Aged just 26,
Lou Doillon has done more than most people her age. The daughter of Jane Birkin (her father is film director Jacques Doillon) and half sister of the equally stylish
Charlotte Gainsbourg, the young working mother (she has a six-year-old son Marlowe by ex-boyfriend and musician Thomas John Mitchell) and erstwhile model and actress is most recently trying her hand at designing clothes. Although she modelled and acted in a few films throughout her teens and early 20s, it seems that fashion is her most serious vocation yet - this month sees her inaugural collection for Lee Cooper go on sale in stores worldwide. Perhaps this is not surprising. Long admired in the fashion world for her individual style - it's not every day you find someone who claims the Artful Dodger as their fashion inspiration - the lithe Parisien It girl is friends with the likes of
Milla Jovovich, and can ensure the attendance of the Olsen twins and
Mischa Barton at an event.
Tell me how your collaboration with Lee Cooper came about.
At first I thought about maybe doing something commercial for the 100th anniversary of
Lee Cooper, or maybe designing one or two pieces. They took some time to think about it, then they came back to me and said, "OK, let's make a deal, you can control everything you want, but of course if it's a flop, it'll be your fault in a way, and do you want to take that responsibility?" And I said I would. They have a wonderful design team with whom I worked. They told me, "You have to make two commercial pieces, and you have to put pink - which I hate! - because loads of girls like pink." It was really interesting too, to say, OK yeah, I get it. I can't just do something specific. There are obviously pieces that are really more the things I like, like the high waist and the fitted jackets; the medium arm are my favourite things. I had fun re-doing a classic skinny jean, but making it high-waisted because I'm fed up with the low waist thing.
So is this an ongoing thing?
Yes, for three years. The design team come to my house to do the drawing, then we move to the second step which is making the technical drawings, then we move to choosing the fabrics, then it's the whole thing with going to the factories, dispatching the teams - you know, enormous work. And I was kind of playing smart-****, like, I want to do everything! And they so let me decide everything. It's a lot of work! I didn't just give my name to this thing, ha ha!
This isn't your first collaboration. I remember you did something with La Redoute?
Yes. It was literally one month and a half before Lee Cooper called me. I was the first person La Redoute collaborated with, with my sister Kate doing the pictures. And it was the first time they did that celebrity thing, where you picked clothes that you liked, but you didn't design them. Then last season, because I'd done a movie with my mother, they suggested I do it with her. She said, ‘OK, if Kate does the pictures!' My mother and my sister! I thought, OK, why not? I actually ended up designing two or three pieces for them, which was lovely. That got me really excited about designing, and that's why I told my agent I'd
really like to design some stuff. So when Lee Cooper called, it was like, well, perfect!
Who do you have in mind when you design the clothes?
It was boys more than anything, funnily enough, The Artful Dodger.
W
hat's this thing you have with the Artful Dodger?
I don't know why. He's my favourite character on the planet. He's got a mixture of humour, of something casual and something practical, which is exactly what I like. Fashion is such a big thing for me in the sense that it's the first statement you make to someone when you meet them for the first time.
Have you always been in to fashion?
Yeah, and I always get angry with people who are like, ‘Oh, fashion...' and I think, what do you mean, ‘Oh fashion...'? You can get slaughtered in this world for wearing the wrong colour or the wrong shape, but it's been the first code since the dawn of time. I mean, how do you recognise a goddamn monk? Because of his clothes! Women started being free when they took their corsets off. So I cannot
bear it when people are condescending towards fashion because it's the first conversation on the planet. I feel part of that new generation of women who are working, but we're also mothers, because we didn't have to make that choice our mothers had to make, between motherhood and a career. Now you can do both, but you have to be elegant and sexy and strong and a mother and a fun girl who can go out and party - I mean, so much in the same day! I want women to stay sexy. But what I find sexy as a woman is long legs and beautiful butts. The rest - the tummy coming out, the skin on display - I'm not for that.
It's quite boyish...
Yes, because I thought, what were the first clothes that women wore when they started working? So it's Coco Chanel and Katharine Hepburn, both of whom wore that high waist. I love things very, very fitted because I feel strong when something's fitted - I get lost in myself if it's too big. So when I put my jacket on, I'm like, ready to go out and fight.
What about heels?
I love heels. I like extremes. 14 centimetres, or flats.
What brand of flats do you wear?
Mostly two-tone boys' shoes.
So your jeans for Lee Cooper, would you wear them with heels or flats?
I've actually been wearing them more than anything with flats. And I love it because even with flats you have the most
insane legs. It was so lovely was when they arrived two months ago and the girls at Lee Cooper started wearing them because I could see what they did on different bodies. And it was so exciting to see them on a girl with a lot of bosoms, or on a tiny girl - I gave them all a nice bum and long legs! I've been receiving texts saying, "I have such a great bum in them, thank you thank you!" Women are very obsessed by their own butts, more than men, I think! We're always checking each other out. I love it when girls look each other up and down.
Where do you shop in Paris?
In the
Bon Marché. It's good because everything's there
. Otherwise I never have patience, and I always visit the shops too late in the season. I went to
L'Eclaireur last week, but none of the shoes were in my size. The shop assistant told me, "Each time I tell you to come at the start of the season." And I'm like, yeah, but I can't think like that! I'm very impulsive. Last time I was on the bus, and I saw something from the window. I was like, Stop the bus! I'm going into that shop right now!
I think that's a modern way to shop.
Yeah! I can't say why I want to wear something or why I don't want to wear it. It's like when people say, ‘You'll love that, it's your style,' and you think, ‘Erm, no. I can't tell you why, but just no! I can't wear it.'
Which designers do you wear?
Belgians, mostly.
Anne Demeulemeester,
Dries van Noten. Some Martine Sitbon.
Yohji Yamamoto. When I want to be a bit girly it's
Chloé;
Vivienne Westwood,
Commes des Garcons...
Do you think you might launch your own line one day?
I might with one of my very good friends, consisting of unique pieces. I love
Ann Valérie Hash. When she started she was doing just unique pieces. But I don't want to spend a lot of money for brands where you're just paying for the name and not actually what's gone into making it. Because of this job I'm starting to know about where they make these things...
Give us some style tips.
You have to know yourself before putting anything on. Don't try and be somebody else through clothes. Every single woman on this planet is beautiful in one way or another. But she will lose that beauty as soon as she tries to be someone else. One of my good friends was adopted from Indonesia. After 10 years of dying her hair brown and trying to look boringly like me, or any French girl I was like, ‘Woman! You have black hair! This is what is beautiful. You can wear bright pink and bright yellow, which I could never do. Just go for it!' And one night she arrived like this Arabian princess. A guy fell in love with her. They're together now. Don't deny who you are. Find your origins. Most of the time I wear plaits on my head and people ask, ‘Why do you do that?' Because I come from Alsace, my father is Alsatian, and it's the traditional Alsatian hairstyle. It's in my blood. Find out who you are, and you will always be beautiful.
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