It was night at JFK, and the boarding of the giant A380 seemed to never end, when recognizing the silhouette of Grace Coddington seating front row reminded me that Paris Fashion Week was about to start.

For all who saw the The September Issue, and fell under her charm, Grace seems to possess the disillusionment of a true philosopher, while being more of an artist than most photographers, more of an artist in fact than most artists who’d rather have their new summer house featured in Vogue than their last show reviewed in Art Forum (although, of course, both are necessary).

I was lost in my reflections on Grace, assuming that under these conditions, a First class solitude must be complimentary, when I was suddenly brought back to shared reality by a  “Can I see your invitation ? ”. I was then urged with the herd to the standing row, by a flight attendant who had the fierce insensitivity of a PR assistant.

A few minutes latter, as I was walking with renewed energy on Lafayette Street, she called again : « they want to know what our favorite songs are, it’s  karaoke ! »

Had I gone to Tokyo at least 15 times and always successfully avoided karaoke parties to finally get trapped into one in NY ? Is there a more depressing scene than drunks trying to read the upcoming lyrics on a TV screen to blaring 80s hits ?

Carine in a gold vintage dress

But of course, as masterminded by Carine, it was going to be something else, and with high anticipation we made our approach to Westway, the former strip-club, where the party was happening.

Limousines were jammed on Clarkson street, and squads of it girls and models on high heels were carefully navigating the cobble stones, exposing  their million dollars legs to the outdoors spotlights.

I was in fear that somebody would push me on the stage, just for fun. What would I sing ? The only song I know is Syd Barrett‘s « Effervescing Elephant ».

It turned out to be the most professional karaoke event one could witness. The Fashion people all hit the stage – which looks rather like a catwalk –  with stunning confidence. Not only they never sang out of tune, but they could dance across the stage back and forth, and do all the things performers do like pointing at the crowd, and probably pole dancing as well.

A cross-disciplinary talent that you could hardly imagine among true rock stars who usually show a lack of expertise when it comes down to Fashion : shiny jackets with wide shoulders, leather pants, etc…

The flashes on iphones burnt out during Anna della Russo’s number

The Italians were especially good. Even the cynical fashion assistants have to change their minds when they realized their most feared celebrities were showing genuine warmth, good humor, and sincere emotions. Everybody sensed a historical moment when Valentino’s rendition of « My Way » almost one-upped Sinatra’s Vegas version.

Valentino singing « My Way »

As we left the party and walked along the West Side Highway with imagined scenes of endless rehearsals in burgundy bathrobes late at night in the privacy of the hotel’s palace suite, a small anonymous car overloaded with men suddenly pulled along the sidewalk. All the doors opened at once and the passengers bursted out like undercover policemen about to seize somebody.

A young lad in a torn tee-shirt ran out of the car to take refuge against a wall, where he theatrically faced his pursuers. Among the gang’s sinister faces we were relieved to recognize Terry Richardson’s,  thanks to his plaid shirt and signature moustache, this time he didn’t had his thumbs up but was aiming his Powershot at the young actor.

Terry immediately started to fire flashes at his subject, who obligingly gave varied poses.

It seemed the complete New York Fashion scene had decided to unfold  in just one night.

This is the time of the year in New York when you see them returning.

The tall, thin, black silhouettes navigating the slush in their cheap Rock boots.

They announce the coming of Fashion Week like quails announce the end of summer.

I was inspired to write them a poem :

I see you, all pale faced and sad eyes, standing at the corner

« Don’t look at me unless you’re Vinoodh and Inez

My boyfriend he will get you

Dump you in a trash bin somewhere

Daddy will drown you in a pond behind the factory »

I saw you walking fast

Holding tight the frozen plastic of the lookbooks

And now in the middle of the night

I hear you giggling in the hotel rooms

I often see this guy at the airport.

He chaperones the girls trans-Atlantic.

I think he figures out the passports, waits for the bags,

Makes sure some jerk doesn’t snap some photos of them in their sleep.

The girls look bored while they wait.

No friends but a cellphone.

I was worried I would have to lift weights or swim two hours a day, but they said it was okay to stay as I am.

Modeling involves very little participation, and there’s nothing demeaning about it if you work with tasteful photographers.

A lot of the job is waiting around, and while most people in the studio spend their day checking Facebook, it’s not forbidden to read a book or write poetry while you’re worked on by the hairdresser or have your nails polished.

It’s a known fact that Fashion photographers have big egos, but it’s okay not to talk to them. There is always loud music in the studios anyway, and photographers can hardly hear themselves giving directions. And this is okay too, because their directions are generally very basic, like « gorgeous », or « yes ! ». Actually, if you happen to hear them over the noise, their comments are more embarrassing than anything else. They suddenly make you doubt and think the whole enterprise is not serious, but it is.

