1. Dreams
French women don’t talk about “having it all,” or checking things off a list. They aspire to have “it,” a charm, a quality, an attitude toward seduction, style, and confidence that will make life and everything beautiful.
There is one woman who represented a blend of French culture with American idealism in her marriage to her husband, and in her own style and personality: Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy.
From a young age, she was drawn to European culture. At Vassar, Jackie majored in French literature. During her undergraduate year in Paris, she studied art at the Sorbonne and become fluent in French, later translating French texts into English.
In the White House, Jackie hired French interior designer Stéphane Boudin to redecorate and chef René Verdon to cook state dinners of her favorite cuisine. (In later years, her taste for carré d’agneau bouquetière and haricots verts almondine had her lunching at New York society bistros La Côte Basque and La Grenouille.) When she and her husband John visited Paris in 1961, Jackie charmed Parisians and Charles de Gaulle with her style and intelligence. President Kennedy felt a bit overshadowed by his wife, and he jokingly referred to himself as “the man who accompanied Jackie Kennedy to Paris.” During that visit and for two years after, she used all of her powers of persuasion to convince reluctant French officials to allow a grande dame of Paris—the Mona Lisa—to travel to Washington, D.C., for a historic visit at the National Gallery.
Not a legendary beauty, Jackie’s chic Francophile style—the feminine hair, clean lines, and romantic rounded necklines—made her a fashion icon. French-born Oleg Cassini created most of her couture wardrobe of satin pink gowns, cashmere coats, and bright dresses, but she also wore Chanel (like the pink suit she had on the day JFK was assassinated), Givenchy, Dior, and Hermès. During the White House years, the “Jackie look” was the A-line skirt, three-quarter sleeves, kid gloves, pillbox hats, a three-strand pearl necklace, and gold and enamel bracelets by French jeweler Jean Schlumberger. But my favorite era was when she lived on Fifth Avenue and wore wide-leg trousers, white jeans, turtlenecks, trench coats, head scarves, and her ubiquitous black sunglasses, lending her a French air of mystery despite her very public life.
Over the years, she proved herself in every realm, as a diplomat, mother, lover (she allegedly had affairs with Warren Beatty, Paul Newman, and Frank Sinatra, among others), and in her career. Perfectly balancing American casualness and competence with a French style and flair, she set trends and captivated people all over the world. I grew up admiring this dignified survivor. She reinvented herself after John’s death to have a second life with Aristotle Onassis, and a third life as an editor at Viking and Doubleday. Her journey was intense, with fascinating chapters. She’s an example of an accomplished woman who grappled life with style.
Confidence, style, and charm aren’t birthrights even for icons or movie stars. They have to be developed for women to reach their full potential and become successful. Through my experience of living in America for twenty years, I’ve built a bridge between Paris and New York. Today, I want to share what I’ve learned about our differences and similarities.
I grew up in Seyssinet-Pariset, a small town of twelve thousand people, located on the outskirts of Grenoble in southeastern France, one hour away from Lyon. My parents came to Grenoble when they were very young, when their parents, involved in the resistance, followed the dream of freedom by fighting dictators’ ideas (Mussolini in Italy, Franco in Spain). After leaving the Mediterranean, my parents grew up, met, and married in France and raised their four daughters in the European way of life, happily at the foot of the French Alps.
I remember my childhood in colors. The blond hair of my Andalusian mother, the dark eyes of my Sicilian father, the pink cheeks of my sisters. Outside, it was a winter world with white peaks along a chain of mountains cutting into a clear blue sky right outside my window. The scheme changed in springtime, with all the hues of greens in the pines and the grass, sprinkled with a confetti of wildflowers: violets, red poppies, yellow buttercups, blue irises. In summer, I remember the rows of red roses in the gardens that surrounded our two-story house, and a wood swing that hung from a pink-flowering buckeye tree that later dropped golden-brown nuts on the ground. In the fall, the foliage turned brilliant orange, and then, by November, my world turned a peaceful, pure white again.
I was a little French Heidi and spent more time outside than in. The Four Mountains—part of the Vercors Massif range where World War II French Resistance fighters hid from the Nazis—was my immense playground.
Every Sunday, my family set off on a day trek, a gang of six en vadrouille. I wore oversized jeans held up by one of my father’s wide leather belts, a long-sleeved men’s shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and boots with crampons, my long hair tied messily. I always carried a basket and a knife in case I found anything worth keeping.
As soon as we hit the trail, I tended to run ahead on the steep footpaths to the streams where we hunted for frogs. My parents always shushed me when we spotted a family of marmots—fat mountain squirrels—but I couldn’t contain the excitement and screamed. The animals would scatter and disappear. Higher up the mountain, we’d spot deer and chamois—a cross between a goat and an antelope—or nesting hawks. Beyond the tree line, I was looking for edelweiss, the white and yellow mountain flower, growing vertically in the cracks of a rock face.
My love for nature will always keep me grounded. Because my roots run so deep, I can safely let my head drift into the clouds.
Looking back, I see how much my parents’ guidance and encouragement made me who I am today. They have been my beacon, the lighthouse of my life. She taught me to feed my curiosity and to pursue knowledge and skill. They were never bossy and didn’t tell me what to do. Their education style was to suggest, to guide gently, to throw seeds on the ground and wait to see what grew. In hindsight, I realize how receptive my parents were to all of their daughters’ sensibilities. I was born with an intuitive sense of style, but thanks to my parents’ encouragement—and their gifts—I developed it.
