If you’re like me, you’ve heard a lot of talk about Carine Roitfeld and her book these past few months… But really, you had no idea what it looked like! I finally just got my hands on a copy (see what I mean when I say I’m a little late on everything these days?!!) and I think it’s so great.

It’s big and soft, the layout is simple and beautiful and the way the text works with the pictures makes it a great read.

Here are a few images of my favorite pages. If you’d like, you can try to spot among them :

- The recipe for Carine’s coolitude.
- The editorial that inspired an ultra-scandalous Gucci campaign (look closer!)
- The perfect outfit if you’re pregnant.
- A page that made me feel super guilty… The “thank you notes” page. This is the kind of the thing I have to learn to do more often!
- The photo that helped me discover Crystal Renn… Shot in 2005, before anyone knew who she was!
- A few fashion photos that really meant a lot to me as a teenager… And that definitely influenced my style today.
- An ad campaign shot BY Carine.
- The proof that even Carine has had average hair days.
- My favorite photo of Helena Christensen.
- The cutest dedication ever. We’re all with you, Sisley!

Olivier Zahm, Alex Wiederin, Cathy Horyn and Carine Roitfeld all did an amazing job. You really feel welcomed into her world. It’s chic, warmhearted and cool.

Carine Roitfeld: Irreverent by Carine Roitfield, Olivier Zahm (Editor), Alex Wiederin (Editor), Cathy Horyn (Contributor), Published by Rizzoli

Translation : Tim Sullivan

Seeing as I love the “Reader’s Questions” section in the magazines I read (the best are in french Voici – a funny and as shameful equivalent of People magazine -, I think, but how would I know seeing as I don’t read Voici at all?!) and I get so many impossible questions (Honestly, I’m the last person that should be giving advice as you’ll see below), I thought we could try to respond together to a few of the questions I’ve been sent.

For example, take this letter from Fanny :

“If you get the time, as I’m sure you have this problem to, can you tell me how do you deal with pant length… especially flares, those that have to be at the perfect length with heels but that also look great with flats during the summer…

Outside of buying two of everything (which I still haven’t done), what’s a good solution?”

And here’s my response:

Hello Fanny! As I’m the type who loves to alternate between flats and heels even in the same day, I have to tell you that I’ve found only one solution to the problem and it’s not pretty – I stopped wearing flares. That said, since when you close the door to one problem you open the window to another (Wait, is that the expression?) I started loving wide leg pants – I bought some at Theyskens Theory, blue ones, and they’re just to die for – that got stuck for a moment with an unfinished hem:

What am I supposed to do? Tailor them to go with heels? But how high of heels? And they look so good with flaaaaats too… Aw shucks, another pair of pants that are going to go un-tailored for six months because I just forget them in some corner of my closet, I said as I walked into my room holding my pants at my waist.

And right then, a lightbulb went off! I realized the amazing thing about wide leg pants : you can wear them high or low on your waist.

High-waisted with flats and low-waisted with heels.

Uhhh. Fanny, I didn’t respond to your question at all seeing as my response doesn’t work with flares which definitely require a much closer fit. To make up for it, why don’t I tell you why I stopped wearing flares…

One day, tired of my 12 inch heels, I got out my security blankets (my ballet flats) from my bag… And rolled up the hem of my flare telling myself there’d be no chance I’d run into anyone that late Parisian afternoon. And off I went on my way.

I almost started finding this little Charlie Chaplin look pretty charming. When suddenly, I ran into…

Carine Roitfeld.

I said hello, absolutely mortified.

She barely glanced down at my feet and really, she’s just so cool I don’t think she took so much of a note of it, but none the less, I stopped wearing flares right then and there. :-)

I guess it’s pretty clear that you’d be a thousand times better than me at giving Fanny advice… What do you guys think?

———

PS : If you want to ask me any questions that I’ll answer totally off topic, please don’t hesitate. You can send them here.

Translation : Tim Sullivan

Very fast post right now, cause we just arrived in Paris with a train that was 10 hours late (I am soooo exhausted. 10 hours !!!) and that right now I am super excited to go to Dries Van Noten, my first Paris show.

Paaaaaaaris !

So, let me introduce you to my Miu Miu shoes, that I chose in black cause I want to wear them as often as possible I love them so much. See ? I followed your advice !!!

