Project ''Icons and Muses"

Interview with Michele Lamy.

Ali Mahdavi -" Magician of light"

Diane Pernet- A Shaded View on Fashion

Diane Pernet 

Serge Lutens- Le Parfum

French photographer, perfume art- director, film maker, hair stylist, set designer , makeup artist and creator of extraordinary objects . 

Serge Lutens is an image -maker of genius.

We've met in the Les Salons du Palais Royal. A house of perfume designed by Monsieur Lutens. We've talked for almost two hours about everything, love, money, faith.  Marvelous meeting with the magician.

  Serge Lutens was born on 14 March 1942 in Lille, France.

He is most is most well known for his art direction and photography for Japanese cosmetics company Shiseido in the 1980s. 

  

Serge Lutens was fourteen when he was taken by a hair salon in Lille as an apprentice. Lutens started to experiment with makeup and photography using friends as models.

Lutens moved to Paris in 1962 where Vogue magazine hired him to create makeup, hair and jewelry.

He collaborated with photographers such as Richard Avedon, Irving Penn.

In 1967 Lutens created makeup line for Christian Dior.

  In 1973 series of photographs inspired by artists Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani was shown in New York , at the Guggenheim Museum. 

He directed two short art films " Les Stars" and " Suaire" which were shown at the Cannes Film Festival.

  Shiseido hired Lutens in 1980 to develop their product image and Lutens made each advertising piece of art.  Very mystical , inspiring.

  In the early 1990s Lutens conceived and designed the " Les Salons du Palais Royal" a house of perfume.

  In 2000, Serge Lutens launched his own brand " Parfume-Beaute Serge Lutens"

  Serge Lutens currently lives in Marrakech, Morocco.

Madame Carven- Legend

 The interview with legendary Madame Carven was recorded in her beautiful apartment on Avenue Foch surrounded by Dutch and Flemish paintings, and other artwork collected by Madame Carven and her late husband, Rene Grog and her fantastic collection of porcelain birds.

 French couturier Madame Carmen de Tommaso was born in 1909 . She first studied architecture and interior design at Ecole de Beaux Arts  , but changed to fashion design.

She established Carven in 1945 with an atelier on Champs-Elysees. Her clientele quickly grew.

Edith Piaf, Martin Carol, Leslie Caron all were dressed by Madame Carven including the future wife of president Valery Giscard d'Estaing, whose wedding dress she designed.

For half a century Carven was the favourite  designer of petite women.

    "  She was the first to dare to do ready-to wear, she was revolutionary" acknowledged Federation president Didier Grumbach, who once worked for her.

 Designers were making clothes for older women , not young women. Madame Carven took advantage of this and started designing pretty and fresh garments. Her favourite color was green and especially loved green and white stripes.

 Shortly afterwards, Madame Carven launched a fresh, floral scent " Ma Griffe" and in 1950 , very successful scent, Vetiver for men.

   In 1949 when Jacqueline Francois sang of " Les robes de chez Carven" in her immortal song " Mademoiselle de Paris", the clothes of Madame Carven embodied all the charm, gaiety, and beauty of the city of Paris and its women in the magical period after the war.

Gareth Pugh-about his childhood,inspiration,love.

 

Gareth Pugh is an English fashion designer born August 31, 1981.
At 14, Pugh began working as a costume designer for the English National Youth Theater. His fashion education he started at City of Sunderland College and finished his degree at Central Saint Martins.
He interned with Rick Owens in Paris.
Pugh's designs are about the struggle between lightness and darkness and are more autobiographical rather than referential.
He has partnered with Rick Owens and Michele Lamy, who hold a 49% interest in Gareth Pugh's firm.
The husband and wife team now fund all of Pugh's collection development, production and marketing.