I Want To Be A Roitfeld

Kellina de Boer
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Dara Block
STYLE EDITOR

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Jessica Eritou
Renee Hernandez
Bernie Rothschild

quoi de neuf
   
Carine Roitfeld

Apartment

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Library

Julia Restoin-Roitfeld

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Closet

Library

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HOW TO BE A ROITFELD

Beauty Secrets

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Mademoiselle C

Mademoiselle C (2013)
Directed by Fabien Constant

IWTB Interview:
Fabien Constant

ORDER DVD

VIEW TRAILER

CR FASHION BOOK

Harper's Bazaar

carine roitfeld: irreverent
THE LITTLE BLACK JACKET

I Want To Be An Alt

I Want To Be A Coppola

I Want To Be A Battaglia

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Entries in Inspiration (17)

vendredi
mai162014

I Want To Be A Roitfeld: Year Five

Today is 16 May, my favorite day of the year — I Want To Be A Roitfeld is five years old today! It is incredible to note that for half of a decade this site has been devoted to the Roitfeld family — Carine, Julia, and Vladimir — what adventures we have had! Best of all, the lily of the valley, or le muguet, is in bloom today, the most glorious herald of spring, the fragrance intoxicates. In case you are not in a position to smell the wondrous lily of the valley yourself, I picked you posies from my garden to celebrate the day.

First, a virtual bouquet for you, dear reader, for you are our raison d'être, without you we write for naught. Merci mille fois especially to those of you that dare to comment and offer your own opinion on our subjects.

Next, a bouquet for my incredible editorial team, Dara Block, Jascmeen Bush, Jessica Eritou, Renee Hernandez, Montse Ocejo, Bernie Rothschild, and Sarra Salib. I am continually inspired by all of you and I wholeheartedly thank each of you for contributing your talents to IWTBAR.

Finally, a special nosegay for my beloved Michael, Sweet Pea, and Walter, for the constant love and encouragement, ich liebe dich.

xx
Kellina

Joyeux anniversaire, ma geai bleue.

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Carine Roitfeld, Julia and Vladimir Restoin-Roitfeld photos courtesy of Fashion Spot. Walter photos © 2014 Kellina de Boer.

mardi
avr.152014

Paper Dolls: Carine Roitfeld

Paper Dolls: Carine Roitfeld
By SP Medina

Inspired by the style of Carine Roitfeld and Sofia Coppola, SP Medina graciously created these illustrations featured here especially for us as part of her "Paper Dolls" series. I love this photo of the artist in her studio, I hope she will not mind if I include it! Thank you kindly for sharing your talent with all of us, SP! Visit SP Medina Art Gallery to see more of her work.

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Carine Roitfeld illustrations and SP Medina photograph © 2014 SP Medina. All Rights Reserved.

vendredi
janv.312014

Cathy Horyn On Carine Roitfeld

The fashion world has suffered a loss today with the announcement that Cathy Horyn will no longer be writing for The New York Times. At this time, I am inspired to reflect on Cathy Horyn's contribution to Irreverent, her eloquent account of meeting Carine Roitfeld for drinks at the Ritz. Adieu, Cathy, bonne chance !

Extract from Carine Roitfeld: Irreverent
By Cathy Horyn

Not surprisingly, given the way things linked and dovetailed in the '80s, before digital links made such connections instant and artificial, Carine Roitfeld was also observing Carlyne (Cerf de Dudzeele), and as well Nicole Crassat, the legendary fashion editor of French Elle, for which Carine, a former model, offered short freelance pieces. "I learned a lot from these two women," Carine tells me over a drink at the Ritz bar. "From Nicole, I learned about a sense of femininity, like putting a black bra under a white shirt. With Carlyne, it was a bit more aggressive — military clothes with gold shoes." As she speaks, her black-rimmed eyes sparkle behind a protective blind of tousled, shoulder-length hair that, along with high heels and narrow skirts, is her distinctive style trademark. 

Sitting straight-back, her long arms sheathed in a black sweater that leaves visible the hollow of her neck, she nurses a glass of vodka she ordered with relish an hour before. I notice several men glancing at her and one, clearly working on a fantasy, calls from his nearby table, "What are you two girls talking about?" And Carine, instead of being wary, flicks her head and in a sweet voice murmurs, "We're just having fun." Then, as the man struggles in confusion, his lips forming the obscene words he thought he has heard, she turns away, releasing him.

