We talked last time about style and personality… I’ve been looking for mine (style AND personality) for a long time now.

Well. There have been a few moments slightly more memorable than others:

1/ I am 8 years old and in love with my papa.

Just to have the privilege of spending as much time with him as possible, I become interested in everything he does. I even dress like him.
I’m also the biggest fan, since I was a kid, of George, the heroine from The Famous Five.

My look? Pants and short hair. I am a real tomboy in school and the little model girls (the perfectas of the time) look at me with a raised brow.

2/ I am 13 and in love with Marcel.

Marcel is the most handsome skater in middle school. He has no idea I exist.
Seeing that I don’t think of myself as someone with a personnality, I tell myself that the best thing to get noticed by him is:

a/ Copy his style. Baggy jeans. Baggy t-shirts. Chuck Taylors.

Result: Nothin’. Still has no clue of my existence.

b/ Refine my analysis. I observe that all of Marcel’s skater friends have super feminine girlfriends. I kick myself for being so stupid when I was younger (=2 days earlier). Of course, guys prefer real girls!!!

Shift in strategy. I become super girly.

Result: Nothin’. Still doesn’t know I exist.

I conclude that it isn’t with style that you win male affection. The day I figured that out, I met my first love. No, not Marcel. Marcel, to this day, still doesn’t know I exist.

3/ I am 15 and in love with Rei Kawakubo.

Whom I encounter in The Face, my new bible. Seeing that I have no clothing budget, I go on secret missions into my mother’s wardrobe.

I grab some of her most beautiful outfits (Alaïa? Mugler?) and with the help of a big pair of scissors, I turn them into Comme Des Garçons.

In Ajaccio, where I am living, no one understands my look except for me. Teenage Angst and despair. No one understands me ! And my mother even less, who flat out fainted the day she discovered my wrongdoings. Outraged by her lack of creativity, I bark at her that one day, Rei Kawakubo will adopt me and that way, everybody will be happy.

4/ I am 17 and in love with my best friend.

Our style? Agnès B skinny jeans, big sweater, Doc Martens. Always the same, always matching, every day, all the time. Our dresser? Shared. Our friends? Shared. Our favorite movies? shared (Rocky Horror Picture Show). Our personality? Wait, what did you say ? Our what?

5/ I am 21 years old and in love with Björk.

My look: Hiking shoes like Björk, mini-skirt like Björk, hair in a multi-bun like Björk, and military parka because not like Björk : I didn’t have the budget to shop at Hussein Chalayan.

One day, on a whim, just to see what it would be like, I shaved my head. Because I’m soooo woooooh! Rrrrrrrsgsgsg (guttural noises like Björk)!!! Crazy! Like Britney Björk.

6/ I am 24 and in love with a rocker.

Skinny jeans (you can’t find them back then, takes forever in vintage shops, but, hey, between two rock concerts, I have aaaaaaall the time in the world) pointy ballet flats (you can’t find them back then, takes forever in vintage shops, but, hey, between two rock concerts, I have aaaaaaall the time in the world) vintage fur (So easy to find, pfffff, annoying), cigarette in one hand, beer in the other, backstage pass around my neck.

A few years later, I realize I don’t like beer and you can see the concert better if you’re in the audience. It’s not like the venue is packed, anyway…

7/ I am 26 and in love with Zara.

Went well with my budget as a newbie to the workforce. In the span of a couple months, my wardrobe consists of 80% Zara. Zara becomes my religion, and just like mass, I make sure to go once a week and soon I have no idea how I ever got dressed in the morning before Zara.

Result: Same look as all my friends. No wait… Same look as my entire city ! No. Same look as all of France!!! No, same look as the entire world!

8/ I am 27 and I am broke.

I quit my job to work as a freelance illustrator. Bohemian life here we come! Even H&M is considered luxury, it’s the rock bottom of shopping. It’s the fashion juice cleanse. The only thing I can’t stop buying is magazines. Ahhh ! Land of dreams !

9/ I am 30, I am an illustrator and I have a blog!!!