… And I give you the little story that goes along with it :

Last time, I was chatting with Marina from Style.com, and she tells me with a slight brasilian accent :

“I love your shoe !”

As Marina has a great sense of humor, I tell her :

“Wait, which one ?”

She didn’t understand right away. Talking about a pair of shoes using the singular is so much a part of the fashion language that you don’t even realize anymore it actually sounds weird.

It’s like saying : “I love your coat ! Who is it ?”

Anyway, look at the picture. On my desk, close to my shoe (cause that’s how you’re supposed to say it)(Ahah)(Yeah no, don’t ask me why I put my shoe on my desk, I don’t have an answer to that Big Fashion Question) and to my girl who never travels without candles Diptyque candle (no, I actually would love to be that girl but no, if that candle is here it’s just another story)(that said, I am the kind of girl who brought her organic oatmeal to Paris, isn’t that kind of parfaita a little bit ?)

Oh my god, I have to stop telling you every single thing that goes through my crazy brain !

Sorry. Tired, train, all that.

Well close to my shoe and my candle is a letter printed with the CR initials.

Tadaaaaaa ! It’s an invite for Carine Roitfeld‘s “Bal des Vampires” that will happen during that fashion week to celebrate the launch of her book.

I am superexcited, but also superstressed !!!

Why ? Oh, come on, you know me. I am sure you know why I am stressed.

So… ?

Why, do you think ?

While waiting for Prada, what do you do ? You socialize ! Caught in conversation, here are :

1/ Two of my favorite stylists on earth.
2/ Very Important People and a dress I love. Even if it’s not Prada :-)
3/ Two super trendy editors and a lot of feathers.

(Click on the arrows if you don’t really get what I mean.)

So, what do you think they were talking about??

So, will you guess who those Sergio Rossi shoes belong to ?

–

… It was Carine Roitfeld! She has this way of sitting that is so specific to her that I am not surprised a lot of you recognized her !

Ps : I love the shoes too!!! Kisses!

III Crystal & Me

“What do you think? How cool is this mask?” Crystal Renn asked me showing off her silver mask that made her look like cat-woman from space.”
I love it. I want the same one.
“And the whip? What do you think? Do I need the whip?” she asks me showing me a silky whip snapping it against her thigh.
I love the look. It’s so Newton. Wow. Yeah, get the whip.

And the suddenly, she says, “Okay wait. I’m going to go get my outfit on to show you and you can tell me if it needs anything. I have it with me.”

I took advantage of this little interlude to realize that Crystal Renn is right there in front of me, scantily clad, and asking my opinion of her whip, and then I remembered why I was there to begin with. I picked out a few things to try on and hoped into the dressing room next to hers.

I don’t know if you’ve ever tried on an Agent Provocateur corset, but it’s a pretty funny little exercise. Because yeah, a corset is pretty much impossible to put on all by yourself. You need someone’s help. You become pretty intimate pretty quickly with the hostesses who strap you in or lace you up… You tell yourself the same thing you say at the doctor : No need to worry. She’s seen quite a few.
So, pretty quickly there you are barely clothed in the dressing room.
And Crystal, weeeeeeelllll, she’s a model. Scantily clad ain’t nothin’ to her.

So there we were, Crystal Renn and me, exchanging notes on our outfits.

“Wow, that corset makes your breats look great!!!” she says to me.
I love “plus-sized” models.
“And what do you think of mine?”

She was wearing a skintight jumpsuit, all in black, just to die for. Around her neck was a sort of giant feather collar… So classy. Add on her silver mask and her whip, right in front of my eyes she turned into a living fantasy.

Eyes Wide Shut ? Check.

Ohhhh great. I’m not gonna look stupid in my trench.

IV – The party.

The only really good thing about being so late to a party is that you don’t have time to ask too many questions. I would have loved to just burst out crying on myself for a little half hour (no dress, no mask, flat hair) but right when I opened my mouth to sob, Scott stopped me :

“Uh oh, no time. It’s 10. Let’s go.”

Pfffff, not even allowed to complain. I had tied my hair up (no choice), closed my trench like a dress (no choice), and made up my eyes AND lipsticked my lips (even is you’re not supposed to do that at all).

Ah, I almost forgot. To complete the picture here, “the price of preparing for party of the century in the classiest way”, I have to tell you… We realized at about 9:59, right when we were totally ready to head out, that we were DYING OF HUNGER.

