. The Florist listened to his excitement for months but didn’t have her own NFT. There hadn’t been a project that had captivated her yet and pulled her down the rabbit hole like The Gardener. In a sea of male PFPs and boys clubs the feminine touch was missing.
One day, The Gardener said something to the Florist in passing that changed everything.
“Where are all the ladies?”
This caught her attention. The Gardener was a Mutant Ape Yacht Club holder but she didn’t have an Ape of her own. They just weren’t something she identified with. She wanted something beautiful and feminine.
Where were the ladies? Why weren’t there any lady apes?
That moment, the idea for Desperate ApeWives was born. The Gardener, The Florist and their good friend Archer McCall set out to make it a reality and create a collection of unapologetic female apes. They wanted the collection to be more than just apes but to be a time capsule celebrating influential trends and iconic women throughout history. Every trait needed inspiration. The female apes would create a journey through timeless fashion. They would be go-getters. They would show that there is no one right way to be a woman. From superheroes like Wonder Woman, to real life heroes like Nurses, or to women just being uniquely themselves; it was time for women to share the spotlight in the NFT Space and show that women can be whoever they want to be.
The Florist spent countless hours researching ideas for the traits and working with Archer to make her phone filled with inspiration photos a reality.
She wanted the traits to be inspired by real looks and real people who are cultural leaders. But she also wanted the apes themselves to be modeled after real female apes. Take a look at a Desperate ApeWife closely and you will notice their noses form the silhouette of a heart. This was a detail The Florist picked up on watching a documentary on female apes and Archer incorporated it into the designs.
This is just one of the many details taking inspiration from the real world and we will be sharing some of The Florist’s inspiration pictures and stories behind specific traits in the coming weeks on Twitter.
First up is one of the iconic women The Florist knew had to be included in the collection. Mona Lisa is the original “profile picture” and has a far greater influence on NFTs than one might imagine. According to Louvre Curator Jean-Pierre Cuzin, “The entire history of portraiture afterwards depends on the Mona Lisa. If you look at all the other portraits — not only of the Italian Renaissance, but also of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries — if you look at Picasso, at everyone you want to name, all of them were inspired by this painting. Thus it is sort of the root, almost, of occidental portrait painting.”
This portrait style inspires PFP collections popular in the NFT space. Mona Lisa looks effortlessly perfect in her Mona Ape form because PFP portrait style is inspired by her.
So for any critics that don’t believe PFPs are art — tell that to the Mona Lisa.
As seasoned art professionals, The Gardener and The Florist wanted to highlight the fine art origins of the PFP style to the traditional art world and succeeded with Mona Ape.
Mona Ape manages to celebrate the original iconic portrait and modern digital portraits at the same time. Now that’s a powerful lady! Mona Ape — God Damn, God Damn. 🎶
