“Sometimes in fashion,” ANJA ARONOWSKY CRONBERG once told me, “dominated as it is by novelty and youth, we forget the importance of longevity.” To that end, the founding editor of sartorial journal Vestoj recently hosted a storytelling salon in Paris. She invited six people with decades of experience in the fashion industry to tell a personal story—a memory, woven around a garment that had been meaningful to them. Then she invited us, the audience. “Make yourselves comfortable,” she encouraged. “Sit on the floor if you like—there are pillows!”
The salon was hosted in the Marais district of Paris, in the partially renovated space of the Fondation d'entreprise Galeries Lafayette, a new arts venue supported by the Parisian department store Galeries Lafayette that will officially open in the fall of 2016. We passed through the industrial building from room to room—first under a disco ball that revolved above, making the dark room snow with light. “I’m just hoping that people will open their closet[s] and really think about what they have,” Cronberg said.
INGMARI LAMY—the fashion model-cum-KENZO-muse and designer—sat on a white beanbag, wearing an all-white ensemble. Her long white hair and a necklace of turquoise fell around her, and she held a photo album open in her lap as she talked about her first shoot.
Jean-Charles de Castelbajac—whose designs famously include a coat made of teddy bears (he later dressed Lady Gaga in a version of plush Kermit the Frogs) and a double poncho for couples (with a zipper in case of divorce)—spoke about his experience dressing a pope, the only fashion designer to ever do so.
Fashion editor Irene Silvagni pulled a black woolen overcoat tight around her. To her, it recalled the WWII soldiers. Young Silvagni was among those who went to the Hôtel Lutetia—in the sixth arrondissement—which once served as a meeting point for returning soldiers and their families. But Silvagni went to receive a father who never came home.
The sweetest story was told by Head of London College of Fashion Frances Corner. “I needed,” she began, “I wanted, a dress to get married in." The white dress in question hung on a hanger from the ceiling beside the desk Corner sat at, like a ghost.
“It found me," Corner testified. “With no hard understructure, no unnecessary additions—long-sleeved, high-necked—with no train, no veil, just flowers in my hair, it allowed me to be the center of attention without shouting. The dress, made from several different types of Victorian lace and new oyster silk, was bought from a shop that formed part of the antique center in [London’s] King’s Road. It was a dress that had been upcycled long before anyone had coined that term. I believe that garment,” she continued, “like a taste, a smell, or a phrase of music can transport you back to a certain moment in your life. I have several such items. A grandmother’s jumper. Trousers from Cambodia. My son’s baby dungarees. All kept, not for their fashionability, but because they symbolize moments of my life. I always have faith an item of clothing epitomizes a moment in time.”
Days later, I met up with François Quintin
The salon was hosted in the Marais district of Paris, in the partially renovated space of the Fondation d'entreprise Galeries Lafayette, a new arts venue supported by the Parisian department store Galeries Lafayette that will officially open in the fall of 2016. We passed through the industrial building from room to room—first under a disco ball that revolved above, making the dark room snow with light. “I’m just hoping that people will open their closet[s] and really think about what they have,” Cronberg said.
INGMARI LAMY—the fashion model-cum-KENZO-muse and designer—sat on a white beanbag, wearing an all-white ensemble. Her long white hair and a necklace of turquoise fell around her, and she held a photo album open in her lap as she talked about her first shoot.
Jean-Charles de Castelbajac—whose designs famously include a coat made of teddy bears (he later dressed Lady Gaga in a version of plush Kermit the Frogs) and a double poncho for couples (with a zipper in case of divorce)—spoke about his experience dressing a pope, the only fashion designer to ever do so.
Fashion editor Irene Silvagni pulled a black woolen overcoat tight around her. To her, it recalled the WWII soldiers. Young Silvagni was among those who went to the Hôtel Lutetia—in the sixth arrondissement—which once served as a meeting point for returning soldiers and their families. But Silvagni went to receive a father who never came home.
The sweetest story was told by Head of London College of Fashion Frances Corner. “I needed,” she began, “I wanted, a dress to get married in." The white dress in question hung on a hanger from the ceiling beside the desk Corner sat at, like a ghost.
“It found me," Corner testified. “With no hard understructure, no unnecessary additions—long-sleeved, high-necked—with no train, no veil, just flowers in my hair, it allowed me to be the center of attention without shouting. The dress, made from several different types of Victorian lace and new oyster silk, was bought from a shop that formed part of the antique center in [London’s] King’s Road. It was a dress that had been upcycled long before anyone had coined that term. I believe that garment,” she continued, “like a taste, a smell, or a phrase of music can transport you back to a certain moment in your life. I have several such items. A grandmother’s jumper. Trousers from Cambodia. My son’s baby dungarees. All kept, not for their fashionability, but because they symbolize moments of my life. I always have faith an item of clothing epitomizes a moment in time.”
Days later, I met up with François Quintin