Interview: Carine Roitfeld
Although Carine Roitfeld is no longer the editor of French Vogue, she remains steadily at the perch of the fashion world, standing atop those super-high bondage-referencing heels that she partly made a staple of Parisian style (along with close-fitting pencil skirts, black leather, cinch-waist toppers, and if any woman dared follow her dictates, a little nipple). But la femme parisienne, which Roitfeld very much is, makes her own ground wherever she walks. After all, it is Roitfeld who, with Tom Ford and Mario Testino, started a movement of overt sexuality in fashion with their campaign for Gucci in the ’90s, which she later polemicized with her redesign for the French edition of Vogue as the hard-edged emblem of “erotic chic” during her aughties tenure at the magazine.
Karl Lagerfeld, long-time friend and fellow multi-hyphenate, spoke with Roitfeld in late July in Paris.
KARL LAGERFELD: How far can you take an image?
CARINE ROITFELD: I think that when you’re taking pictures with my principles, you can try anything. Dare to do a lot of things—dare with sexuality, dare to break taboos as long as it remains photogenic. As long as I find an elegance and beauty in it, I am not afraid to tackle anything.
LAGERFELD: I think it was Marlow who said, “There is no beauty without some strangeness in the proportions.”
ROITFELD: Exactly. I think that something needs to be weird in order to have a real beauty. Beauty can be quite boring, especially if you’re talking about beauty that doesn’t last. And what lasts is exactly the thing that maybe wasn’t pretty at first—it comes over time to be beautiful or interesting or exciting