1. The Globe. When I was six, my parents gave me a globe for my birthday, and along with it, the keys to the world. As much as I loved my family and the healthy lifestyle in Grenoble, the globe ignited my imagination and I couldn’t stop dreaming about the different people and cultures beyond the mountains.
I was obsessed with it, and also mystified. If this globe represented the planet we lived on, why weren’t we falling off it? My older sister kept saying “The Earth is round,” but that didn’t help. One day when my mother saw how preoccupied I was by the question, she brought me an orange, delicately picked up an ant in the garden, and put the insect on the fruit. The ant kept running around it without falling off while she turned the orange, and I looked into my mother’s eyes, relieved. I will always remember her smile when I finally understood Galileo’s discovery. Falling headfirst into the sky off Earth would not be an issue. Once I understood that, nothing would stop me from discovering the other side of the globe.
My curiosity about foreign lands started by a closer examination of the world around me, specifically, of the women in my everyday life. They dressed with casual ruggedness—warm knit scarves, chunky sweaters, and sensible slacks and shoes, to be ready for a day of shopping or trekking on the mountain. The women of Grenoble were sporty, practical, and didn’t seem to care about the romance of fashion, or, more likely, they just didn’t know about it. Their exposure was limited. Grenoble didn’t have any designer or couture stores and there was no Internet back in the ’70s.
However, some of them made an effort—certainly my mother, who had a feminine casual style—and I started noticing the distinctions: a woman’s perfume, my cousin’s see-through blouse, my aunts’ makeup. I appreciated the little touches that made a woman stand out. I didn’t know it as sexy or seductive at that age, but I definitely clued in to the effect. I noticed men’s style, too, a debonair hat or trench coat, a suit fabric that was more sophisticated, a cashmere scarf—all these details were pure attraction for me.
Curiosity was a way to escape my environment and open new doors of the imagination. I knew that a bigger, fuller, more urban world of style existed, where women dressed to emphasize the silhouette of their bodies, where elegance was prized over practicality. I’d heard about Paris style from my mother. She used to describe the city to me, promising, “We’ll go there soon. You’ll love it. The history, the art, the museums.” I desperately wanted to go to Paris and see how people lived and dressed in the capital. I started wondering what it would be like to make clothes and dress the chicest women all over the world. I’d never heard of a career called “fashion designer” at this time. I just knew that I wanted to be actively part of the glamorous life. Going from French Heidi in Grenoble to les maisons de couture in Paris was not a common path. I certainly wasn’t born with any connections in the fashion monde. There was no logical reason that I’d grow up to have a life of style in Paris and beyond, but I dreamed about it anyway with the conviction that I’d make it happen.
At a very young age, I had the consciousness that Grenoble was just the beginning, the starting point in my life. Even if you’re not born in a big city and many generations of your family live in the same place, you’re not stuck there. It’s your choice to open the boundaries. When the time came, my family was devastated that I wanted to try something else, and said, “You have everything you need right here.” But my imagination was too big for Grenoble and my curiosity for discovering the world was burning in my body like a raging fire. The globe had a magic effect on me. It was the gateway to the entire world.
2. The Sewing Machine. My grandmother Mama Manuela had a treadle Singer sewing machine, and it held a place of honor in my mother’s bedroom. As a child, I was fascinated by the enormous piece of wood and metal furniture with a moving pedal and spinning wheel. My grandmother had given it to my mother when she was too old to use it, along with other family heirlooms. I didn’t care about the jewelry. The sewing machine, a tool she used with so much love, was far more meaningful to me. Grandma could take yards of raw, unfinished fabric and transform them into beautiful drapery. She was skilled at embroidery and knitting, too, and once made a mohair turtleneck of twenty-two colors for me, and a pink crochet bikini I proudly wore all summer on the beach at Saint-Tropez when I was fifteen.
Grandma taught me how to feed the fabric patiently under the needle to make it glide, and how to put the reel with the thread in the shuttle. I took to sewing and could make expert zigzag stitches before I could recite the alphabet.
When I was seven, my mother offered me a sewing machine of my own, a portable Singer that was much smaller than Grandma’s. I had never loved any object as much as I loved that little machine. I stayed up late into the night, stitching. Anything that could be put under my needle got sewn. I had no interest in my sisters’ maternity games with dolls. My Singer was the only toy that inspired me. I could spend weekends and late nights sewing together every piece of fabric I found at home, from a handkerchief to a piece of velvet and some furry wool, and with it, I was creating my first patchwork of love.
3. The Little Tweed Jacket. With an inner elegance, my mother favored a casual look of light sweaters, well-cut pants, and low-heeled shoes, but she had two garments that were her special treasures: a beige Yves Saint Laurent silk blouse and a navy Chanel bouclé jacket. I’d tried on the jacket a few times and knew instinctually that it was the real thing, a quality piece with its gold buttons and a chain around the hem. I had a fascination for it, and I thought about it a lot.
One day, when my parents went away for the afternoon, I slid open my mother’s closet and took out the jacket. I was ten at the time, working on my sewing, and I was curious about the garment’s construction. The temptation was too strong to resist.
I took the masterpiece into my room and carefully opened the black silk lining to explore the inside. I traced the stitching religiously and closely examined the four patch pockets’ woven trim. I loved the idea that a jacket could have pockets. They gave it a real attitude. I was nervous but thrilled the entire time to discover the jacket’s intimate secrets. Sewing the lining back in took me a few hours. I had to stitch very carefully and delicately to hide the evidence of my explorations.
