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Julia Restoin Roitfeld
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Montblanc Dinner at the 71st Cannes Film Festival wearing Halston
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”Burning” Red Carpet at the 71st Cannes Film Festival on May 18, 2018
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Attends the Montblanc Meisterstuck Le Petit Prince event at One World Trade Center Observatory on April 4, 2018
At the Orla Kiely retrospective event in London, May 23, 2018
zimbio; thesun.co.uk
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"JULIA RESTOIN ROITFELD ON LOCKDOWN, LOVE AND TURNING 40
As the daughter of a Vogue editor, Julia Restoin Roitfeld grew up in a world of fashion and high society. So what does an It-girl do when the parties stop? She becomes the face of a très sexy lingerie brand. Laura Craik meets her
When I arrive at the east London studio — a real studio, with real people in it, for a real interview not conducted on Zoom — Julia Restoin Roitfeld has her hands on her hips and is pouting seductively in a satin cocktail dress as the masked, socially distanced creative team shout encouragingly over the strains of Capital FM. As soon as the shoot is in the bag, she changes back into her black sweater, Frame jeans and black mary-janes, whose heel height, she says, are perfect for the school run (she has a daughter, Romy, aged eight).
I first met Restoin Roitfeld when she was 14 and interning at The Face, some time in the 1990s. “Be nice to her,” we staff were told. “She’s fashion royalty.” The art director fetched Restoin Roitfeld a cup of tea, rather than the other way round. Her mother is Carine Roitfeld, former editor-in-chief of Vogue Paris, who, along with Mario Testino, created some of the most impactful shoots and advertising campaigns of the decade, as well as being key to Tom Ford’s sizzling reinvention of Gucci. Too young to remember the impact of the model Amber Valletta in those velvet hipster flares from the Gucci autumn/winter 1995 ad campaign? Google it.
This isn’t 1995, however. It’s 2020 and there’s no place for velvet hipster flares now parties are off-menu. If fashion is facing unprecedentedly tough times, what of the people who lived in its milieu? What does the It girl do when there is nowhere to show off her It?"
As the daughter of a Vogue editor, Julia Restoin Roitfeld grew up in a world of fashion and high society. So what does an It-girl do when the parties stop? She becomes the face of a très sexy lingerie brand. Laura Craik meets her
When I arrive at the east London studio — a real studio, with real people in it, for a real interview not conducted on Zoom — Julia Restoin Roitfeld has her hands on her hips and is pouting seductively in a satin cocktail dress as the masked, socially distanced creative team shout encouragingly over the strains of Capital FM. As soon as the shoot is in the bag, she changes back into her black sweater, Frame jeans and black mary-janes, whose heel height, she says, are perfect for the school run (she has a daughter, Romy, aged eight).
I first met Restoin Roitfeld when she was 14 and interning at The Face, some time in the 1990s. “Be nice to her,” we staff were told. “She’s fashion royalty.” The art director fetched Restoin Roitfeld a cup of tea, rather than the other way round. Her mother is Carine Roitfeld, former editor-in-chief of Vogue Paris, who, along with Mario Testino, created some of the most impactful shoots and advertising campaigns of the decade, as well as being key to Tom Ford’s sizzling reinvention of Gucci. Too young to remember the impact of the model Amber Valletta in those velvet hipster flares from the Gucci autumn/winter 1995 ad campaign? Google it.
This isn’t 1995, however. It’s 2020 and there’s no place for velvet hipster flares now parties are off-menu. If fashion is facing unprecedentedly tough times, what of the people who lived in its milieu? What does the It girl do when there is nowhere to show off her It?"
Obviously Restoin Roitfeld grew up to be an It girl, modelling from the age of 10 and accompanying her mother to parties as a teen; always in black, always in eyeliner, always doing that French thing of gazing seductively from under a shock of tousled hair that British women can never manage without looking boss-eyed. In 2006, aged 25, she became the face of Ford’s Black Orchid perfume, with the designer anointing her as “exactly what beauty is to me”. No pressure, then.
“So much pressure,” she laughs, when I ask her how that felt. “There’s a lot of pressure around [the idea of] finding yourself beautiful or pretty. People shame you when you feel good about yourself. It’s OK to like yourself, it’s not bragging. The problem is that confidence gets interpreted as you being full of yourself.”
Restoin Roitfeld isn’t full of herself, even if she looks as though she is. In person she is quiet and thoughtful, an introvert whose beauty, parentage (her father, Christian Restoin, launched the cult French shirt brand Equipment) and ubiquitous presence on the party circuit would lead most people to assume she is an extrovert. She says she loved lockdown and spent it in New York with her daughter. “Of course home-schooling was hard, but it’s nice when time stops and you do exactly what you want to do: read, bake, cook and enjoy being at home. I’m a really homey person.” Shortly after her daughter Romy was born in 2012, she launched Romy & the Bunnies, a lifestyle platform and ecommerce site devoted to modern motherhood, which now has more than 47,000 followers on Instagram.