Here are some of my favorite shots, with a few behind-the-scenes commentaries and my own tips.

This was for November Fashion. While posing with these logs, I had a great talk with the girls. Karolina, the blonde on the left, had studied philosophy in Moscow, while Prune on the right had just published a novel. It turned out both girls had been featured more than naked in purple diary, which disappointed me.

Successful modeling is all about being yourself and not trying to hard. A Fashion story on axes, for the December issue. I did my best menacing demeanor with the Best Made ax, so the crew played my old tapes.

For an air travel editorial. I’m so relaxed when I model, I can actually fall asleep for real. I walked out of the shoot with these expensive pyjamas, and had to return them to the assistant the next day, but they shrunk down 3 sizes since it was raining and I couldn’t find a cab.

Who said modeling was a tough job ? I remembered I just had some delicious bruchetta from catering, and the only thing that bothered me on the shoot was the rough feel of this rare vinyl on my fingers.

A tribute to The Fantastic Mister Fox, one of my favorite movie, ever.

Another cool shot. I almost forgot the photographer was there.

If the stylist wants to play, I’m able to completely transform myself.

A few tips for modeling :

-  no sport at all

-  sleep as much as you want, or don’t

-  extract respect from assistants by insisting on your musical tastes

Adi

In the all mirror-and-aluminium surfaced loft, the atmosphere was perfectly calm.

Ange, with Misha.

By the window, Ange was sewing vintage kimono pieces in shape of pancakes.

Gabi took me to their inspiration board, arranged with collages of mathematic constructions, spirals, and outer space diagrams.

Gabi

« I love mathematic, » he said. « The collection is called Vortex. It’s about connecting circles and holes. »

I was afraid he would explain more and find out that I didn’t understand any of it.  When it comes down to math, I need to see the circles and holes overlaid on a human body to get the idea.

Soon, a young Russian girl came in for the fitting.

Luna, Ange’s pitbull, was participating.

She had just bought a new cellphone, and was obsessed with it. Probably trying to connect circles and holes in her own way, she wouldn’t stop texting, unaware of her sexiness in the esoteric shapes Gabi and Adi were adjusting on her.

At the end, Gabi was also on the phone.

In the meantime, Christian Wassmann, the architect who had designed a structure for the show, came in.

His Porsche Targa was parked in the street, with plywood elements sticking out of the open roof, which we all helped to download.

On the day of the show, the spiral structure stood in the Sara D. Rooselvelt Park in Chinatown. We could admire the sun setting through the surrounding trees. A nice crowd of connecting circles and holes was there, peacefully waiting for the show to start.

The three kings of the night — Waris, Olivier and André — were in attendance

At D’Amelio Terras, the incoming visitors had to be contained so as not to storm all at once the Polly Apfelbaum’s installation. In a piece titled « Off Colour », the artist had cut and arranged sequined stretch fabric in colors derived from a stack of erotic slides bought in a London flea market.

Althought most viewers were carefully navigating through the piece’s negative space, some pieces of fabrics, simply laid on the gallery floor, were disturbed out of place by the more distracted visitors—or those equipped with oversized shoes—leading the artist to re-adjust the pieces in an unpremeditated performance.

I then had to elbow my way down to the MoMA store in Soho, where Adi, Gaby and Angela from threeASFOUR were paying tribute to Yoko Ono’s 1964 « Cut Piece »  by cutting into pieces their own design worn by a model. Here Adi wears a dress with drawings by Yoko, from the previous collection.

A wide range of scissors were available to the participating viewers, and when my turn came, I was torn between not damaging my friends’ design with the desire to reveal more of the stunning beauty.

I even saw a tiny bird enthusiastically twittering on top of a blasting signal orange panel.

I thought he was announcing spring, in advance of his kind.

I had never been in this part of the city, and the small industrial buildings, the repair garages, the newly built high-rise condo against the Hell’s Kitchen backdrop in the distance, and the wide-open spaces reminded me of some verses from Apollinaire’s poem Zone.

J’ai vu ce matin une jolie rue dont j’ai oublié le nom

Neuve et propre du soleil elle était le clairon

….

Les inscriptions des enseignes et des murailles

Les plaques les avis à la façon des perroquets criaillent

J’aime la grâce de cette rue industrielle

Hosfelt Gallery — on the second floor of an automotive parts and car repair shop — is a beautiful, luminous space, with a pure, natural light that seemed the perfect translation of Maria’s spirit.

One hundred or so living models were standing on a 4-story scaffolding structure installed on the golf driving range on the Hudson, wearing the latest Moncler collection.

