The Fashion Time Magazine

French Vogue editrix Carine Roitfeld revealed in her interview with Acne Paper some juicy tidbits to share with the masses. For example, she never wears jeans or mini skirts, she needs a psychiatrist just to understand what she did in her pictures, she thinks the Russian and Chinese lack a clothes culture…and many more. In case, you don’t know who Carine Roitfeld is, we can remind you. She is the woman behind THOSE provocative Gucci ads (shaved G’s on girls private parts, group sex, etc.) and yes, she is the first editor in fashion who put a transvestite on the cover.

Jeans make her look older:

I only wear jeans and flat shoes when I am on holiday, never for work. Jeans suit me very well but it’s not for me anymore. It’s horrible to say but it has something to do with age. I have good legs, so I prefer my skirt lengths and my high heels. It’s like my uniform. I never wear jeans. Jeans are for my assistants… I wore knee-length jeans skirts. I never wear miniskirts because they make me look older.

She thinks people in Russia, China and Eastern Europe don’t have a culture of clothes:

If people ask me to describe my look I always say: quite classic with an edge. Look at my dress. It doesn’t look like I have on anything special, it’s more the way you mix the clothes and how you move, how you open your bag, how you cross your legs – just little things that make a difference. With French women you first see the woman and then you see the clothes. Imagine other countries like Russia or China, even Eastern Europe. They don’t have the culture of clothes so they want to show that they can afford to buy a Dolce & Gabbana bag, they want to show labels. In France you cannot see what labels we are wearing. It is very snobby.

She loves the Yves Saint Laurent woman:

You know the idea of the Saint Laurent woman. What a dream she was: wearing trousers, hand in the pocket, no handbag, transparent shirt. I love that woman. It is exactly who I would have loved to be if I could choose. So I would have to go blonde because he loved the blondes, and I would have to have bigger breasts. But it’s the idea of the woman I love, and I try to repeat this in my magazine.

and Cartier too:

Do you know why? Because Cartier is the jewelry you give to your mistress. It is not the jewelry you buy for your wife. I heard that and it might be totally wrong, but it is this idea and I love Cartier because of that.

She doesn’t weigh her editors:

In France we drink wine and eat cheese and bread and finally we stay slim. I am skinny, and all my girls are skinny. People think I weigh my girls in the office but I do not. We have a scale in the office because we travel a lot and sometimes you can’t bring more than 25 kilos a case. It’s just to weigh my luggage, not to weigh my editors. Still, you know it’s easier to look great in a dress when you are skinny. But I like a bit of curves and I like to do stories with different kinds of women because I see beauty in everyone.

She has the power of making a model a supermodel:

It’s great to have the power. I understood some years ago that we have a lot of power. I never thought I would get power before. The power to make everyone you want successful. You have the power to make a photographer a big photographer. You have the power to make a designer a top designer. You have the power to make a model a supermodel. It is great this power, so you have to use this power in a good way.

But feels unrecognized:

It’s funny, because I never get awards for fashion. I’ve got an award for being the best-dressed person. I got an award for amfAR. I was on the Time magazine list of the most influential people last year. But I never got an award for my fashion pictures.

She talks about her old Gucci days:

Now we have to put the foot on the pedal [with sexually charged images]. We can’t go as strong as [Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin] did back then. When I started doing all the Gucci campaigns with Tom Ford and Mario Testino we pushed so much and after that everyone copied it. Everyone tried to be this Gucci girl that we created. So I am sure we were part of this tendency. It was good at the time because we were the first ones to do these kinds of images to sell a product, and after that everyone kept on doing it. I think now it’s too much. It’s no fun. It’s not chic. We always had a chic eye on everything, even when we shaved the G on the girl. A lot of girls started shaving their p*ssy in different ways after that so it really became a trend. Many artists played with the pictures too, so it was fun.

And thinks she needs a psychiatrist:

I think sometimes I need a psychiatrist just to understand what I did in my pictures. You know, I have been repetitive about eroticism. And knives. Why do I put knives in the pictures? I hate knives. So it would be very interesting to ask a psychiatrist to understand what you are doing in a picture.

She and Mario Testino are great friends:

There was a moment when I was working a lot with Mario Testino and people thought I was a nymphomaniac. I said: Why? And they said: Because your pictures are always about sex. But Mario and me are just great friends. When we finish a story that might have been very sensual and erotic, we go back to the hotel for a cup of camomile tea. So finally we have a very normal life.

She compares Vogue with alcohol, dessert, and coffee:

Do you remember the film Babette’s Feast? Babette spends many weeks and all her money on preparing one meal. And it’s a little bit the same with Vogue. It seems simple when you look at it but if you look behind, it’s a big process to give you this magazine. Okay, we are in good business condition but we also do it out of pleasure. It’s not just the money. We take pleasure in making a wonderful lunch, with the appetizers, the main course, a bit of alcohol, dessert, and coffee. Everything is there to make you have a great lunch.

She keep on being a dreamer in the stories:

Everyone is just anxious. Now it is product, product, product. We were big dreamers, and it made all the difference. When I am doing a story I try to be a dreamer. Now I have a market and I have advertisers but we still have freedom because we are talking to our readers, not the advertisers. Of course, when advertisers come into our magazine they become partners but not on every level. They do not carry the magazine. So I keep on being a dreamer in the stories that I’m doing.

Not every woman over 35 in France is addicted to Botox:

We have the sort of beautiful older woman here in Paris. People like Loulou de la Falaise and Betty Catroux, all these beautiful looking women over 60… So there is culture here in France that even if you are older you can stay beautiful. Some people do surgery but it’s subtle and the teeth are less white. I think it’s less common in France that a man at the age of 50 buys a Porsche and gets a young girlfriend.

The French are not into gyms:

Oh, there are some overweight women here but it’s not like in America. Going to the gym is not like in New York where you have these huge places where hundreds of people are running together. This doesn’t exist in France. We don’t have the space and it’s really not in the French mentality.

source: TFS