In person, in the picture she creates, Carine is not afraid to be audaciously sophisticated and sexual, if politely unavailable. She understands that the roots of all fashion are snobbish, expensive, erotic, and that it depends on a landscape of difficult women — instinctively feminine and cultivated, but not overly educated — to convince the rest of us to ignore our better judgment and play along. Viewed critically, Carine's whippet-thin woman in a tight skirt and stilettos, her impeccable bourgeois surface broken by tumbling hair and a cigarette in her hand rather than a purse, seems a throwback to a chauvinistic and decadent time. And this creature arrived on the fashion scene at a moment, in the '90s, when French cultural influence was on the wane. Yet, viewed up close, Carine was creating a character based on her own provocative personality. It took a certain daring to turn away from the romantic conventions of editorial shoots — beautiful though they may be, with disguises and casts of eccentrics — and look inward, though seldom more than skin deep. "I think I'm very good with nothing," Carine says of her styling methods. This was a useful skill to have, especially at the beginning of her career, when she and Mario Testino, with whom she worked most often, didn't have big budgets for shoots and were forced to rely on Carine's wits: "She's biting her nails, she's pulling the T-shirt under her skirt, she's kissing someone, she's holding a little girl by the hand, she's crossing her legs," as she says of her character. 

Of course, this nail-biting, décolletage-plunging, largely submissive view of woman was also disturbing. Whether or not Carine foresaw the hedonistic fashion of the late '90s, she was definitely one of its principal architects. 

Like many people, I first heard of Carine in conjunction with Tom Ford and Gucci. This was in 1999 — already late into Ford's stunning turnaround of the Italian label, but I had spent a number of years away from the collections writing about other matters, and when I went back to Milan, I must admit I was shocked by what I saw. Ford had indeed created a modern primitive, operating on her senses (and, if need be, on all fours). And, I can say now, I didn't sufficiently appreciate what he and Carine were doing at Gucci (and later at Saint Laurent too), perhaps because it was all happening in front of my eyes. But he and Carine created a genuine archetype; not a concoction from a mood board, but a real woman who in every polished corpuscle, mean step, and lipsticked mouth, conveyed a world made neurotic and unstable by vast amounts of money, much of it from Wall Street and Silicon Valley. The fashion world had changed since the early '90s — it felt less civilized, for sure — but what of it? It pulsed with new creativity, new energy. And it delivered us, for better or worse, into the era of global brands. 

Carine remained an enigma to me for several years — it's funny, I retain a vivid memory of her coming into the Vanity Fair Oscar party, around 2002, wearing a leopard-print Alaïa dress that covered the parts of her body that were necessary and thinking she had all the actresses beat. By then the editor-in-chief of French Vogue, she was a woman in her mid-forties. Within a few years, the street photographers and bloggers gathering in force outside the shows in Paris had discovered Carine (along with Anna Wintour and Franca Sozzani) and I used to imagine thousands of snaps of Carine — in some incredible fur coat or mad pair of sandals, hair in her face — gathering in archives in Japan, waiting for the day when a contemporary artist sees what our numbed minds were not yet ready to grasp. 

I began this essay about a contemporary icon by circling back to the '80s. This is perhaps the perverse habit of my generation, to see things as a continuum, events and people dovetailing together; it's how we make sense of things. For me, when I set out to write about fashion, it was important that I learn. The sittings editors — Carlyne, of course, during my first forays into fashion and Grace Coddington at Vogue, and then Carine in more recent years — had a visual intelligence that I admired but knew I would never master. Still, the point is to learn, and I can say that all these women, and many more besides, have been great teachers. And despite the sometimes discouraging realities of the fashion business, young people have a tremendous readiness to learn. I hope this book about the very individual work of Carine Roitfeld answers some of their questions.

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Cathy Horyn and Carine Roitfeld photographs courtesy of Fashion Spot

mardi
janv.142014

Carine Roitfeld: The Russian Connection

Carine Roitfeld: The Russian Connection
By Bernie Rothschild

As we all know, Carine Roitfeld, a typical bourgeois Parisian woman, is proud of her Russian heritage. It comes as no surprise that her father, Jacques Roitfeld, was a Russian émigré to Paris, which was a very typical route for Russians during the Revolution of 1917. Carine celebrates her Russian roots as much as she can. She prefers a vodka shot over a glass of vintage French wine. It is even said that she speaks fluent Russian. And she loves Saint Petersburg. Her style is very Parisian, but it has some darkness and toughness in it, which is the Russian in her. Carine Roitfeld is the perfect definition of the French-Russian woman.