Fashion blogs were born in France at the same time fashion mass market explodes. Zara, TopShop, H&M, it’s also the start of collaborations with designers (The War For a Jacket by Karl Lagerfeeeeeeld!!!!)… We are all overshopping.

And I am starting to make a living on my illustrations, and so after the fashion juice cleanse, it’s a total relapse: Instead of staying calm and buying just a few good pieces, I ruin myself with “good fashion deals” and stupid private sales.

It’s the worst period for me in terms of style. I am not dressing for me. Not even for a guy or my best friend but just to try to be fashionable.

Like for example, when Phoebe Philo was with Chloé. You remember those baby doll dresses? Can you imagine me in a pseudo Chloé baby doll dress? No? Me neither.

But I did it. Really guys, it was the dark ages.

10/ I Don’t Have Enough Perspective To Comment On The Years That Follow But:

My style found its footing again and went back to fundamentals: man’s closet and short skirts, among some others. I still have moments where I panic and suddenly try to become as sexy-cool as Emmanuelle Alt or as sexy-chic as Carine Roitfeld but moments like those usually don’t last a long time.

I’ve come to realize that no matter what I do, I can’t help but be me.

I still have a lot of things to learn in terms of evening dressing. Sometimes I panic when the runway shows come about. Stupid purchases, losing my head at the last minute, hysterical behavior right before heading out the door, and sometimes, a completely stupid outfit that gives me the desire to just die right then and there, as I always realize just how horrible the look is after it’s way too late to change it.

But I’m sure we’ve all been there.

Even Carine Roitfeld.

We forget quickly. What we remember are the moments when people look the most beautiful and feel most at home in their own skin. That’s what sticks with us, what we hold dear and what is most important, don’t you think?

Translation : Tim Sullivan

Today, I want to republish – and to have it translated in english for the first time ! – that text I wrote in …2007, just before the big bun became my everyday classic !!! Kisses and have a wonderful Sunday!

I sometimes get the craziest fashion ideas that make their way into the deep back recesses of my virtual lookbook, full with platinum hair, florescent leggings, and Westons (actually, that’s been done). And sometimes, a little nugget from my sub-conscious fashion sense makes its way by accident into a drawing and reminds me of my crazy ideas of the past.

Sometimes all this makes its way into a party itself… Take for example our special Fuck Valentine’s Day party that we decided to rename (a little more modestly) It’s Complicated Party*. It’s a chic little affair** organized at the very chic Cé where the very chic Contessa gave me the chicest compliment saying “Wow, your hair looks so good when you let it down, Garance.”  To which Jen thought it time to add, “Yeah, it looks way better than that protestant bun you always like to wear.”

Yep.

I’m not the type to get offended, especially when the remark comes from a girl who still hasn’t gotten any flowers in the mail from St. Valentine and it’s almost midnight… (though they did end up coming… I wouldn’t have been so harsh.)

But yeah, I thought I had to do something.

I didn’t let my hair grow out just so that people would call me a nun!

I let my hair grow out so I could have fun with it, let it down, twist it, mousse it (yeah, okay, not too much with the moussing), to do up-dos, to be like Carrie Bradshaw, you know? Except brunette and with no Manolos. Okay, maybe more like a poor-man’s Carrie Bradshaw.

So back to the sudden appearance of my crazy idea, and the incredibly sound argument that any woman with things to do on her agenda can’t spend her entire life with her hair down***.

I thought about doing a bun. Yeah, the one in the picture, up high. And then there’s this picture here. And the bun Carrie has. Or even the editorial in Elle #3236 that was just so awesome that I thought about tattooing it all over my body just in case…

I even did a terrible job scanning in the Elle for you!

The thing that I’m wondering though is whether or not you can even do this in real life?

Or am I swimming too deeply in the deep-end of some fashion pool to realize that a bun like that is just going to make me look like a post-nuclear apocalypse Medusa?

If that’s the case, I’m begging you, please tell me.

Just write P.N.A.M. and I’ll understand.

