Earlier today we brought you a tiny taste of French Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld’s interview with Acne Paper for their new eroticism-themed issue. The article is now posted on the Internet and it’s a fascinating glimpse into the mind of what some call the world’s most stylish woman. She never wears jeans or miniskirts, wears the men’s scent Opium, and explains why the French have it so good. Also, she does not weigh the editors in her office, okay?
Jeans are for assistants.
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 she doesn’t look like she has anything special on.
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.
Every woman over 35 in France isn’t 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.
She does not weigh her staffers, but it’s not like she needs to.
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.
Carine may have something to do with how you shave down there.
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 pussy in different ways after that so it really became a trend.
Carine Roitfeld in conversation with Jonny Johansson and Thomas Persson [TFS via Fashionologie]