I was only just putting the jacket back on the hanger when the car wheels crunched on the driveway outside the house. My mother had no clue what I’d done, but a few weeks later, I had to confess. The secret burned inside me and I couldn’t keep it in. She wasn’t angry at all. In fact, she was touched by my appreciation for something she loved. “You should have told me,” she said. “We could have done it together.”
In later secret missions, I opened up the lining of a jacket of my father’s, too, and came to understand the difference between women’s and men’s clothing. My father’s jacket had a lot of facing inside. It was stiff, rigid, and heavy. The Chanel jacket was decidedly feminine. The sleeve fit close to the arm and had a slight natural curve. The interfacing and silk lining were lavishly soft, and the fabric was smooth and as light as a cardigan. The shoulder pads were small and fluffy. So much miniscule stitching went into each handmade buttonhole. But the most fascinating part was the chain detail at the hem, which lent the garment weight so that it hung on the body perfectly, giving the wearer the Chanel allure.
4. The Biography. Soon after I confessed, Mother brought home a biography of Coco Chanel for me. She was touched by my love for the garment and encouraged me to learn more about it. I read the Chanel book cover to cover, many times. Coco was a marvel, liberating women’s silhouettes with unstructured clothes, using soft knits, as supple as skin, from the bouclé jacket, the petite robe noire (little black dress), and the pantalon à pont (sailor pants). She became my role model of style. Her clothes had functional quality and were carrying a message. She was inspired to bring men’s pieces into women’s wardrobes to give the working women of the time the allure of strength and independence. After falling in love with Chanel, I became addicted to inspirational books. My family knew what to give me for Christmas and birthdays, and my bedroom became an extension of the Librairie Arthaud, the local bookstore, as I amassed a collection of volumes and magazines about fashion, art, and photography.
My First Fashion Library
Any library—or style—would be enhanced by the addition of these great volumes.
• Le Temps Chanel by Edmonde Charles-Roux. It’s in French, but what better reason to brush up on your language skills?
• Poiret by Andrew Bolton and Harold Koda. Paul Poiret, a Victorian-era French designer, got women out of corsets and into pantalons. A revolutionary man, he ushered in the modern era of women’s fashion.
• Madeleine Vionnet by Pamela Golbin. A biography with exquisite photos about the French designer known as “the Queen of the bias cut,” a contemporary of Chanel’s, and a pioneer of elegance with softness and movement.
• Yves Saint Laurent by Laurence Benaïm. My favorite biography of the master of style.
• Antonio Lopez: Fashion, Art, Sex and Disco by Roger Padilha and Mauricio Padilha. Don’t you want to flip through this book on the title alone? A collection of the works of a Warhol favorite, this book is about Antonio Lopez, an illustrator who was a major force in art, culture, and fashion from the 1960s to the ’80s. He discovered statuesque models Jerry Hall and Grace Jones. His sketches were always colorful, vibrant, and full of energy. In his world, even lingerie was in Technicolor.
• Guy Bourdin: In Between by Shelly Verthime and Guy Bourdin. A biography of the late-twentieth-century French fashion photographer and a collection of his bold, surrealistic work.
• Avedon Photographs: 1947–1977 by Richard Avedon. Thirty years’ worth of iconic photographs by the legendary artist, including my favorite portrait of Tina Turner.
• Helmut Newton: SUMO by June Newton and Helmut Newton. The ultimate collection of Newton’s fashion photography and celebrity portraits in a huge volume of nearly five hundred pages. Its limited-edition publication was an international sensation.
• Serge Lutens by Serge Lutens. A collection of images by the French photographer, filmmaker, fashion designer, illustrator, hairstylist, art director, and perfume maker, a renaissance man with a sophisticated vision of style.
• Shocking Life: The Autobiography of Elsa Schiaparelli by Elsa Schiaparelli. The Italian designer, a contemporary of Chanel’s, describes in her own words how she invented her aesthetic—surrealism, animal prints, newspaper prints, and a shock of pink—and indulged her bottomless curiosity.
And some recent additions:
• Fashion: A History From the 18th to the 20th Century by curators from the Kyoto Costume Institute. Three hundred years of fashion, history, and culture as seen in photographs from the collection of the Kyoto Costume Institute.
• Art and Fashion: The Impact of Art on Fashion and Fashion on Art by Alice Mackrell. An intellectual exploration of how art and fashion have influenced each other over the centuries, such as Schiaparelli inspired by Dalí, Yves Saint Laurent in collaboration with Picasso, and, more recently, pop artist Sylvie Fleury inspired by luxury packaging.
• Culture to Catwalk: How World Cultures Influence Fashion by Kristin Knox. Written by a London-based fashion blogger, aka “the Clothes Whisperer,” this book examines the intersection of street clothes and high fashion for a historical and contemporary perspective, with gorgeous photos, thoughtful analysis about the industry, and insightful interviews with designers.
Growing up, I was always on the hunt for style inspiration, and found it in:
• Erté. In the corridor that connected our living room and my bedroom hung my parents’ collection of lithographs by the Russian-born French artist Erté. He got his start in the art world by working for designer Paul Poiret in the World War I era, but he found his greatest success in the years afterward, illustrating magazine covers of exotic women in elaborate costumes for Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, Ladies’ Home Journal, and Vogue. Even though I walked down this hallway a few times a day, I never got tired of Erté’s sophisticated women silhouetted on a black canvas, striking arabesque poses in dramatic, colorful, rich clothing. Each drape of fabric, flower, fur, and feather detail was drawn with passion and precision.
