[font=verdana, helvetica, arial]FRENCH PERSONAL STYLE:
[font=verdana, helvetica, arial]A look at CARINE ROITFELD, editor-in-chief French Vogue [/font]
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According to
WWD, the fashion muse of the moment (2002) is the
editor-in-chief of French Vogue Carine Roitfeld. Actually Mme Roitfeld is an excellent example of chic French personal style that follows the golden rule of French chic: "
Keep It Simple."
About the fashion editor, Robin Givhan writes in the Washington Post that
Carine Roitfeld, the smoky-eyed editor of
French Vogue, is this year's style icon:
Physically, Roitfeld is an unlikely role model. She has an angular, vaguely threatening appearance that is masculine and sexual in the manner of a young Charlotte Rampling. She favors black clothes and high heels that lace up and around the legs like gladiator formalwear. But her most disconcerting feature is a screen of brown hair that covers about half of her face.
Actually I don't find
Carine Roitfeld either particularly masculine or even vaguely threatening, but then perhaps I interpret the severity of some French personal style differently than the Washington Post's chief fashion writer (with whom I usually agree.) On the other hand, I have only seen
Carine Roitfeld in photos, and I am almost sure that
Robin Givhan has seen her in person at various Paris fashion events. A bit later in this article, I will give you a link to a photo of
Carine Roitfeld and you can decide for yourself.
Also I do not find the screen of brown hair a "most disconcerting feature," possibily because I am old enough to have a mother who is old enough to remember the era of
Veronica Lake, a sultry American type whose signature personal style was her hair covering about half of her face. People did not find Veronica's hair disconcerting. They found it sexy. On the other hand, sexy can be disconcerting.
Robin Givhan quotes
Bloomingdale's Buyer Kal Ruttenstein saying that he believes that Carine Roitfeld's look is the look of the moment. "
She's in her early forties and has kids, and I don't think models should be Twiggy and 17," Ruttenstein says.
Others are writing about
Carine Roitfeld:
According to WWD, many of models on the Fall runways even looked like Carine - something that was also mentioned by Ruth la Ferla in an article in the Style section of the New York Times ("Do Straight-haired Women Have More Fun?"). As she put it, "Carine Roitfeld has made dead - straight hair her signature. Ms. Roitfeld's tresses, which cover half her face, have lately been copied on the runways."
According to Roitfeld, there is no great mystery to her look, which she claims takes a mere 10 minutes each morning to achieve. As she told WWD, "I'm always wearing the same sort of things, a black coat, a skirt - but I always put the accent on one exciting piece". The one exciting piece is usually a killer pair of heels. As she stated: "in a fashion shoot, shoes are very important. Shoes give the look. That and the hair."