Ines de la Fressange | Unplugged At Roger Vivier & Jean-Paul Gaultier

Ines de la Fressange & Jean-Paul Gaultier, Spring 2009 Couture Show

Karl Lagerfeld is very kiss, kiss over the muse he once fired: Inès Marie Lætitia Églantine Isabelle de Seignard de la Fressange, born 11 August 1957. Lagerfeld is not responsible for her comeback, although his halo is bathing her head in the new issue of V Magazine #68, where Mr Lagerfeld names Inès de la Fressage as his favorite muse.

It was Jean-Paul Gaultier who brought Inès de la Fressange back to the runway for his Spring 2009 couture show. With Kanye West and Kylie Minogue on stage, the then 51-year-old model, accessories designer and style icon charged with co-leading the rebirth of Roger de Vivier shoes, strutted her French indy style to cheering crowds. 

Emotionally moved, Inès de la Fressage removed her cream color jacket, showing the world what 50 looks like French style.

Mr Gaultier was caught up in the moment, ran down the runway on a photographic coliision course that we share with Anne of Carversville readers. A little digging produced big results today.

Ines de la Fressange & Jean-Paul Gaultier, Spring 2009 CoutureFashion models “are not just 14-year-olds,” Mr Gaultier said later. “There are no [age] barriers to beauty.” Ms. de la Fressange embodied the sexuality demanded in Gaultier’s scorchingly seductive Spanish themed show, making her the right woman for the moment.

Tom Ford makes a similar comment in his current interview with US Vogue.

At the time de la Fressange swore her ebullient return to the runway was a one-off saying “For me it was like a Sunday. This is not my job anymore.”

Fast forward to Karl Lagerfeld’s Spring 2011 fashion show in early October, 2010, where the former Marianne walked in much more stately fashion and decorum with Mr Lagerfeld than with Gaultier.

In fact, we prefer the non-Chanel, non-Lagerfeld images where we feel the spirit of Ines de la Freeange, where she’s not on such good behavior.

Interview Magazine 2009

Inès de la Fressange sat down with Interview Magazine, December 2009 before the Gaultier event. One magnificent image of the French icon was lensed by Paolo Roversi, with the remaining Interview images focused on great shots of legendary, very sexy fashion shoes from the house of Roger Vivier

An icon of the French nation, Inès de la Fressange revealed the same enthusiasm for her work at Roger Vivier with Interview Magazine, as she did running down the Gaultier runway.

The embodiment of French chic and sensuality rolled up her white shirt cuffs and when to work rebirthing Vivier, along with creative director Bruno Frisoni, when called upon by Tod’s chairman and CEO, Diego Della Valle.

So, when Della Valle proposed my coming over, I loved the idea. This Vivier office didn’t exist. I didn’t have a telephone line, or a bank account. I had a cell phone and a laptop. People were calling me as if I were the press director at Dior. Like, “Send us 10 pictures.” Ten pictures with my phone, you don’t know how long that took! And we’re making the packets ourselves. It was very funny to be putting together a luxury brand on all fours. Even when we moved in here, one minute I was letting in Anna Wintour, and the next I was going to buy garbage cans. I was going to the flea markets to buy furniture. It was getting done the way it was getting done—on a small scale and with a lot of soul and heart and risk. We did fashion like fashion was done before—spontaneously, with joy and freedom, and that’s what created our identity. via Interview

She shares her thoughts about the paradoxes of fashion, including the fact that initially she didn’t understand the importance of more cerebral designers like Comme des Garçons or Yohji Yamamoto.

“They had a huge influence in that they showed that aestheticism could be different from prettiness, that there was beauty and that beauty was beyond pretty. They showed girls who had plaster spots on their faces, who looked like they were coming out of a nuclear war, with clodhoppers and no tights, their hair a mess.”

It was Kenzo who first brought Inès de la Fressange to the runway. In fact, she went to Chanel and “they wouldn’t take me.”

This magnificent photo of Ines de la Fressange gives us an enormous insight into her inner sensuality and confident sense of self. She is visually drenched in art, color and natural inspiration, immersed in a style not so tidy, and yet perfectly organized in its serendipidity. This amount of sensual color is common in a French woman’s apartment.

At Anne of Carversville, our Marianne muse grounds a devout determination to inspire a movement in Sensual and Superyoung aging among American women. It’s preposterous to believe that life is only downhill after 28, and yet we do. Anne

By now you must be dying to hear Inès de la Fressange. Come along now, as we log onto her blog at Roger Vivier. Now this is a French woman in action, so self-expressive, living life with a full appreciation of her senses. Welcome to Paris! Anne