• Elle magazine. In France in the late ’70s and early ’80s, Elle was the fashion bible and set the tone for the fashion world and independent women. I would tack the photos and covers—shot by Gilles Bensimon—on my walls instead of pinups of movie stars. It was the era of big hair, red lips, and iconic models like Jerry Hall, Elle Macpherson, and Dayle Haddon. I studied each picture and tried to grab some of that bold elegance to transport me into its Parisian perspective.
• Les Createurs. The French designers at the forefront of fashion in 1980 were called Les Createurs. They were as famous as movie stars in France and I admired them all for breaking new ground. Thierry Mugler, “the prophet of futurism,” was my favorite. He created structured bright-colored clothes with the X silhouette—large shoulders, small waist, and wide legs—in metallic and leather that looked like they came from outer space, a fantasy for the modern imagination. He was the first one to stage a super production fashion show that was more than just models on the runway. Claude Montana was known for his bold use of color and soft luxurious fabrics like silk, velvet, cashmere, and thin, drapey leather in sleek, body-conscious, minimalist designs. I remember his black leather short shorts mixed with magenta fur jackets. Jean-Paul Gaultier, the rebel, was a master of reinvention. He re-created the marinière (blue-and-white stripes) as a ball gown with feathers, hats, socks, and jumpsuits. He brought the corset out from underneath and put it into the limelight in dresses and tops. Who can forget the Gaultier-designed white cone-bra corset worn by Madonna on her Blonde Ambition tour? Azzedine Alaïa, “the king of cling,” created clothes for seduction and transformed a woman into a goddess. He was the first to bring stretch into high fashion, using spandex to create skintight knitted designs that emphasized a woman’s curves. He was subtle with revealing skin, too, via pointelle, cutouts, lace, and sheer fabrics. Through the years, he kept his integrity, and up to today, his signature is one of my favorites.
My mission to wake the women around me to a world of style and femininity started with my mother, my sisters, and myself. I was my own dress dummy, wrapping and pinning fabrics on my body, hanging chiffon ruffles with safety pins. When I was eleven, long and lean, a tomboy silhouette, I would study myself in the mirror, fitting and shaping my compositions into the ultimate Parisienne chic (or, at least, my idea of it). I mixed and matched style combinations, experimenting with color and shape. When I saw an original silhouette in the reflection, I felt happy, like I’d accomplished something new and different. I was in awe that I could alter myself from one look to the next. This treasure was available to me, and everyone, and it filled me with a sense of power. Creating looks was one of my favorite occupations.
At school, I was called an original for wearing platform wood heels, bell-bottom jeans, and striped blouses. During class, I sketched different silhouettes in the margins of notebook pages and made up fabulous stories for the women. I started to look at other girls, imagining how I could improve their appearance and be instrumental in their lives. As it turned out, girls at school and grown women noticed my unique sense of style and confidence, and they started to imitate me and come to me for advice, asking for ideas about how to comb their hair or fit their clothes. I doled out pointers to anyone who asked—tuck in a shirt, try high heels—and, by eleven, I realized I had something valuable to say, and the strength to express it.
Thoughts about how to push the envelope with style filled my head. My parents tried to tamp down my risqué inclinations, afraid that being so adventurous with my look at such an early age would impair my education, so I worked harder in class and on homework to earn my status as a provocateur with style. I bought peace at home with very good grades.
Some of my girlfriends weren’t as easily placated as my parents, though. They begged me, “Why can’t you be normal?” My intention wasn’t to embarrass them when we went out as a group. I was having too much fun playing with style and learning about myself along the way. One thing I discovered quickly: I had no interest in a “normal” life. I wanted extraordinary. Being different challenged other people and made them feel uncomfortable. By twelve, I realized that having a look and opinions won me friends—and enemies.
My childhood was idyllic, with a loving home and the beauty of nature at my door. But my mother did not believe in fairy tales. She told my three sisters and me that the weight of responsibility for our lives rested on our own shoulders, and that we shouldn’t wait for Prince Charming to come along and take care of us. For her, independence was a worthy dream and became my first goal.
My mother, also named Catherine, got married at twenty-two, and she was pregnant soon after. The circumstances of her life made independence impossible and instead of becoming a teacher, her career dream, she was expected to stay home, take care of us, and see to our education.
Although she was happy as a housewife and well pampered by my father, she would have made other choices if she’d been born in a different era. Putting all of her creativity and energy into a family was noble, but it had drawbacks. I think the reason she taught her four daughters to be independent and to make something of our lives was to prove to my father that girls were equal to boys. My mother made sure that he’d be as proud of our accomplishments as he would have been of any son’s.
I wasn’t aware that girls were supposed to be the weaker sex. I can’t imagine four little boys being as fearless as we were growing up. My sisters and I even called each other “brother.” I became the leader of my group of friends. I wanted to be in charge, and I was surprised when other girls told me that boys should take the lead and girls should follow. I wasn’t made to shrink like a violet, and I held on to my top spot, perfectly comfortable there.
I couldn’t relate to princess fairy tales. To be rescued by a prince after he’d had all the adventures? I wanted to have my own. I thank my parents for instilling the values of strength and independence in me, to see myself as the daring one, the hero of my own story. If anyone were going to ride to the rescue to save me, it would be me.
* * *
Boys are not taught to be dependent or to wait for Princess Charming. I know firsthand that being raised to be in charge of your life gives a girl confidence. A mother doesn’t have to be a living example of the message. Mine was at home, and she told us not to follow in her footsteps. Instead, we would be girls of the twenty-first century. Along with taking advantage of our many options for our own sake, Mom told us, “Men will love you even more if you don’t rely on them to live.”
