On FashionQ&A.com. Read it here.
Art is not meant to give pleasure but to ask questions and make people think.
- Christian Boltansky
Intriguing interview with the Editor-in-Chief of Style.com, Dirk Standen and Lanvin’s fashion designer extraordinaire, Alber Elbaz.
Resonating Excerpts:
What role does a fashion show still play in delivering your message?
It’s almost like asking someone what is the role of a table if you want to serve dinner. Of course you can have some dinner in bed and you can have it also on a plate and just on the floor, but I think that when you put it on the table, it’s the most pragmatic. There are certain things that I guess are essential and this is one of them.
I do in fact believe that the best traveling you do is from your couch while you eat potato chips.
You know I [said to] my partner a few months ago, “I have a question.” He said, “What is it?” I said, “Do you think we’re still cool.” And he said, “Alber, we were never cool.”
You know, you can buy silicone, you can buy plastic, you can buy surgery. The only thing you cannot buy is muscles, because in order to have muscles you have to work hard, devote your life to it.
…it’s about coming to work day after day. You come in the morning and you stay late at night and you come weekends and you work. You just come to work. It’s a job. It’s a major job to help men and women look beautiful.
My great grandfather’s business card, found in my grandmother’s basement.
Note the occupation. Note the phone number. Note the illustration.
From an interview with I-D Magazine and Maison Martin Margiela, Oct. ’99.
Careers highs? Finding that what stimulates us also stimulates others.
We surf the Internet. We swim in magazines. The Internet is exhilarating. Magazines are enveloping. The Internet grabs you. Magazines embrace you. The Internet is impulsive. Magazines are immersive.
I wanted to write a book about why very, very few women will say to you, ‘I don’t care what I look like.’
- Linda Grant