We had about 3 mins to find something to eat (Yeah, I have nothing at all in my fridge during fashion week.)

And here’s how we ended up dressed to the nines eating McDonalds on the floor (mountains of clothes everywhere around the apartment, what’s necessary to get ready for Carine’s masquerade ball).

V – The Party – but for real this time, not the pre-party with Mc Donald’s.

We get the rue de l’Université, into Karl Lagerfeld’s mythic apartment. It’s almost a mansion with a huge garden in the heart of Paris. Sublime. The ideal place for a masquerade.

Before you can enter the party, we are asked to do the photo call… It’s where you pose in front of a wall of photographs, like in Cannes, you know? It feels weird to me, I say no. Little by little, I am getting used to people recongnizing me on the street and it’s always very nice, but there are some things that I just don’t know how to do.

So now we’re making our way into the actual party. It’s beyond fantastic, I feel like in a movie. Everybody really played the game. The outfits are mesmerizing. Everyone has a mask on. You recognize them… sorta… and are never quite sure. Everyone gives you a big hug and then asks you “Who are you?” It right away gives a perfect lightness to the atmosphere.

We take a tour through the rooms.

In a dark little corner, in costume, I see Hedi Slimane and I get chills up my spine.
On the stairs, a strangely beautiful couple are heading up the steps, intertwined. She’s got a long dress on and he’s in a black suit… Both are masked and I can’t make out who they are until I see that the guy has a tattoo on his neck. “It’s Freja!!!” I whisper to Scott. She hears me and smacks the ground with her whip… and then sends me a huge smile.
In the garden, Alexander Wang’s gang is complete. He cracks everyone up with his disguise : no venetian mask, he’s wearing a… Ski mask. The kind you wear to rob banks.
Giovanna comes and sits next to me. She’s wearing studded Louboutin leggings that must weight 200 lbs. She gotta take some breaks. We have a cigarette (Cool French Girl attitude, right?) and then off she goes and off I follow.

We get back to the main room.

And there I see… a living sculpture. Hidden behind a spectacular feathered mask, weaved into a white dress with a giant train is Anna Dello Russo. She is amazing… But she can’t really move. So we make a circle of friendship around her. We bring her something to drink and make conversation….

And Crystal Renn finds me and gives me a big hug. I think this woman is an angel.

The party is everything I could imagine and more. The second I stepped foot in the house I completely forgot about my outfit. We danced, we drank, we gossiped and told secrets. It’s very subversive and very refined at the same time. And it’s soooo beautiful. I could have spent hours just watching people go by, beautiful and happy in their costumes. It gave me the feeling I was at one of those mythic parties where you see the photos and everyone says they don’t exist anymore.

It was the ideal party where every age mixed, where the temperature was always perfect, where the champagne was cold and never far, where you had enough space to dance, or find yourself alone in a comfy corner. Yes, it still exists. Like a dream. It’s rare, but it exists.

Eventually, it was time to leave. Once we got outside, no taxi in sight. Aaaaah, reality. Paris. It rains, it rains, it rains…

Oh I don’t care. I’ve got a trench on.

Bonne journée !

———-

Translation : Tim Sullivan

Three days. That’s how it took me to get in the groove of fashion week.

Three years after my very first shows, what has changed? At first I was mesmerized by eveything I saw. Now I have more distance… And I hate that feeling!
Too bad. Wouldn’t it be great if we could always keep our innocence?

A few months ago, I was talking about this feeling to Carine Roitfeld. She told me, “It’s true you become used to it. But after a few years you also know that each time, something will happen. You will see something exciting. It can be a show, some music, a party, a skirt lenght, a new model or just a girl you see on the street…”

At that moment, the inspiration is even stronger : you know what it’s worth.

What about you ? I have the feeling I am living this story with you… In three years, we went from outside the shows to front rows. Fashion boomed on the Internet, showing you every tiny detail, making fashion a real show business. Like me, now you know the name of each fashion editor, the last shoe of each designer and how to pronounce exactly Proenza Schouler.

Do you feel your vision of fashion has changed? Are you still interested by the same things?

———-

PS : Another thing Carine Roitfeld told me is to go to the parties. She told me to go out at night, that it’s where you feel what’s truly going on. I listened to her and Saturday we went to Alexander Wang’s after party and… We filmed everything !