I’m very sensitive to girls not having the chance to make their own destiny. To illustrate my concerns I recommend two movies: First, The Virgin Suicides, a 1999 film by Sofia Coppola starring Kirsten Dunst, about five sisters in suburban 1970s who were driven to suicide by the repressive family environment. I saw it years ago, and this movie haunts me still. Second, Mustang, a 2015 Turkish movie by Deniz Gamze Ergüven, is also about five sisters and their religious parents who stopped them from living a full life. Two were forced into arranged marriages. One killed herself, and only the two littlest ones escaped to find freedom in Istanbul. It’s alarming that this situation still goes on today.
As parents, we have to work to prevent such tragedies. I was thrilled about Hillary Clinton’s nomination by her party for president. Her “almost” only proved that the dream of equality is attainable, and very close to reality.
When I became a mother, I knew that I had to send a clear message to my son, Oscar, starting very young, not to feel pressured by the role that culture assigns to boys. I encouraged him to explore his creativity and let his imagination take him wherever it wanted to go. As soon as he could hold a crayon, he started drawing on his bedroom walls. I never yelled at him or forbid it. I encouraged him to create. His early scribbles evolved into words and drawings, then the Mickey Mouse stickers, and, as a teenager, graffiti tags. Slowly, his bedroom became a giant canvas where he, and later his friends, expressed themselves: his favorite movie images with Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean, basketball legends like Michael Jordan, Steve Nash, Dwyane Wade, and LeBron James, up to his first graffiti tags about love, sex, and rock ’n’ roll. Today, Oscar is an American boy, born in New York and raised with a double culture. He’s comfortable in his skin, a basketball champion, compassionate and generous. I trace it back to his toddler graffiti, his freedom of expression. At nineteen, he still marks his walls. Sometimes I go into his room and just look at the record of his imagination. The walls are an inspiration to me, and to him, and a gift for the family.
When I was thirteen, an original, I wanted to be noticed. The time had come to make an ambitious garment that would do the trick. The family was going on a winter weekend trip to our chalet in Autrans, the capital of cross-country skiing. I knew exactly what I would create for the vacation: a ski jumpsuit.
The outfit represented a real challenge. I’m an aggressive downhill skier, and I really attack the slopes. The garment would have to be warm, waterproof, well constructed, comfortable, and flexible enough to handle every twist and turn. The sleeves and the legs were cut from a sheet of metallic silver vinyl. For the body, I used black nylon, padded with a layer of batting. To give it shape, I added darts and pin tucking to emphasize the waist. To add color, I closed it with a red plastic zipper and put a red elastic belt at the waist, which also underlined a feminine silhouette. To make it practical, I added zipper pockets for my lip balm and lift pass.
The outfit was inspired by Diana Rigg’s Emma Peel, the hero of The Avengers, whose spy style was a skintight cat suit and sexy boots. When the show came to France, it was called Chapeau Melon et Bottes de Cuir (“Derby Hat and Leather Boots”), which speaks directly to the French fixation with fashion. I wanted to incorporate Emma Peel’s style into my fall wardrobe, and the sexy jumpsuit with ski boots instead of leather boots was my cat suit moment.
I wore my jumpsuit all winter, carving up the moguls and bursting through a cloud of snow in style. It gave me new wings to become either a racing champion or a disco queen. My confidence in the jumpsuit made skiing even more exciting. At thirteen, I realized the power of clothes. Clothes say “Here I am!”—but they’re also a way to understand and express yourself. They could change people’s views of me and give me more power and joy than I’d have otherwise. Clothes enhance life. I went from being just another skier to the star of the slope, turning heads all over the mountain. People stared and stopped in their tracks just to get a look at me. The jumpsuit didn’t make me a faster or better skier, but I was unique. My younger sister Helene, also a great skier, couldn’t resist the jumpsuit’s qualities, and wanted one of her own. I got my first order from her!
My childhood house had an attic. I would go treasure hunting in the dusty boxes full of souvenirs, old clothes, and random objects my parents had little use for but didn’t want to throw away. When I got older, I took my love of digging through boxes and piles to the open-air flea markets of Grenoble—the Marché Victor Hugo and Marché Saint Bruno. You could find anything there: food, furniture, and, for my purposes, old clothes and fabric, buttons, jewelry, and accessories.
With my mother, I would spend hours sifting through the stalls in search of anything that caught my eye and cost a few francs. I treated every item with great care; each tattered piece of clothing or vintage charm was precious to me because it was rare. With the fabric and buttons, I took to my Singer and experimented, inspired to turn my finds into fashion art.
When I was fourteen, a creative project involved a white Fruit of the Loom T-shirt that I thought was so exotic. It was an American brand, a piece of the American dream of freedom, freshness, and cool we saw in ads for Hollywood Chewing gum, and I wanted to turn it into a French jeweled masterpiece. Whatever precious and meaningful treasures I found at the marché—small beads, buttons, patches, crystals, a tiny gold anchor—I’d sew onto the T-shirt. I even found two embroidered gold letters, C and M, and gave them a place of prominence on the front. I bought broken old earrings, took out the pearls, and sewed them onto the shirt to create a necklace along the collar.
The project took a few weekends. When it was done, I put on the embellished T-shirt, rolled up the sleeves—it had a boyfriend fit—and wore it with jeans to dance parties. I felt like a billion-dollar baby, so proud of my supercool Fruit of the Loom. Its uniqueness got so much attention that it inspired my girlfriends to do the same. After a few wears, though, I realized it needed to be washed. I put the shirt in the sink with gentle detergent, and the colors from the patches and beads bled all over. Nowadays, the destroyed look could have been interesting, but at the time, the stains marked the demise of my precious creation and, in despair, I threw it in a box.