The connection between France and Russia is nothing new. French is the language of the nobility and was the official language of the Imperial Court of Russia which was known as the Romanov Court.  The Russian Empire was a very powerful state and once occupied nearly half of the world like the Balkans, some parts of Asia, the Middle East, and even Alaska. The German born Sophie von Anhalt-Zerbst, or historically known as Catherine the Great, ruler of Russia, was very remarkable. Catherine was a Francophile and believed that everything French was superior. Her court was modeled after that of Louis XIV, the Sun King. Catherine admired the works of many French writers and regularly corresponded with Voltaire.

Though it was Peter the Great who introduced Francophilia to Russia, it was Catherine who made it popular by the use of French influence that extended not just to the language but also to the art and the architecture. Also, the official painter to the French royal court, Élisabeth Vigée-LeBrun, was once exiled in Russia and painted the Romanovs. The Rococo structure of many Russian palaces,  especially the Peterhof Palace, was modeled after the splendid Palais de Versailles. The French and the Russians share a similar aesthetic but the Russian art is mixed with a Germanic influence that has some coldness and darkness to it.

Carine Roitfeld has tried to influence her work with her Russian descent like how the Russians admire the French. Carine was involved in the debut issue of Russian Vogue starring models Kate Moss and Amber Valletta that explored the beauty and the treasures of Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet government. Carine also dedicated the October 2006 issue of Vogue Paris to Russia, the spread titled "Tsarines" was inspired by the Russian Grand Duchess, the wealthiest women in the world during her time. The atmosphere of the photography, especially the white dresses, captures the innocent and angelic style of the daughters of the last Russian emperor Nicholas II.

The second editorial from that issue, "Poupées Russes," evokes the dark days of Russia during the communist rule. Especially with the Givenchy blouse with red embroidery which screams blood and goth. While the models look like angelic Grand Duchesses in "Tsarines," in "Poupées Russes" they look as if they're Russian spies disguised as dolls. I love how Carine "Russianizes" the atmosphere of their style.

Lastly, the editorial "Princesse Natalia" presents the model Natalia Vodianova as if she were a Russian princess especially with the Kokoshnik and a Russian babushka. I love how Carine flirts with balancing the fantasy of the modern and the historical Russian style, especially with the jewel tone colors that make Natalia look like the Russian paintings from the 18th century.

Overall, Russia is really a great country; with its rich heritage, it is truly one of the inspiring places on earth.

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Vogue Paris editorial images © 2006 Condé Nast. All Rights Reserved.

vendredi
déc.202013

Rap Ode To Carine Roitfeld

Remember The Little Black Jacket Contest we sponsored way back when? One of the winning entries was a rap ode to Carine Roitfeld by Morgan Von Steen, and while  I had long hoped that she would have time to produce a video of her rap for the site, alas time does not permit. Her CR rap is too fabulous not to share with all of you and so with no further ado, I am pleased to present…

Rap Ode To Carine Roitfeld
By Morgan Von Steen

Carine Roitfeld is one bad bitch.
When it comes to creating beauty, she gets off without a hitch.

I miss her at French Vogue. Team Carine all the way.
But it's nice to have her in New York. That's all I have to say.

I've spent my summer internship here walking down the streets.
I've kept my eyes out. She's the one I'd like to meet.

I want my hands on a copy of CR at this moment.
It's going to be killer. It's Carine. You know it!

I'm already applying to be part of her team.
To work in her presence would be a serious dream.

When I saw her at the CFDA Awards, I could only bow down.
When we watched her walk the carpet, I swear no one could frown.

We waved furiously like morons, and she gave us a smile.
It's a story I will pass down, when I have a child.

She is incredible, and inspiring, and it's news to no one.
I've seen almost every image of the things she has done.

Those Chanel ads are always stuck on my mind.
I want pink eyebrows, cat ears, with a tail in behind.

From black leather, to an infusion of color,
I'll always be a fan of her styling. Call me Carine Lover.

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Carine Roitfeld photographs courtesy of Fashion Spot. Collage by Kellina de Boer.