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Inès de la
Fressange at her Roger Vivier office. Credit Alice Dison for The New York Times
PARIS
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Inès Marie
Lætitia Églantine Isabelle de Seignard de La Fressange, born 11 August 1957, is
a French model, aristocrat, style icon, fashion designer and perfumer. She was
named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1998.
Family and
Childhood
La
Fressange was born in Gassin, Var, France, the daughter of André de Seignard,
Marquis de La Fressange (b. 1932), a French stockbroker, and his wife, the
former Cecilia "Lita" Sánchez-Davila, an Argentine-Colombian model
(closely related to two former presidents of Colombia, Alfonso Lopez Pumarejo
and Alfonso Lopez Michelsen
Her family
on her father's side comes from old French nobility, and had the seigneury of
'de La Fressange' in the Velay (in Auvergne). Her uncle, Hubert de La Fressange
(b. 1923), died in the Second World War on 2 October 1944 in Anglemont, during
which he participated in its liberation. Her grandmother, the marchioness to
Paul de La Fressange, was born Simone Lazard, and was heiress to the Lazard
banking fortune (Banque Lazard). She married two ministers in succession,
Maurice Petsche, and then Louis Jacquinot.
She grew up
in an 18th-century mill outside Paris with two brothers, Emmanuel, the eldest,
and her younger brother, Ivan. She studied at the Tournelle Institution in
Courgent, then at the Notre-dame de Mantes-la-Jolie Institution in the Yvelines
where she got her bacalaureat at the age of 16, and then went to the L'École du
Louvre in Paris.
Career
Tall at 180
cm (5'11") and with a weight of 50 kg (110 lb), she began her career as a
model in 1974 at the age of 17. She quickly became nicknamed by many as
"the talking mannequin", due to her tendency to talk with fashion
journalists and express her opinions on her profession and on fashion.
In 1975, at
the age of 18, La Fressange appeared for the first time in photos by Oliviero
Toscani for Elle magazine, then modelled for Thierry Mugler and other
designers.
In 1983 she
became the first model to sign an exclusive modeling contract with the haute
couture fashion house, Chanel, by fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, whose muse
she became due to her remarkable resemblance to the brand's founder, Coco
Chanel, who died in 1971. She was the first model to sign an exclusivity
contract with a fashion house and the first model to become a big media
personality and popular figure in fashion history, a symbol of the 1980s due to
her omnipresence.
However, in
1989, Lagerfeld and La Fressange had an argument and parted company. Likely
this argument was, at least in part, regarding her decision to lend her
likeness to a bust of Marianne, the ubiquitous symbol of the French Republic.
Lagerfeld reputedly condemned her decision, saying that Marianne was the
embodiment of "everything that is boring, bourgeois, and provincial"
and that he would not dress up historic monuments.
On 9 June
1990, in Tarascon, France, she married Luigi d'Urso (1951-2006), an Italian
railroad executive, who died in 2006. Luigi was the son of Alessandro d'Urso,
and his wife, Donna Clothilde Serra di Cassano (daughter of Don Luigi Serra,
9th Duke di Cassano, and Elizabeth Grant; and great-granddaughter of George
Clymer, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, who signed both the
United States Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the United States
Constitution in 1787). Luigi and Inès had two daughters, Nine Marie d'Urso
(born 27 February 1994) and Violette Marie d'Urso (born 6 August 1999). She
also has two stepdaughters, Clotilde d'Urso and India d'Urso, the daughters of
Luigi d'Urso by his first wife, Guendalina Levier.
In 1991,
with the financial support of the luxury brand, Orcofi, she created her own
brand 'Inès de la Fressange' and opened her own Boutique, selling various
products such as perfumes originating from the area in which her grandfather
lived, at 12 Avenue Montaigne in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. It was an
immediate success not only in France, but also in the USA and in Japan.
In December
1999, due to equity dilution, she was made redundant from her own company in
which she was not a majority shareholder, her majority co-shareholders
insisting it was because she had designed a pill-dispenser for the 'Elixir of
Abbé Soury'. She lost the rights to use her name and personal brand, which she
fought five years for in court.
She walked
the runway for Gaultier during an event, at age 51.[3] She also walked the
Chanel spring-summer 2011 show.
La
Fressange and fashion journalist Sophie Gachet are the authors of Parisian
Chic, a Style Guide.
This Is What
‘Parisienne’ Looks Like
Skin Deep
By ELAINE
SCIOLINO APRIL 20, 2011
THE perfect
Parisian woman is an illusion, bien sûr. But learning to pretend to be one is a
serious business that dates back centuries.
It is an
enterprise that continues to thrive with profitable how-to books like, “How to
Become a Real Parisian,” “The Parisian Woman’s Guide to Style” and “All You
Need to Be Impossibly French.” Now Inès de la Fressange, ex-runway model,
former face of Chanel, Legion of Honor winner, designer, businesswoman and
daughter of a marquis, offers yet another take on how to dress, shop, eat and
act like a true “Parisienne.” This onetime muse of Karl Lagerfeld has spun her
beauty and style tips into a confection of a best seller, “Parisian Chic: A
Style Guide,” which has sold more than 100,000 copies in French and has just
hit the American market.
The book
might have withered and died on the shelves, except that Ms. de la Fressange
combines a “je ne sais quoi” audacity with a sassy tone, and leaves readers
believing that, by following her rules and experimenting with confidence, they,
too, can be just like her.
They can’t.
Ms. de la
Fressange is almost 6 feet tall, about 125 pounds and hipless. She has been the
official model for Marianne, the ageless symbol of the French republic that
appears on postage stamps and municipal buildings. She is wealthy and
quadrilingual. She drinks wine and lots of strong espresso. She doesn’t diet.