That T-shirt could have given birth to an entire collection, but it was my first step. Even at fourteen, I was fascinated by the concept of casual chic, taking an ordinary T-shirt piece and transforming it into an evening treasure.
Iconic Eras of Style
I was fortunate to grow up in the late ’70s and ’80s when there were so many inspiring musical eras, each with its own icons, character, and look to appreciate and incorporate into my own developing style.
Disco
The disco era was all about glitz and excess. I loved to dance, and with my sisters, we threw parties called les booms once a month in our garage. These parties were famous for their stylish décor. I would create a boudoir backdrop with red drapes and candles, perfect for lighting our first cigarettes with an air of mystery. We would send out invitations for theme evenings, like “Saturday Night Fever” and “Studio 54,” and spin French hits by Serge Gainsbourg and Claude François as well as American Motown legends Diana Ross and Michael Jackson. We danced and kissed until the wee hours to “Rock with You” and “Upside Down” under homemade disco balls. I made shiny miniskirts and wore vertiginous heels, or very feminine silk slip dresses unheard of in snowy Grenoble. The whole point was to take bold style risks, experiment and explore, to have fun with fashion.
• John Travolta's character Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever wore a waisted white blazer with large lapels, a black shirt, and long trousers that inspired some of my first glittery designs.
• Diana Ross, with her big hair and red lips, turned us upside down with awe. On her album cover for Diana, she made a pair of jeans and a white T-shirt look achingly chic. I adored her daring décolleté and cutouts, love of color, and feminine silhouette. Always a foxy lady.
Punk
When I visited London for the first time at fifteen with a school exchange program, I explored Carnaby Street and browsed the funky accessories shops, piercing/tattoo salons, and jewelry boutiques that sold safety pin necklaces and spiked bracelets inspired by the Sex Pistols and the Clash. I adored the do-it-yourself rebelliousness of punk style. In a way, I’d had a punk sensibility since childhood, constructing clothes from fabric remnants and repurposing garments.
• Vivienne Westwood. The unofficial designer of punk with her slashed T-shirts and spiky blond hair, pale skin, and bruised makeup did a lot to invent the look. I visited her store Sex on Kings Road and bought a “God Save the Queen” T-shirt to wear under a military jacket or a cowboy shirt. Later on, I became a fan of her husband, the composer and musician Malcolm McLaren.
• Chrissie Hynde. “I’m gonna use my style, I’m gonna make you notice,” she sang in the Pretenders song “Brass in Pocket,” and she rocked the cat eye, teased black hair and uneven chopped bangs, black dress, and black fishnet tights in the video. Hynde’s style was—is—provocative alley cat.
New Wave
I’ve always been fascinated by the mixture of a feminine and masculine silhouette, how to take a man’s shirt or trousers and restyle them for a woman. Icons of New Wave took androgyny to the limit, confusing male and female, making it a style of its own.
• David Bowie. Bowie had been perfecting the androgynous look since the ’70s with Ziggy Stardust, and he was personally responsible for the glitter era of men wearing makeup and tight bodysuits. Let’s Dance was huge in France, and we loved his brilliantly bizarre style.
• Annie Lennox of the Eurythmics. Sweet dreams are made of her short-cropped bright-red hair, black suit, men’s white shirt and tie, black leather gloves, riding crop, and deep, resonant voice. Although men in makeup was the look of the time, Lennox transfixed her fans by going the other way, a beautiful woman with feminine features in masculine outfits.
Pop
By the mid ’80s, dance music was back, MTV was king, and I had my Pop Queens.
• Sade. Stylish, sleek hair slicked back, red lips, and gold hoop earrings. Her graphic silhouette was smooth and effortless. She embodied modern sensuality.
• Madonna. Her controversial “Like a Virgin” look—the white tulle skirt, corset, lace opera gloves, boy toy belt, and cropped leggings—redefined sexy to a generation of girls who wanted to be a new kind of rebel, sweet and tough.
When I was sixteen, my parents had an apartment in Golfe-Juan, Antibes, where the family could spend summer vacations. With friends, I would go to nearby Saint-Tropez and sell sun visors topless on the beach to make pocket change. I carefully saved every franc; I had plans for the money. I was ready to spread my wings and have my first Parisian adventure by myself.
My goal: to see an Yves Saint Laurent fashion show. By the time I was seventeen, I had enough saved to get there. My parents weren’t enthusiastic about the trip. I insisted that I had a safe place to stay and was relentless about how much I wanted to go “for educational purposes,” to see museums. I confess today that my parents had no clue about the fact that I wasn’t sure about my lodgings, and that I was only going to see a fashion show. Eventually, my mother gave me her blessing, and I set the plan into motion.
I packed for a week with my best clothes, my highest heels, my pocket money, and a piece of paper with the scribbled name of a girlfriend I’d met on the beach in Saint-Tropez who told me to look her up if I were ever in Paris. The ride from Grenoble to the City of Light took seven hours. Luckily, my girlfriend remembered me and had a spare bed for me to sleep in.
I woke up early the next morning and dressed myself for the fashion show in a silk red shirt and black stilettos. YSL was presenting his spring/summer collection at the Louvre’s central courtyard, the Cour Carrée. Somehow, I talked my way through the guards at the entrance and found myself inside the square, taking in the catwalks that had been constructed for the event and all the elegant women who’d come to see the show.
