After Anna Wintour backhandedly criticized France for not helping young designers, she landed a meeting with a government official to help them devise a plan to do something about it. Between couture shows yesterday, she met with Industry Minister Christian Estrosi, and brought Vogue’s Hamish Bowles and French Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld along with her. As anyone who’s seen The September Issue can attest, Anna can be very convincing. “She’s right,” Estrosi admitted.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
Mr. Estrosi said state-owned banks and investment funds will soon offer streamlined financing for start-up fashion businesses.
A new master’s degree is in the works to help French students better compete with peers who attend schools such as London’s Central St. Martins College of Art & Design. And Mr. Estrosi said he had pledged to Ms. Wintour to relax the country’s 35-hour work week for fashion-house employees who need to work twice that amount in the weeks before fashion shows.
Oh, Anna. She breezes in for couture and earns the right for fledgling designers to work around the clock. True, it’s hard to quickly climb those theoretical workplace ladders as a young professional in any industry when the government only lets you work 35 hours a week (bastards). But the 35-hour week is one of the greatest things about France! And now Anna has kind of done away with it. Love her.