The futuristic, neo-military opera-style installation reminded me of the aesthetic of some of the Thierry Mugler photographs campaigns from the late 80s.

The coldness was extreme, and only well-equiped Fashion people could stay on the tall balconies to study the models and confront chilly winds blowing from across the river in the New Jersey dark skies.

I was glad to wear my vintage Moncler, and a French ski team hat from Brooklyn Flea market that I had bought the previous weekend to attend the Fashion shows.

This is where I met Ricky, who was freezing, simply wearing a cordoroy jacket and his marine boat captain’s cap.

-       This is almost model cruelty, he said, alluding to the Artic endurance test unfolding on the scaffolding.

However, this was to forget the high-tech yet stylish insulation of the Moncler design (you can ski in warmth and still feel like a page from Wallpaper magazine).

-       Don’t worry, I told him, these pretty young things feel as hot as if they in a Purple fashion shoot.

Celebrating Fashion Week with a glass of hot chocolate

This winter, I am wearing a wolf fur hat with a thriftstore sheepskin coat. Not only it is warm, this hat also conveys very well the dual nature of the humankind. Even those who identified themselves as 100% wolf always have an inner sheep deep inside of them. And beware of those who appear to be mostly sheep.

Like everything else, it’s a question of balance. But still, you can’t wear a wolfskin hat all the time. It gets smelly when exposed to too much rain, and I’ve been told it’s not good for your hair.

One recent sunny afternoon in Bushwick I was taken by my friend Corinne, who runs Mc&Co this great store in Williamsburg where I got my tote bag from, to Lola Ehrlich’s studio on the top of this industrial building with an incredible view of the distant Manhattan skyline.

Lola is the designer behind John’s distinctive hats.

There were hats of all styles, shapes, and colors hanging in bunches like grapes from the ceiling, or on racks like fruits growing on trees. There were hats on top of hat boxes, hats on suitcases, hats on stacks of second-hand books, and even hats on the floor.

It was like one of Maira Kalman’s drawing coming alive, a secret cavern where treasured hats are stashed. And they were all speaking to me, like funny characters, under no principle of certainty.

Unlike helmets, designing hats is a poetic thing. Lola’s parents were so truly bohemian that they wouldn’t allow their daughters to go to school, probably in fear of seeing them turn into squares. As a teenager Lola trained as a ballet dancer and it can be still be seen in the way she stands,  which sometimes looks like a feather balancing on top of a hat.

I wanted to pick up an orange rabbit fur hat, as an occasional substitute for the wolf fur, but without a word Lola gently handed me a brown felt fedora.

After all, I’m a self-taught hipster, and can still make mistakes.

The extraordinary plaided Ludwig Kuttner and Beatrix Ost contemplating a work on paper by Greg Lauren

It was at the Take Home a Nude benefit auction that I came accross Greg Lauren’s work: an oil-on-paper, 3-dimensional jacket with tie and shirt that stand alone in the middle of the Sotheby’s exhibition room.

Greg is outstandingly handsome for an artist – as an actor, he would never been cast to play one- but what intrigued me most was the jacket he was wearing. Something that looked like a ragged blanket with a stream cut, and scraps of paper and various material sewn onto  the fabric like a collage piece.

I went to visit him a few days later at his gallery space at the corner of Wooster and Grand. A place that I immediately identified from a distance a month ago as an upcoming Yohji store, with half opened crates, and mostly black silhouettes.

It’s also where Greg had set up his studio, surrounded by a forest of mannequins bearing his works.

On front row, from left to right: Fringe, The Marine, "the Boxer, and Superman.

The various style paper jackets and coats evoked the remains of an abandonned house, where clothes left hanging have been dried in the shape of the wearers who have long ago vanished. Upon closer inspection, some pieces have a darker, battered and stepped-over texture, with faded comics colors slightly appearing from underneath, as if they had been unearthed from a junkyard.

In a general way our clothes determine us, and will survive long after: no matter if it’s a dude’s long gone plaid shirt from Uniqlo or a guitar hero’s leather fringed jacket.

Only a very few of us has the power to influence their own clothes.

Greg wearing the Mistake Jacket

Greg also does real jackets that can be worn. But they are more like art pieces that can be worn. There is a “Paris jacket” with sewn-on torn euro bills. Or the “Mistake jacket” with the Mistake explanation hand-written inside on a piece of paper. I’m not obsessed by practical details, but I brought this up to Greg: How do you clean them? You can’t. You don’t bring an art piece to the cleaner, or wash it yourself. You keep it as it is.

I like the idea of never cleaning the fabric, so it gets even more personalized by  stains and time. Like a hipster.