The audience was a true reflection of the Parisian scene. In the first rows were all the fashion editors and the elegant clients of Maison Saint Laurent. (These days, department store buyers, bloggers, and press have replaced clients in the first row.) These women had come dressed to honor the master in two-piece suits with defined waists, shouldered jackets cut in silk or taffeta, and des escarpins (high heels). Some wore pencil skirts split on the thighs and hemmed just above the knee in solid, bright colors like fuchsia and grass green, with big bold prints, polka dots, or stripes, an homage to the designer’s signature style.
When the show began, I was transported by the dramatic spectacle, full of the joie de vivre often missing on today’s runways. The models were smiling, and so was everyone in the audience. The clothes left me breathless. It was the best crash course on tailoring I could have ever taken. Beyond the stunning frocks, the YSL show was a social education. Fashion was not yet the industry it has become, and such events were like salons in the French tradition: places to gather, converse, and educate. I noticed the way the women looked and interacted with each other. The magic of that day inspired me for years to come.
I was learning, seeing, and absorbing every detail. I realized I wanted to design clothes at seven. At seventeen, I’d made my first foray into the fashionable world of Paris and stood among the editors, buyers, clients, and models. Being at that show and feeling like part of this world made me never want to leave. It was important to transport myself to the environment that would spur me forward and inspire me forever.
At the end of the show, Mr. Saint Laurent in a slim suit came out to take a bow, which became an indelible memory in my mind. Years later in New York, by total chance, his nephew Laurent Levasseur became the CFO of my company for a time and, on a trip to Paris, he brought me to YSL couture house for a visit. I met Pierre Bergé, cofounder and Mr. Saint Laurent’s longtime partner, and, with a lot of emotion, I was introduced to the master himself. He was wearing a black tuxedo suit, a white shirt, and a thin black tie. What I remember most were his eyes behind his dark rectangular signature shades. For a few minutes, I stared at him like I was meeting a legend. I searched his eyes through his glasses to catch a glimmer of his talent. I was moved and tried to imprint his face on my mind forever. When Mr. Saint Laurent passed in 2008, Laurent brought me a bundle of wheat shafts that had been given out to guests at the funeral. I’ve kept it to remember the master’s legacy.
My next step was to experience more of Paris and continue my education. At eighteen, I went to the ESMOD fashion academy to learn about the construction of clothes and later to the Sorbonne to learn about the history of art. Art and fashion are connected. You can see how style has evolved throughout the centuries in paintings and sculpture. I was curious about everything and soaked up the worlds of knowledge at school like a sponge, spending hours on the construction of a jacket sleeve to achieve the perfect fit.
After graduation, I was impatient to express myself in my own designs, but I wanted to learn even more from mentors. At Dorothée Bis, Jacqueline Jacobson revealed to me the secret of knitwear. With Louis Féraud, I received an education in color palettes among original paintings by Féraud himself at the Maison de Couture. Observing Emanuel Ungaro taught me all about women’s curves and draping.
At twenty-five, I was ready to create my own styles and founded a collective with friends called Cyclopo Loco, a fashion brand based on Rue de la Main d’Or in Bastille. I discovered Paris’s nightlife and was inspired by the Paris nightclub scene called the Palace. On June 3, 1981, I saw Prince give one of his first concerts ever to launch the Dirty Mind album in France. I remember being blown away by his energy, tunes—the song “Sister” was huge—his ruffled pirate blouse and velvet high-waisted sparkle pants with a big flare. It was a music and style revolution. After hours, we went downstairs to the jet-set club called the Privilege and danced among the night owls dressed up in fabulous eccentric silhouettes. The era was all about flash and fun, and I was living the extravagant moment.
The only limit to your dreams is your imagination. If you can envision something, you can make it happen. At twenty, I had a real lightbulb moment about the power of imagination when I saw images of the Bulgarian artist Christo’s Surrounded Islands artwork wrapping 6.5 million square feet of flamingo-pink polypropylene fabric around eleven small islands in Biscayne Bay in Miami, Florida. It looked like each island was wearing a neon skirt. The project was bigger than life. To achieve his vision, Christo planned for three years. It took millions of dollars, two dozen government permits, hundreds of engineers and workers, and fourteen weeks of installation to bring this new perspective of the world to fruition. Convincing and uniting so many people, dealing with bureaucracies, and overcoming challenges to realize one man’s fantasy was a triumph in itself.
In the photos, you can see boats and helicopters circling the bay to admire the seemingly purposeless art. The installation of pink wraps created energy, beauty, and excitement, and it gave a new perspective to the entire world of the neglected islands, formerly covered in garbage. I was so fascinated by the photos in the newspaper that I tore out the sheet and taped it to my bedroom wall. Surrounding Islands is a perfect example of the power of a dream and just how far imagination can take you.
I felt the same sense of endless possibility during the Internet revolution in the early 2000s. Men like Apple’s Steve Jobs, Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg had a dream of connecting every citizen of the planet in a digital world—a concept that made little sense to most people when they first heard the phrases “World Wide Web” or “smartphone”—and in only a handful of years, they achieved it. I will always remember the first person to show me a BlackBerry in 1997. It was Diane von Furstenberg. I was working at her studio when she showed me this tiny metal box and said, “Look at this. It will change the world. Tomorrow, everyone will have one. And we’ll always be connected.”
There is no limit to what you can imagine. If you can dream it, no matter how huge, wild, or crazy it might be, you will convince people to share the dream with you, and together, you will make it happen. You can turn any vision into a reality.
My friend, the developer Robert Wennett, lives by this ideal.