———–

* What, you’re not on Facebook yet? Well, I guess that makes perfect sense. Feel free to stay that way and allow me to explain… on Facebook, you’re either single, in a relationship, married, it’s complicated, or in an open relationship which kind of seems like all of the above or something. I dunno.

** weirdly composed of almost all bloggers. I wonder if there is some relationship here between cause and effect? Do we maybe need to pry ourselves away from our screens and head out into the real world or something? The real world… a place with a million of nuanced options that lie between married and it’s complicated. Wait, everything isn’t just black and white?

*** Actually, I know tons of women who spend their entire life with their hair down, but sometimes you have to just let things be to keep the stream-of-consciousness spirit of the post. (If you didn’t understand anything I just said, don’t you worry one second, because I didn’t either.)

P.S. Remember my FIT Lecture I told you about on Wednesday? It’s tomorrow! If you’re in New York come join me! 4pm in the Katie Murphy Amphitheater, D Building, FIT (27th & 7th Ave)

Garance, I have extremely curly hair, much like yours. I’m wondering what products you use seeing as you seem to have the non frizz zone down to a science. Please share your secret!!! Magen.

Magen, hello! The goddess with the thrown together bun curly hair is talking to you. Okay, here we go…

It’s true, I’ve tried everything and I’ve realized two essential truths:

1/ Every head of hair is different and so what works for me isn’t necessarily going to work for you.

2/ Every location is different and the water and air (humidity levels) in any given place can completely change the texture of your hair.

So, it really comes down to you trying everything and adapting what works. For me, since getting here to New York, my hair has exploded. My curls are ten times crazier than they were in Paris and frizzies are my daily nightmare. Here’s the battalion of products I use just to calm my hair hysteria:

• Shampoo

- The Shampoing à la Moelle de Bambou by Leonor Greyl is my favorite. I feel like it thoroughly nourishes and protects my hair.

• Conditioner

- I tend to go with whatever’s here as long as it softens my hair. Right now, I really like Bumble and Bumble’s Let it Shine. Because really, what’s more important to me is :

• Leave in Conditioner

This is just crazy in my cabinet. I’ve got a million of them. My two favorites are:

- Creme with Silk Groom, by Kiehl’s : whenever my hair is just too crazy. This balm adds considerable weight to the texture and shine and is great for days when I don’t have time to really style my hair. It calms everything down and gives me some nice bouncy curls. Be careful not to put too much in though or it can get greasy.

- One of my all time favorites whether I’m in Paris, New York or Timbuktu (Never been, but you know what I mean), is the crème Oleo-Curl by Kérastase. It works great anywhere. It’s a lot lighter than the one from Kiehl’s and is so great when I have time to dry my hair because it gives it some nice curls without weighing it down. My hair is soft and shiny and not at all greasy.

And just because I’m always testing out new things, I bought some Moroccan Oil (haven’t tried it yet), the Supershine Moisturizing Cream by Oribe (tried it, sooo good), Brilliant Glossing by Fekkai (awesome) and still a million others that I’ll tell you about if I get good results.

One last thing… When I put my hair up (which is often), to avoid little frizzes escaping out, I spray a little shot of Elnett hairspray. And for really bad hair days, last time I talked to you about my dry shampoo.

There you have it, all my favorite products. Everything here I’ve used for years so go give ‘em a try.

Outside of that, I’ve recently discovered a cool new trick, I like to wash my hair in the evening. I dry it quickly and put in some leave in conditionner and I don’t know why but after a night on the pillow, my hair is super soft and not frizzy at all.

And there you go Magen! I hoped I answered your question? That’s it for my anti-frizz science!

What about you guys? Do you have any advice for curly hair that works for you?

——–

Other entries from the Reader’s Mailbox ?

What’s the perfect pant length?
How to wear black nail polish?
How to put together a functional (and fabulous) wardrobe?
How to take care of your eyebrows?
What do you think of juice cleanses?

And of course, if you want to ask me a question, you can do it here. Big hugs!