“Potatoes, chocolate, bonbons, wine, bread — I eat everything that’s good,” she
said.
She is 53,
but dared to pose topless for Madame Figaro magazine last year. “Photoshop
helped,” she said, knowing you don’t really believe her. As for exercise, she
said, “I thought about doing it once.”
She even
smokes, a lot, but not in front of Americans. When asked about the three
oversize ashtrays on the chrome and glass-topped table that serves as her desk,
she replied: “You don’t see any ashtrays in my office! They are all art
objects!”
She wears
sensible lingerie from Etam and doesn’t use concealer to hide the circles under
her deep-set eyes. One of her uniforms — a navy crew-neck sweater, rolled-up
jeans and brown loafers — makes her look elegant-casual; most anyone else would
look like the L. L. Bean catalog.
Ms. de la
Fressange and Mr. Lagerfeld had a falling out decades ago but have since
reconciled. After giving up modeling, Ms. de la Fressange became a fashion and
accessories designer. Since 2003 she has been a “brand identity consultant” for
Roger Vivier, the French shoe designer, installed in an office crammed with
decades of her sentimental history in the Vivier boutique on the Rue du
Faubourg Saint-Honoré.
She has
just returned from Los Angeles, where she signed a contract to be one of the
new faces for L’Oréal.
“I told
them that France was an old country, and I guess they had to choose an old
model,” she said: “They told me, ‘Oh, no, you aren’t the oldest. We had Jane
Fonda.’ Facial bags are the new style!”
She graces
a recent advertisement for Galeries Lafayette. Credit Alice Dison for The New
York Times
It is that
blend of self-deprecation and irreverence, delivered in one-liners with deep,
throaty laughter and a dramatic toss of the head, that both men and women find
enticing.
“It’s the
fantasy of the entire world of women, even French women, to be the perfect
Parisienne,” said Bertrand de Saint-Vincent, the society columnist for Le
Figaro and author of “Tout Paris,” a volume of essays on the Parisian
glitterati, their style, their parties, their foibles. Asked who comes closest,
Mr. Saint-Vincent does not hesitate. “Inès!” he said.
Despite her
relaxed, flexible style, Ms. de la Fressange is a disciplined businesswoman who
knows how to sell her brand: herself.
A look from
across the New York Times at the forces that shape the dress codes we share,
with Vanessa Friedman as your personal shopper.
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“She’s very clever because she knows the key
to being beautiful is self-confidence,” said Sophie-Caroline de Margerie, a
writer who captures the essence of Parisian style in “American Lady,” a new
biography of Susan Mary Alsop, the American doyenne of French style. “In the
end there’s no rule. It doesn’t matter what you wear, as long as it suits you,
and as long as you feel pretty.”
Ms. de la
Fressange is so strong a brand that the Galeries Lafayette department store is
featuring this perfect Parisienne in a tie-in, with posters and advertisements
of her in rolled-up jeans, black lace-up shoes, white socks and a beret, sitting
behind an accordion. As for Ms. de la Fressange’s 239-page guidebook, it is
printed with a leatherlike cover in shiny red with gold lettering. Ms. de la
Fressange did the illustrations; her older daughter, Nine, who is 17, did the
modeling. Its six-point guide to Parisian style includes a ban on coordinated
outfits, feeling uncomfortable and looking rich.
Ms. de la
Fressange also offers 10 lessons to master the “offbeat look à la Parisienne.”
Among them: wearing jeans with gem-encrusted sandals, not sneakers; a pencil
skirt with ballet flats, not heels; an evening dress with a straw handbag, not
a gold clutch; a chiffon print dress with battered biker boots, not brand-new
ballet flats; a sequined sweater with men’s trousers, not a skirt; a tuxedo jacket
with sneakers, not femme fatale stilettos.
The perfect
Parisienne never uses soap on her face or wears pink on her lips or goes out
without makeup, even on weekends. She never buys long-stemmed flowers (too
difficult to find a suitable vase), but likes to eat (“Rest assured, I do know
a few size 4s.”). She washes her hair every morning. Asked if she feels like
the perfect Parisienne, she replied, “Perfection is a nightmare. A great French
wine would be nothing without the taste of the oak barrel or a touch of dust.”
Ms. de la
Fressange’s life has not always been perfect. It turned tragic in 2006, when
her husband, the Italian businessman Luigi d’Orso, died of a heart attack. She
refers to the current love of her life, Denis Olivennes, a media executive, as
her “fiancé,” even though they are not engaged. “ ‘Boyfriend’ sounds so
childish, ‘partner’ sounds like a business. I guess I could call him, ‘the man
I often see in the bedroom in the evening.’ ”
Then after
all the lessons, and when you least expect it, she throws a curve. “Beware of
good taste,” she commands in her book. “Who knew that black and navy were made
for each other?” she writes. “No one — until Yves Saint Laurent gave us
permission to boldly go where no one had gone before. You love orange dresses
with yellow shoes? Go for it!”
Her book
continues: “Fashion is constantly evolving, and that’s what makes it so
interesting. The day will come when Parisians decree that mini-shorts with
leopard-skin bomber jackets and studded ballet flats are the best things since
sliced bread.”
But what
true Parisienne eats sliced bread?
Après le
succès de La Parisienne, Ines de la Fressange et Sophie Gachet décortiquent
l’allure des Parisiens et révèlent leurs secrets de style.
Quelles sont les
meilleures astuces de mode à Paris? Comment nouer sa cravate? Dans quel resto
manger un bon burger? Où dénicher un parfum original ou des chaussures chic?
Toutes les
réponses sont dans ce guide très illustré.
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