In 2008, I received a cold call from an entrepreneur/developer who wanted to show me his new project in Miami and convince me to open a boutique there. I arrived at the Bowery Hotel as planned and discovered this handsome gentleman who intended to convert a square block of parking lot structure into a gigantic luxury shopping destination at the corner of Lincoln and Alton Roads in Miami. I was charmed as I listened to him describe his vision and I decided that sometime soon, I’d visit to see his big dream in progress.
A month later, I happened to be in Miami for the weekend and called Robert. We drove to Lincoln Road, to a dead-end in a very scary area, to see the construction site. Then he showed me a mock-up of the plan, designed by Herzog & de Meuron, the famous Swiss architects who created the Bird’s Nest stadium for the Beijing Olympics. The plan was to use the parking lot structure as a skeleton and build an innovative garage/mall out of it in a “house of cards” style. I was very impressed. While we were chatting about the project, he invited me to see the site where his future house would be built, on the roof.
It turned out to be just a bare, neglected rooftop in that dilapidated neighborhood. As we walked across the cement, he said, “Here’s the garden. Careful or you’ll fall into the pool! Now you’re in the living room, and, watch out, we’re entering the bedroom.”
Was he insane, or brilliant? The man was more in dreamland than in reality. But he took me by storm with the power of his imagination. I said, “The project sounds fantastic and, yes, I’m with you for the boutique. I believe in you. Let me know how I can help.”
I introduced him to my friends, the brand owners of Ladurée and MAC cosmetics, and I was happy to see that they signed on to the project, too. Lining up partners and finances took almost ten years, but now he’s the developer and owner of the most gorgeous garage/retail space in America, an award-winning structure, a destination for shoppers. Architecture and art fans flock to take pictures and admire it.
Before construction was complete, I sold my company and the new owner stopped the retail expansion—so my boutique at 1111 Lincoln Road, Miami, never happened. But I won an incredible friend whose dreams took a run-down, dead-end block and turned it into the most innovative concept mall in America. My friend Robert is a star! Every time I visit him at his stunning modern home on top of that building, we stare at the view and toast with champagne to the power of vision.
As a girl, I dreamed of growing up to express myself, reach my potential (not there yet, but still evolving), and live in harmony with myself and the world. All of my influences helped shape my vision of becoming an independent woman with a full life—a mother, a lover, a friend, a citizen of the planet who embraces culture and diversity—and the dream is still a work in progress.
It was a long journey from Grenoble to Paris, Paris to New York, New York to the world. There were thousands of steps and challenges from sewing fabrics to having my clothes represented in more than 350 boutiques in thirty countries, with fourteen stores of my own, and many years in dressing stylish women in foreign lands to having fashion shows in Moscow to opening boutiques in Dubai and Qatar, lunching in Istanbul and dining in Athens the same day for personal appearances. I lived at a hundred miles an hour, carrying my suitcase of ideas.
With a global perspective, I was creating a fashion vocabulary that’s strong enough to make my clothes recognizable without having to look at the label. When I was in the thick of developing myself as a women and my career as a designer, I dealt with challenges and successes in the moment, but now, as I look back on my last twenty years, I realize I’ve been living my childhood vision all along. Lately, new challenges lead me to reboot, and I’m excited by this chance and full of new dreams for the chapters that are just beginning.
I created my own path, and I believe anyone can create hers without being a victim of life. I remember a French friend of mine, Philippe, always dreaming of having a castle in France. He came from a very modest family in Provence, no noble title or lineage, no reason to believe that he could ever have a king’s life. But he believed he was royalty, and he put all of his life force into the idea that one day, he would own a castle in France. In the meantime, he developed his career as a writer. A few years ago, at forty, he wrote a popular television series and was able to buy an abandoned castle in Normandy. It was run-down and crumbling. Half of the castle was roofless, no electricity or plumbing. But he restored the mansion to its former glory. A part of it is now a bed-and-breakfast and a rental space for parties. He lives there full-time and has made it his main occupation. The kernel of his dream took twenty years to grow and become his real life.
Between dreams and reality is one word: action. When you wake up every day, ask yourself, “How can I be the best version of myself?” and walk through life with the idea that you are not just dreaming about accomplishment and fulfillment, you are living it. Keep the two ideas—“dream” and “life”—entwined together. You are targeting your actions and building yourself to become the accomplished person you are meant to be.
The American vs. French Dream
I have come to know and appreciate “the American Dream.” It’s a cultural concept based on three words—freedom, opportunity, and prosperity—which add up to one big word: success.
In France, we also have a set of cultural ideals, although we don’t call it “the French dream.” Our national slogan is “liberté, egalité, fraternité,” or “freedom, equality, brotherhood,” which add up to one big idea: justice.
Since I live with one foot in Paris and the other in New York, I have a unique perspective on how each of my two countries’ ideals are different, powerful, and a little bit lacking, but that true brilliance lies in a combination of both.
America is all about action. Americans know how to get things done!
France is all about ideas. The French spend a lot of time just thinking.
The American path is pragmatic. They like having a list of ten steps, or a five-year plan; they’re always looking ahead and wondering what to do to get what they want. They are focused on outcome. Happiness is success.
The French path is romantic. They feel hemmed in with lists and set goals. They meander in their minds and on the streets, smelling the bread and cheese, sipping wine. They live in the process. Happiness is harmony.
If you take American focus and work ethic, and combine it with the ideas and drama of French romance, you get a glorious synthesis. One arm hugs your dreams, and the other embraces determination.
Text and illustrations copyright © 2017 by Catherine Malandrino