Translation : Tim Sullivan

After hearing all the hullabaloo about the Clarisonic brush (that vibrating facial brush), “My skin is softer than ever!!!” “I’ve never had pores so clear!” “I love my brush so much I take it to bed with me!!!” I ended up going to Sephora to see for myself…

As soon as I walked in, the Clarisonic stand jumped right out at me. It was as shiny as can be. Right smack dab in the middle was the brush, with the soft allure of a nightstand sex-toy on its throne. I walk up, feel its bristles. Wow, it really is so soft. I make it vibrate. Hmmm, good vibes.

I grab a sales clerk:

“What do you think of this thing? Is it a little to abrasive? What product do you use it with? I have shiny skin and my one and only goal in life is to get my skin to be matte. Would this work for me? And do the little bacterias sit around and multiply in the bristles?”

This is what she says:

“Oh no no no. I love this thing. It’s not abrasive at all! Just feel the brush, touch it, TOUCH IT!!! It’s so soft. You can use it with your usual makeup remover. And just for total disclosure, I have shiny skin too. I bought one and well, look at the result!!! HOW GREAT IS THAT!?!?!”

Surprised, I smile at her with wide eyes. Total disclosure – I was amazed by just how shiny her skin was, like, you could see it from across the store: Her skin was shiny, I mean shiny, like really really shiny!!! Worse than a glazed donut. And if that’s what it does… Euhhhh…

I leave empty handed, a little disappointed, but still a little intrigued.

Ok. It was time to give a call to my skin savior, my skin’s best friend, the guru of my happy pores, the person whom leaving behind in Paris is my biggest regret in life… My dermatologist, the dear Doctor Marie-Catherine Planté.

Right off the bat, I ask her what she thinks of Clarisonic. She doesn’t seem too convinced (remember, she was the one who told me to stop using water), tells me that she’s going to look into a few things, and a few days later, I get an e-mail from her… Here’s a quick synopsis:

“Bonjour Garance,

I took a look time to study this skin torture device! Like I told you on the telephone, I’m going to have to put myself in the con-column against this machine.

So. Keep it simple: Your skin,when it comes to your face, have sebaceous glands that secrete sebum, a little greasy film that protects it. By continually destroying this sebum which is a normal bodily function and a protector, you’re putting your skin in danger.

The more we scrub the skin, the more it thickens to protect us.

It’s the same with exfoliation. It’s paradoxical, but it actually makes the skin thicker. So you think you’re refining the texture of the skin, you’re actually doing the opposite. And all the tiny little cavities and other lesions will burrow deeper which can end up giving the skin a grainy looking appearance. The skin will become like a memory foam mattress!

I think women should respect their faces like they respect their Louboutins : no water, no brushes, no abrasive products.

Talk to you soon Garance!”

Well. I think I made up my mind… I will stick to my essentials.

Whet about you, what do you think ? What is your favorite way to clean your skin ?

PS : A big thank you to Dr. Planté!!!

Translation : Tim Sullivan

“Garance, have you ever tried a juice cleanse?” Sophie. 

Hi Sophie ! I have never tried… Ok, so what is a juice cleanse?

It’s a kind of detox, or I guess more like a fast using only fruit and vegetable juice and tons of New Yorkers inflict it upon themselves in January right after the holidays (and right before fashion week, ha!). If I ever come to you guys one day and say, “Actually, it turns out juice cleanses are awesome!!! Press me some more!”, just slap me.

Cause, you know, I don’t really get the whole thing.

Yeah, I get why everyone does it, especially in New York where everyone is obsessed with their weight (myself included, but to a degree that I don’t think is pathological quite yet. That said, give me another year and I’ll be eating boiled kale leafs for breakfast with the rest of ‘em.) and I think it’s not going too far to say that what people expect from a juice cleanse, in New York in 2012, is a quick way to lose weight*.

I don’t know if it works or not, or if your body really does need a good detox or not, and if it does, I’m not sure doing such extremes is the most helpful (I know for me, when I need a good detox (like after a few too many drinks), all I need is to make a tasty soup and that’ll put a smile on my face).

I just feel like it is such a perfect way to keep perpetuating the illusion that you can control your appetite (and therefore your weight, your body, your life). It’s such an efficient way to trigger food obsessions.

