100 Years of Disney with Estée Preda

We recently teamed up with acclaimed artist Estée Preda on an all-new collection of socks as part of our ongoing 100 Years of Disney celebration. For this third chapter, Estée took on Pocahontas, Mulan and Ariel from The Little Mermaid and re-imagined them in her very own aesthetic. We recently caught up with the talented Estée to learn more about both the woman and her vision behind this most recent collaboration. Have a read below.

How did you first discover that you wanted to work in art?

I’ve always been attracted to art but I had this romantic idea that you have to be born with some sort of artistic calling or talent, so I didn’t really allow myself to pursue art as a career until my mid-twenties. I was also a snowboard rat for the longest time and I used to make all-female snowboard movies. Looking back now, documenting snowboarding was more of an outlet to expressing my creativity and a gateway to becoming a fully assumed visual artist.

Besides art what else are you interested in?

To be perfectly honest, I’m completely obsessed with art and everything I do revolves around it. For example, I love going to thrift stores and antique shopping, but I see it as a way of finding inspiration through interesting pieces of art I could stumble upon. When I get into something, I really go all-in, so it’s hard for me to make time for other things.

For your “Disney 100” project with Stance, why did you choose Pocahontas, Mulan and The Little Mermaid? What was your inspiration behind these designs?

A funny thing is that I have never actually seen those movies! I was more of an Alice in Wonderland and Beauty and the Beast-type of girl, but I thought it would be interesting to paint those characters based only on what I saw in the trailers as a child. It’s a bit like those medieval depictions of animals drawn from memory or even without having even seen the creatures at all, which is a lot of my approach to painting, in general.

Where can our audience learn more about Estée Preda?

If you want to see more anatomically incorrect creatures, you can follow me on Instagram at @esteepreda or visit my website at www.esteepreda.com