Lingerie
THE ADVENTURES OF FIFI LONGSTOCKING Jean-Emmanuel Deluxe meets Fifi Chachnil, the French designer from a traditional family who reinvented herself in the trail of the post-punk era, establishing herself as the epitome of Parisian chic, who is also a Londoner at heart and a huge fan of Pippi Longstocking www.fifichachnil.paris
“It’s funny, because when I’m in London I am told, “You are so French”, while in Paris I am being labelled with, “You are so English”, or even “You are a nutter”! I took my iconography from cartoons and Hollywood films that depicted idealized visions of Parisian people”
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ifi Chachnil’s numerous links with pop culture include dressing Nina Hagen and French-Belgian singer Lio, Marc Almond for the A Lover Spurned music video and styling a film directed by Pierre et Gilles. Fifi’s long list of collaborations also include Emma Bunton for the first Spice Girls LP, Madonna’s dancing troupe for her Rebel Art Tour, Kylie Minogue, Lady Gaga and recently Celine Dion. Fifi is also a pop singer, whose first 1983 single Lhar’ Niflet is a souvenir from her Palace years. Le Palace was a nightclub where all the jetsetters, philosophers, artists and hipsters, from Roland Barthes to Paloma Picasso, used to hang out. Think Studio 54 with a more sophisticated and ‘laissez faire’ attitude. Whether in Paris at the Crazy
Horse or in London at le Baron, Fifi never cease to sprinkle her very peculiar irreverent chic on the fashion game. What’s the nature of your UK connection? I have an emotional bond with the UK that started in the early 90s when I was frequently visiting Britain. I realised how much I loved British people’s fashion sense more than anything else. The simple fact that you could work in the City as a trader but wear an earring and a red hairdo – an attitude which is simply inconceivable in France. On a lot of levels, I felt closer to the English than to my compatriots. When I went to England to pick up my daughters from school, I wore a Vichy dress and a straw hat, noticing that the local schoolgirls
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