Mon Dieu, quelle chance—Garance Doré spent time with Carine Roitfeld throughout Fashion Week in New York and Paris. In typical Garance style, she shares this experience with us via her illustrations, photographs, and words, all poignant and hilarious. See Garance's Fashion Week scrapbook starring Carine Roitfeld at vogue.fr. Here is an English translation of Garance's words:
My fashion week with Carine Roitfeld by Garance Doré
During Fashion Week in September, I had the chance to spend some precious moments with Carine Roitfeld. Some passionate moments...
Follow me behind the scenes of Vogue Paris...
New York
In New York, Carine has very busy days. Shows, showrooms, appointments, and overseeing the magazine remotely. That's a lot of hours on the phone.
In the morning, I pick up Carine at the Carlyle, her preferred hotel in New York. "This is my New York. And you know, Woody Allen plays every Monday evening... You should come!"
10 a.m. First show beside Anastasia Barbieri, a regular contributor to Vogue Paris
2 p.m. The showroom of Alex Wang. Carine tells me that she loves his energy... and his accessories!
"I am always excited by new things, such as Alexander Wang or Julian Louie. This gives me energy. And then there are also my assistants that help keep me in the mood, because they come, tell me what they see, they wear young designers to keep us awake, otherwise the magazine would grow old and boring! At present there's no danger of this: during Fashion Night, our readers were in the street and I saw they were very young and very friendly. "
3 p.m. Donna Karan's show. Carine always has a minute to give to her fans. And considering the number of fans, this must take some time!
"I am very decisive—but I ask the opinion of many others."
"I started in standing, and I made my way up to the front row. Before I would drive there in my own car, now I have a driver. I confess that I have made progress!"
‹‹To be photographed together, this puts a lot of pressure on oneself. It puts a lot on me, because even if I do not look it, I'm very shy. But at the same time, the day when I go to a show and there are no more photographs, it will mean that I am not a good writer. That day will be very sad...››
Until the evening...
"It is necessary to go out in the evenings. It is then one feels what occurs… "
The evening, house of Marc Jacobs. Before we go to greet Marc, Carine finds Julia Von Boehm, Giovanna Battaglia and Olivier Zahm.
Paris
After a stopover in Milan where I caught Carine taking a few seconds to bask in the sun (she adoooores the sun) between two shows, we return, finally, to... Paris.
Inauguration of the Vogue Covers Expo
"The Fashion Weeks, there is at least one inspiration per day... it may be a show, an encounter, a new girl, makeup, something that will cause you to reflect. There is a lot of inspiration in the shows. We must be open to all, and look at everything."
The Story of César
"This is a César, a compression of jewelry. Unfortunately it is not my family jewels he has compressed, I never met him. But it is an object that was given to me a few years ago, and I love that it fascinates everybody. "
"I have three awards: The best dressed from Vanity Fair, the AmfAR for charity, and also a year ago I was among the '100 most powerful people' from Time Magazine with Obama, etc... I was the only French person... Which is the French influence abroad..."
[Editor's note: While I was furiously working to translate the text for you, of course Garance and Tim were reconstructing the beautiful collages in English! I worked hard on it so I'm leaving it, but visit Garance's site to see what she really said.]
Vogue Paris editorial image © 2009 Condé Nast. All Rights Reserved.
lundi 26 octobre 2009 