Maybe I’m wrong. I have a bunch of friends who love doing juice cleanses. 

Some of them tell me they stopped after a few days because they became totally depressive & mean and they spent all their time dreaming of really fatty steak and muffins. But others tell me that “Juice cleanses are so great!!! You feel so good! It’s so good for your skin!”

So now I’m wondering what you all think… Have you tried it?

Translation : Tim Sullivan 

——-

*Which is never a good idea… We all know that

Send your Reader’s Mailbox questions to: readersmailbox@garancedore.fr

Today, I want to republish – and to have it translated in english for the first time ! – that text I wrote in …2007. Kisses and have a wonderful sunday!

My mission on Wednesday, in preparation for an incredibly promising party, was to find the most amazing red lipstick.

After getting slapped in the face with freezing sleet, I ended up at Sephora looking sooo good, if I may say so myself: dripping, pale as a ghost, rather haggard like the girl who just came back from battling the elements, trying to project her fancy purse more than her physical well-being, as there are things that are just more important than ridicule and survival, as you all know.

I head straight toward a shopgirl who seemed pleasant enough, and I confided in her exactly what I needed: I’m looking for a red lipstick. No tint of blue, no orange, a red red, please and thank you.

I ended up seated on some kind of platform where everyone could admire my frightening state of disrepair. The shopgirl, Martha, looked at my lips with the eyes of an inquisitor.

“You need a leeep scrub.”

“Yeah yeah yeah, I know. You don’t know what I just lived through to get here.”

“Goood. I’ma do you a base.”

“Are you Italian? I love Italy!”

“No. I recommend for you this and this and this and this. I do your makeup. Don’t move.”

“You think that goes well with my complexion? Huh…”

…

“And Foilà: a leeep scrub, a leeep base, a leeep-liner, a leeepsteeke, and I tell you get these makeup removers for leeps. Gooodbye!” Wink.

You want me to pay 100 euros when all I wanted was lipstick, Martha?

I give her back her little wink, and summon all the courage I can. I leave everything right there on the desk, hold my jacket up to cover my face, avoiding the glaring eyes of Martha under the bright lights of Sephora and sneak out.

I ended up finding my leeepsteeeke right below my apartment, at a little pharmacy for a tenth of the price of that whole leeep arsenal.

And I gotta tell you, it looks good on meeeeee!

—————

I’m freelan… An entrepreneur. Okay, I’d like to think that I’m still freelance, but when you look at what I posted last week, it’s clear things have really changed. And since three many of you asked, here’s…

24 hours in the life of a Garance Doré, 2012 edition.

I wake up early. I hear my iPhone alarm 45 minutes after it started right at 7:00, hop out of bed and get on the same jogging pants from 2007 my yoga outfit.

Right after I take a quick look at Twitter drink a big glass of water, I do my daily 45 minutes of reading the ingredients on the back of the box of oatmeal of yoga and meditation totally synched up with Gwyneth Paltrow.

It’s 8:45 am and our employes are about to arrive. I have to put my best foot forward and lead by example on the road to success.
I keep daydreaming looking at Tumblr hop into the shower and put on a super cool chic outfit for my role as inspiring yet friendly boss.

It’s 9:00 and I’m still in my jogging pants ready to go on the starting blocks. Emily, my assistant, arrives with a big smile and her Starbucks mug and reminds me that I have a meeting.

Ah, Shit! Awesome! I totally forgot am totally ready: I’ve carefully prepared an outfit comprised of the first clothes I see in my closet that’s perfect for a spokeswoman such as myself, perfect hair, in knots brushed and ready, powerpoint by Emily that I of course forgot on her desk know by heart and off I go into the new and exciting day.

Whether I’m shooting, in a meeting, or brainstorming or totally paralyzed by all these ing words, I’m super productive until around 1:00 pm.

It’s time for lunch. Everyone knows that when you’re a career woman, you have to use every lunch to network. So every day I network with Scott someone different, just to keep filling my belly address book.

