FASHION CROWD: “Audacity and ease” are the qualities actress Ana Girardot says she looks for in fashion. “I’m drawn to things that dare,” she said, speaking from the front row at the Jean Paul Gaultier couture show on Wednesday. Girardot will star in a 2017 release by Cédric Klapisch entitled “Ce Qui Nous Lie,” or “What Binds Us.” “It’s a story about families — and wine.”
French literary wunderkind Arthur Dreyfus, who won the 2012 Orange Prize at the age of 25 for his sophomore novel “Belle Famille,” was making the rounds of the couture shows this week for an essay for Madame Figaro magazine.
“I like to look at fashion from a literary point of view,” said Dreyfus, who had especially enjoyed the storytelling in Dior’s couture collection. “It was like a story from the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen — there was this element of enchantment.” Dreyfus’ fourth novel, “Sans Véronique,” was released earlier this month.
Cristina Cordula, host of the French makeover TV show “Nouvelle Look Pour Une Nouvelle Vie” (or “New Look, New Life” in English), said she found inspiration for her and her viewers at couture shows despite their high-luxury bent. “There’s always something you can take and adapt, whether it’s a color or a shape,” she said. “Jean Paul Gaultier isn’t inaccessible. He’s a designer for the people.”
French singer and actress Sylvie Vartan, who is an old friend of Gaultier’s, said she was there to see her 21-year-old granddaughter, Ilona, walk in the show. Also present, artists Pierre Commoy and Gilles Blanchard — aka Pierre et Gilles — who immortalized Gaultier in two of their most iconic photographs said they’re preparing a retrospective for the MB-XL Gallery in Brussels.