I’ll be back soon with the video.

You’ll see, Alex brought us right back to childhood !

The first images were pretty shocking. Seriously? Wrinkles!!! Maybe the girls of Sex and the City should have stopped while they were ahead. And then does it sparkle. Where is the simple and joyous mess? And what about Carrie’s charming and slightly dated apartment? Miranda’s bizarre outfits? And what about that all-too-glossy world they live in?

And then suddenly, like a perfectly timed wink, the film starts off in the middle of the most improbable marriage that you never saw coming… And Liza Minelli starts dancing around like a kitten to Beyonce.

What I saw in the movie was a commentary on maturity. How the strange ideals of today can age, like shopping, hysteria, sex, friendship. And almost like it’s a little embarrassed of the subject (Aging? Come on, not glamourous!), the film clumsily hides it beneath layers of glitter and rubies provided by the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.

But in the end, I thought it was totally interesting to see how the women matured on screen as a testament to how we live today (You might have the right to grow old. But at the same time, you have to stay womanly, desirable, desiring.) To see the taught skin of these women, their eyes still full of ambition, absolutely undying.

My mom, who’s Samantha’s age just started up a new career. The perfect body of Carine Roitfeld that inspires young designers.
An entire movie about women over 45.

And it still makes a theater full of teenagers crack up. They will certainly have a completely different view of aging than we do.

It’s sad and it’s fun, this never ending battle to be perfect. Sex and the City 2 definitely paid homage to that, and for that reason alone, I’m willing not to toss the film in the trash. And I even hope there’ll be a third.

Oh, and Abu Dhabbi, it’s nice and all, but the starring actress of the show I’ve decided was New York, and I missed her a lot.

So here’s my super late review of Sex and the City 2. Why write about this movie when I see about three movies a week all year round? I think it’s because these 4 girls really marked a whole generation.

Granted, this wasn’t at all how the 8 year old felt that I talked to yesterday. I asked her, “Are you gonna go see Sex and the City?
and she responds, “Nooooo! Everytime I see the commercial for the movie, those girls scaaaaaaare meeee!!!”

Translation : Tim Sullivan

You’ve gotta imagine a Saint-Tropez filled with stylish girls. The first day, they would all head to K-Jacques and Rondini (including me). The second day, they would painfully experiment with the rising prices in the touristy parts of town (including me, again –> how are you going to try to sell me a pair of Alexander Wang shoes at double their price – 1000 euros). And the third day, they’d finally find happiness in an amazing thrift-shop, the Marché du Marin.

Can you imagine the atmosphere of a showroom during fashion week ? Well, the day I got there, it was exactly the same. Mademoiselle Agnès wasn’t the only one here: she’s got Emmanuelle Alt and Carine Roitfeld with her who are all happily vintage-shoppin’-it-up for their whole family, surrounded by lots of other stylists and fashion people. I didn’t take photos because I’m no paparazzi — except to get Agnès, who was just about on her knees for these too-cool shorts and wanted to show them to me.

Yep. So you’ll have to take my word for it when I tell you that doing your shopping next to Emmanuelle Alt is hell. It’s like she has an antenna for awesome outfits. Every time I saw something that could potentially interest me, from afar, by the time I got there, she would already have it in her hands. This big faded pink fleece sweater, for example. Or this grandpa shirt. Or this awesomely shiny marine vest. Pffffff.

FRUSTRATION! I let it go and promised myself I’d be back the next day, alone, far from any fashion intimidation.

The next day, I pillaged and plundered. And I usually hate vintage stuff in general but it’s like they opened up a treasure chest just for me :

- The clothes smelled good.
- The selection was incredible. Nothing overly stupid or too-much, a big section just for vintage marine wear, but done tastefully. There were also a few lacy things and college sweat-shirts, leather bags, but all was already sifted through. You didn’t have to spend three days to find something which is exactly what drives me nuts in most vintage laces.
- Reasonable prices.
- And then on top of all that, the shop was super cute.

Why isn’t there any places like this in Paris?

PS = THIS IS MY NEW IT-BAG ALL FOR MYSELF. YOU LIKE IT? YOU’D BETTER CAUSE I’VE BEEN CARRYING IT AROUND SINCE WEDNESDAY.

Le Marché Du Marin, 4 Avenue Foch 83990 Saint-Tropez.

Translation : Tim Sullivan