You say, "People know who I am ..." It is true. From the perspective of two decades, do you think that a trip to Paris when you were 16 was a good decision?
Anja Rubik: Yes, very good. If I had to turn back time, I would do the same, just now I would leave a little later, because it was unnecessary at the age of 16. I followed my dreams: a girl from Częstochowa, with her parents, veterinarians, who had nothing to do with the fashion world, no contacts, not even a vision. It shaped me, gave me a voice. Shaped as a woman. But the beginnings were really hard. I lived in Paris like a terrible recluse. I didn't get along very well with my peers, and at the same time I was too young or too scared to make friends with someone from the world of fashion. Ambitious and introverted, serious. It meant that I didn't have a loose approach to work and life. I took everything seriously. I have learned a lot in the last six years, I have learned a lot about myself, I understood various behaviors that I do not like, which disturb me in my life, which I have to change.
What was the turning point?
I began to change when I met Sasha, my ex-husband. He had a different, very light approach to life. This was the first change. Then, when we got divorced, the biggest came. After a divorce, you are left alone, you do not have a person to whom you return, with whom you do different things every day. Suddenly you have a lot more time and you don't know what to do with it. I had the feeling that I was standing still and I hate stagnation. I knew that I had to open myself to other people, I met one person, then another, I slowly entered the world of art and film, I started to do things other than fashion. I gained distance to my work, to fashion.
I think this girl, this recluse is in you all the time.
Probably it is. I just opened up more with age. Although the trip to Paris was my conscious decision and I knew that I could always come back, I was afraid. I don't really know what.
(...)
Yesterday Mariusz Szczygieł got Nike for "Nie ma", a book where, writing about the fact that there is not this, that, this or something ... he really describes what is. What is not in your life?
(silence). I know what is not there, but ... I wonder whether to say it.
Let's try.
After all, I miss one place that I call home. I live a little everywhere and I will always live a little everywhere. I will never have only one place that I do not move from, but I called home only the place where the other person with whom I shared my life was. I'm meeting someone right now, but we're not at this stage yet. So I miss this home that I always go back to, wherever you are. I do not know if this makes sense?
It has.
Parting with Sasha was extremely difficult for me. Because when we lived together, I worked a lot, but I always came back to where he was. We've created our home. And then, suddenly, I found myself in a position that I could actually do anything. This is obviously fantastic, but on the other hand it was sad at the same time: well, no one needs me, I don't have to be anywhere, nobody is waiting for me. Now, Charlie, my dog, is waiting, but I lack such emotional stability a little. And besides, there is no time in my life. I wish the day had more hours so that I could do more.