After lunch, I make my way back to the studio. Did I not mention that? I don’t have an desk. Nooope, I’m too disorganized creative for that.
I work sprawled out on my couch wherever inspiration leads me. Scott, and everyone else at the studio finds it super annoying inspiring.

They love to find traces of my total mess my incredible creativity strewn about everywhere. Hard drives, jump drives, drawing pads… With me, you never know when you’re going to slip on one of my art pens I’m going to start expressing myself through art.

Around 4:00 pm, I start stressing myself to death because I haven’t even started my post for the next day getting myself together for one of my many projects. I’m always super last minute super ahead of schedule with my blog, and that makes me as hysterical zen as can be.

To get my energy up, like all New Yorkers, I’m a big fan of the cookies from Grey Dog (500 calories) green tea.

At 7:30, everyone is still at the studio and I start trying to shoo my employees out. It takes them about a half hour. I don’t know why they love staying at the office so much but maybe it has something to do with the calming hysterical energy that I communicate throughout the day finally taking effect.

I calmly remind them that I that they all have lives, that even if they all love what they do, going out helps to keep you connected with the pulse of the world around you.

That said, I close the door behind them, hop into Scott’s arms and put on a movie, perfectly chill, and totally oblivious connected to the pulse of the world around us.

Translation: Tim Sullivan

Today, I want to republish – and to have it translated in english for the first time ! – that text I wrote in …2007 about the sales in Paris. I can’t believe I still have that scarf :-)

At the time this post is being written, I’m drowning in a sea of Rykiel pants that retrace the past 20 years of fashion, everything from its proudest moments to its most obscure. This is the opening of the Paris sample sales where the only thing missing is the present, which is to say, this winter’s collection, which I dream about night and day.

I still lug around a bag full of at least three pairs of 6ers*, a long cardigan that my friend Nina says is journeying from hell to heaven, striped, of course, and a whole bunch of  happy happy Rykieleries that I plan to slip on as soon as I get them paid for.

Right then I run into Géraldine in the most sublime scarf. The painful sting of jealousy is quick to follow. Lead only by greed, I swan dive into the box of scarves and come out, proud as can be with a green silky soft floral scarf with my initials right on there. Around my shoulders it goes and Géraldine has nothing to say but wow**.

It feels so it. I need this scarf. How much is it? Not that I really care… This has to be mine. I head over to one of the saleswomen. I grab her by the collar and I threaten her with the power of my 6ers if she doesn’t tell me the deal.

Her: Surprised look.
Me: Hagard look.
Her: Knowing sardonic gaze.

Her: “But this isn’t a scarf! It’s the fabric we use to cover the bottom of the bins!”

Me: I feel like Jessca Stam must have felt on March 4th, 2006***.

A few steps behind me, Géraldine can barely hold it together she’s laughing so hard.

Okay so what do you think I do?

I go and find the manager and I tell him he needs to give me the bottom of the bin fabric. She says no. I say yes. She says no way. I say I’ll pay! She says we don’t even give these to employes. I say name your price. She says okay fine, wait here.

She comes back with a little box and says, “On the house.”

I always say that in life, there are those who carry around a loaded gun, and those who dig****.

Me, I dig.

———————

* 6 inches of heel.  Géraldine says it’s a little drag queen. “Garance, put those down before you get hurt!”

** This is the kind of vocabulary that comes out during the big sales in Paris just by the mere power of the low prices around you: “wow,” “ugh,” “no way,” “too expensive,” “I’d break it,” and of course, “I just don’t know why that exists.”

*** Thank you to M1 for her links to these videos of models falling on their faces. It’s terribly cruel, terribly funny!

Don’t tell me you haven’t seen The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly.

Translation : Tim Sullivan

Have you seen It’s a Brad Brad World? What’d you think?

What? You don’t know Brad? Don’t worry, it’s not a problem. I’ll catch you up.

Brad G is the former assistant stylist to Rachel Zoe. Rachel Zoe is a stylist to the stars (say it like you mean it), who, thanks to her reality TV show, has become more famous than the stars she styles.