The only downside, she says, was that her Northern Irish boyfriend, Tim Wheeler, got stuck in Europe, where he was on tour with his band, Ash. “We didn’t see each other for four months. But we worked it through. Thank God for Facetime.”
One imagines the couple’s Facetime sessions were more titillating than most, given that she is the face of Coco de Mer, purveyor of sexy lingerie and erotica, whose website says it offers “a safe place to discover your own desires and be inspired by our luxury lingerie, designer sex toys, exquisite bondage, fashion latexwear and sensual body products”. As an ambassador for a lingerie brand and with a famously open-minded French mother (during her ten-year tenure at Vogue Paris, Carine Roitfeld pushed boundaries, with a reputation for extremely sexy fashion shoots), I assume Restoin Roitfeld will be pretty open to talking about sex, but she is hesitant. “I think it’s still a big taboo. Everyone dresses sexy, but people don’t talk about sex. There’s a big gap between looking the part and talking the part. I still feel shy to talk about it, in total honesty.”
Being French, with a mother who was besties with Tom Ford, I imagine she was raised in a house where sex was talked about openly. “Not really. There were no taboos but neither was it a daily conversation. But I was never afraid to introduce my parents to my first boyfriend. They were pretty open to conversation if needed. I want it to be the same for my daughter when the time comes. If there’s anything she needs to talk about, I want her to know that she can talk.”
I ask her why she thinks British women revere French women as sexy. “I don’t know. I think the grass is always greener. I know the reputation French women have for being sexy, but I don’t see it that way. What’s so sexy about French women? Is it their outfits? Their cold, ‘I don’t care’ attitude?”
Maybe it’s because they don’t plaster themselves in make-up? “We’re very minimal when it comes to make-up,” she agrees. “My mother doesn’t wear a lot. Her signature look is eyeliner and eyebrows. I don’t really wear foundation because nobody taught me how to put it on.”
She hasn’t seen her mother for six months. “Last time I saw her was in March, at a Chanel show in Paris. If we go to Paris [to visit her], then I can’t send my daughter to school for two weeks.” She says her daughter is loving life in London: happily, Romy’s father, the Swedish model Robert Konjic (they separated amicably in 2013), lives in London too.
She has been with the 43-year-old Wheeler for a little more than two years. Theirs is a very modern love story that gives hope to anyone who is still harbouring aspirations to date the pop star whose posters once adorned their wall. The erstwhile Britpop pin-up, who penned the Nineties hit Girl from Mars, didn’t cross paths with Restoin Roitfeld at some starry party, as one might expect: they got together after she followed him on Instagram. “I used to listen to his band when I was 14,” she smiles bashfully. “I’m like, ‘OK, what is he up to? Oh, he lives in New York. I’ll follow him.’ I forgot about it the next day, but then I saw ‘Oh, Tim Wheeler is following me back!’ That’s where it started. And here we are. Best Instagram move ever.”
They had planned to move back from New York (Restoin Roitfeld had lived there for 13 years, Wheeler for 15) to London in February, but lockdown happened. They finally moved into their north London home in August. “It’s amazing,” she beams, resplendent with the first flush of love, a tonic more beneficent than any face cream. “It’s still fresh and new and exciting.”
When she says she’s “weirdly excited” about turning 40 next month, you believe her. “I’m halfway through my life, there’s no more time to waste. Live your life for yourself. No more bullsh*t. I think 40 is a wake-up call: OK, enough now.”
Would she say her priorities have changed as she has aged, I ask. “Oh yes. I really care less about being in the right place or the right party. I’m so happy my birthday is during lockdown so I don’t have to have a party. The party is always for others, it’s not for you. I want to have a nice road trip to the countryside. Maybe Scotland, with my boyfriend, enjoying nature. Last year I skipped Paris fashion week. My friends were all ‘Why did you skip?’ Because I really wanted to go whale watching. So we went to Cape Cod. In ten years, when I look back, what will I remember most: a fashion show or a whale?”
There’s something beautifully post-Covid about this statement. I wonder whether she credits Wheeler for her new-found love of nature, or whether it’s just something she’s increasingly drawn to. “It’s not only about love of nature. It’s about being curious and finding someone who wants to do the same things. I found someone who wants to.” She smiles beatifically. “Maybe I sound very boring, but I aspire to a more quiet life. Less about chasing glitters.”
Whether through age or circumstance, sooner or later, French or British, we all care less about chasing glitters in the end. But never more so, perhaps, than when our life has been a glitterball.
“So much pressure,” she laughs, when I ask her how that felt. “There’s a lot of pressure around [the idea of] finding yourself beautiful or pretty. People shame you when you feel good about yourself. It’s OK to like yourself, it’s not bragging. The problem is that confidence gets interpreted as you being full of yourself.”
