FASHION: an African story

Carine Roitfeld

Carine Roitfeld's Style Secrets


12 May 2009

French Vogue editor (and Anna Wintour's rumoured successor) Carine Roitfeld has revealed her style secrets in an interview with Acne Paper and insists she barely ever wears jeans.


Carine said: "I only wear jeans and flat shoes when I am on holiday, never for work. Jeans suit me very well but it's not for me anymore. It's horrible to say but it has something to do with age."

She added: "Jeans are for my assistants..."

Carine said on her own style: "If people ask me to describe my look I always say: quite classic with an edge. Look at my dress. It doesn't look like I have on anything special, it’s more the way you mix the clothes and how you move, how you open your bag, how you cross your legs - just little things that make a difference. "

The editor also put paid to rumours she weighs members of staff in her office: "People think I weigh my girls in the office but I do not. We have a scale in the office because we travel a lot and sometimes you can't bring more than 25 kilos a case. It’s just to weigh my luggage, not to weigh my editors."

Is it wrong we sort of hoped this rumour was true?!

Carine Roitfeld
"It's a new kind of project for me."

Carine Roitfeld to style for Barneys


24 March 2011

Former French Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld is to become US store Barneys guest editor and stylist for fall/winter 2011-12.


Carine Roitfeld is to become Barneys guest editor and stylist for fall/winter 2011-12.


The former French Vogue editor - who left her position at the prestigious magazine in January - has teamed up with the US store to style and edit their Mario Sorrenti-shot advertising campaign, catalogue, newsletters, as well as the windows in their New York store, which will be unveiled in September.


Speaking about her new role, Carine told WWD: "It's very exciting. It's a new kind of project for me. It's good to have a new life, because now I can do projects that I never dreamed of before. For me, Barneys has always been the biggest name in luxury department stores, so to be able to participate in this project with them, and be visible during the next fashion week in New York, is my dream come true. To a French girl, it's a big, big dream."


Carine says she was drawn to the offer from Barneys because it gives her the opportunity to try something new.


She said: "To be on the other side with the retailers and buyers is new for me, and I always like new opportunities in my life. When I was doing my styling, most of the time I was thinking about a real woman who was going to wear the clothes. Sometimes I was thinking about myself, sometimes about a woman who really inspired me, but it was always about the woman. Working with Barneys, and choosing the looks, I was thinking about whether a real woman would buy this outfit and feel beautiful and comfortable."

Carrie Roitfeld

Carine Roitfeld prefers curvy models

18 October 2011


Carine Roitfeld always preferred using ''curvy'' models to skinny females when editing French Vogue.

Carine Roitfeld prefers using "curvy" models.


The former French vogue editor insists she never used models she thought were too thin in the magazine as she felt a responsibility to her readers, in particular because she knew her children would see the images.


She said: "In my 10 years, I never put a girl that was too skinny in French Vogue. I think readers can be very impressionable and you have to pay attention to what you tell them and put in the magazine.


And I tell myself that my kids are going to read the magazine and I don't want them to feel bad.


"I prefer to use curvy girls like Lara Stone."


Carine believes none of the women depicted in the magazine were ever objectified and she always tried to give the impression of "strong" females.


She added in an interview with the Independent newspaper: "I don't think the woman in French Vogue was an object. She was always a real woman.


"Even if there was a lot of bondage around her, I don't think she looks like she is suffering. If she wears high heels and a garter belt, it's because it's what she wants. She's a strong woman."

Dutch model Lara Stone
http://www.listal.com/lara-stone_ii 



Lara Stone



Black model

 Fashion professionals have taken the definition of big and large, and ample outside of its definitions, and applied meanings initially designed to assuage the insecurities of European women who paled in attributes African women were born with. In the centuries past when European men first gasped in astonishment at African women’s extraordinary figures, and collapsed from taking in the enormity of their breasts and thighs, and behinds their minds muddied with lust, and they began campaigns of conquest into the continent. White men long subordinate to oppressive, and conservative views around sexuality and obsessed with fulfilling raging lust for women, children, other men, and animals were presented with a challenge by African women. Faced with a social structure deemed superior by its legacy and the depths of its spirituality, education and insights into Nature, the universe and the mysterious natures of Water, Earth and Sky African women, the African continent, and its cultures intellectually assaulted French, Spanish, English, Dutch, and Portuguese men standing on the dark soil of Africa.


Today that legacy of reaction and thought is publicly flaunted in fashion statements and comments made by fashion professionals, and critics like former French Vogue editor, Carine Roitfeld’s claim: “I prefer to use curvy girls like Lara Stone.” – Gregory E. Woods

Black Unity & her sister in a club !!!!

brown sista's collage !!!