Brad was her assistant and was always around on her reality show and when she fired him, I mean, when he left, well, when… Okay, when he started his own career as a stylist to the stars he naturally got his own reality show.

So it’s called It’s a Brad Brad World and after I saw that it’s not really interesting, except to note this whole fashion-reality thing is becoming a genre into itself, and loooooves to give this image of fashion : totally hysterical, populated by egocentric freaks, pathetic and hilarious at the same time, capable of crying of joy just at seeing a new Louboutin and getting red with anger just because of the length of a skirt and saying things, in all seriousness, like:

“It’s a famine of beauty !” (Andre Leon Talley).

When I watch these TV shows, I always have the same reaction:

Reaction 1/ Is fashion seriously this crazy?
Reaction 2/ Does fashion seriously deserve to be caricatured like this?
Reaction 3/ Nonononono, Scott, don’t change the channel, gimme two more minutes!

I talked to Scott and he told me that these reality TV shows show just 1% of the fashion world.
You barely ever see the 99% of the fashion world who work without always being in the spotlight, who are elegant but discrete, and who love what they do and don’t need to talk about themselves 24/7.
But with that representation on TV it’s not surprising that everyone seems wary of fashion and doesn’t take it seriously…

Okay, at the same time:

It just cracks me up and if you take it with the necessary distance it doesn’t bother me at all.

Show-business isn’t all bad. Michael Kors is succeeding in being incredibly successful on reality TV AND being a designer who’s taken seriously. Condé Nast just started getting its feet wet in the entertainment business. Tyra Banks has started a real empire. Kate Lanphear, fashion director of Elle US, and who you know all too well from MTV’s The City.
And with the loss of advertising dollars the magazines have faced since the internet has blown up, they don’t really have a choice: they have to diversify.

To end, if there is one thing that I’ve always loved about fashion, it’s its ability to accept what others call “freaks.” We often think of fashion as this world where you can only exist if you’re beautiful, skinny, or have tons of money. But when you look a little closer…

You can work in it until the end of your days, or start incredibly young. You could have not (formally) studied fashion at all but still put together an amazing career. You can be gay, straight, black, white, fat, beautiful, ugly, small, dress as crazy as can be or dress the exact same each and every day – if you work hard and have talent, you’ll be accepted.

Very few industries can say the same thing, right ? What do you think ? Does this whole “reality fashion” craze drive you nuts or do you like it?

Translation : Tim Sullivan

Today, I want to republish – and to have it translated in english for the first time ! – that text I wrote in …2007 about my life as a free lancer. You’ll see that I was totally lazy my working methods have changed drastically !

—–

I’m freelance so I work a lot at home. How else would I be able to blog at the weirdest hours of the day? What? You blog from work ? Noooooooo…

Luckily for me, my cat gets up early. Right at the crack of dawn, I’m pulled out of bed by my gross gracious hungry feline. I put on some old jogging pants elegant and casual outfit, I drink an espresso a fresh squeezed OJ, and make a nice little breakfast looking at my e-mail out at the sea.

After pillaging the magazine rack down the block doing some yoga, I fall asleep in the bath take an enlivening shower; I dry off looking through some blogs at my planner. For hours later, totally guilt ridden with a sense of accomplishment, I make a few phone calls.

This is usually when I like to start putting together some pasta steamed vegetables that I’ll enjoy with Ellen Degeneres a few friends. A quick coffee nap and then back to work.

Afternoons are my favorite. Everything is calm and it’s the perfect time to go shopping get going on some bigger projects. Time flies in department stores when you’re really concentrated.

6 o’clock, panic sets in it’s time to take a break. I make some tea that I like to have with some nutella an apple. Then it’s back to work for an hour or two, just to stop feeling so guilty finish up a few projects.

My man is on his way home and the end of the day is near. I’m exhausted, but I have to do some networking at the Baron at a high-profile party. I get home totally stressed out enchanted by this incredibly productive day, ready to start fresh the next.

Anyway, there’s no way I’d get out of my bed for less than $10,000. What, you don’t believe me ?