Restoin Roitfeld isn’t full of herself, even if she looks as though she is. In person she is quiet and thoughtful, an introvert whose beauty, parentage (her father, Christian Restoin, launched the cult French shirt brand Equipment) and ubiquitous presence on the party circuit would lead most people to assume she is an extrovert. She says she loved lockdown and spent it in New York with her daughter. “Of course home-schooling was hard, but it’s nice when time stops and you do exactly what you want to do: read, bake, cook and enjoy being at home. I’m a really homey person.” Shortly after her daughter Romy was born in 2012, she launched Romy & the Bunnies, a lifestyle platform and ecommerce site devoted to modern motherhood, which now has more than 47,000 followers on Instagram.
The only downside, she says, was that her Northern Irish boyfriend, Tim Wheeler, got stuck in Europe, where he was on tour with his band, Ash. “We didn’t see each other for four months. But we worked it through. Thank God for Facetime.”
One imagines the couple’s Facetime sessions were more titillating than most, given that she is the face of Coco de Mer, purveyor of sexy lingerie and erotica, whose website says it offers “a safe place to discover your own desires and be inspired by our luxury lingerie, designer sex toys, exquisite bondage, fashion latexwear and sensual body products”. As an ambassador for a lingerie brand and with a famously open-minded French mother (during her ten-year tenure at Vogue Paris, Carine Roitfeld pushed boundaries, with a reputation for extremely sexy fashion shoots), I assume Restoin Roitfeld will be pretty open to talking about sex, but she is hesitant. “I think it’s still a big taboo. Everyone dresses sexy, but people don’t talk about sex. There’s a big gap between looking the part and talking the part. I still feel shy to talk about it, in total honesty.”
Being French, with a mother who was besties with Tom Ford, I imagine she was raised in a house where sex was talked about openly. “Not really. There were no taboos but neither was it a daily conversation. But I was never afraid to introduce my parents to my first boyfriend. They were pretty open to conversation if needed. I want it to be the same for my daughter when the time comes. If there’s anything she needs to talk about, I want her to know that she can talk.”
I ask her why she thinks British women revere French women as sexy. “I don’t know. I think the grass is always greener. I know the reputation French women have for being sexy, but I don’t see it that way. What’s so sexy about French women? Is it their outfits? Their cold, ‘I don’t care’ attitude?”
Maybe it’s because they don’t plaster themselves in make-up? “We’re very minimal when it comes to make-up,” she agrees. “My mother doesn’t wear a lot. Her signature look is eyeliner and eyebrows. I don’t really wear foundation because nobody taught me how to put it on.”
She hasn’t seen her mother for six months. “Last time I saw her was in March, at a Chanel show in Paris. If we go to Paris [to visit her], then I can’t send my daughter to school for two weeks.” She says her daughter is loving life in London: happily, Romy’s father, the Swedish model Robert Konjic (they separated amicably in 2013), lives in London too.
She has been with the 43-year-old Wheeler for a little more than two years. Theirs is a very modern love story that gives hope to anyone who is still harbouring aspirations to date the pop star whose posters once adorned their wall. The erstwhile Britpop pin-up, who penned the Nineties hit Girl from Mars, didn’t cross paths with Restoin Roitfeld at some starry party, as one might expect: they got together after she followed him on Instagram. “I used to listen to his band when I was 14,” she smiles bashfully. “I’m like, ‘OK, what is he up to? Oh, he lives in New York. I’ll follow him.’ I forgot about it the next day, but then I saw ‘Oh, Tim Wheeler is following me back!’ That’s where it started. And here we are. Best Instagram move ever.”
They had planned to move back from New York (Restoin Roitfeld had lived there for 13 years, Wheeler for 15) to London in February, but lockdown happened. They finally moved into their north London home in August. “It’s amazing,” she beams, resplendent with the first flush of love, a tonic more beneficent than any face cream. “It’s still fresh and new and exciting.”
When she says she’s “weirdly excited” about turning 40 next month, you believe her. “I’m halfway through my life, there’s no more time to waste. Live your life for yourself. No more bullsh*t. I think 40 is a wake-up call: OK, enough now.”
Would she say her priorities have changed as she has aged, I ask. “Oh yes. I really care less about being in the right place or the right party. I’m so happy my birthday is during lockdown so I don’t have to have a party. The party is always for others, it’s not for you. I want to have a nice road trip to the countryside. Maybe Scotland, with my boyfriend, enjoying nature. Last year I skipped Paris fashion week. My friends were all ‘Why did you skip?’ Because I really wanted to go whale watching. So we went to Cape Cod. In ten years, when I look back, what will I remember most: a fashion show or a whale?”
There’s something beautifully post-Covid about this statement. I wonder whether she credits Wheeler for her new-found love of nature, or whether it’s just something she’s increasingly drawn to. “It’s not only about love of nature. It’s about being curious and finding someone who wants to do the same things. I found someone who wants to.” She smiles beatifically. “Maybe I sound very boring, but I aspire to a more quiet life. Less about chasing glitters.”
Whether through age or circumstance, sooner or later, French or British, we all care less about chasing glitters in the end. But never more so, perhaps, than when our life has been a glitterball.
--thetimes.co.uk
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