French style icon impressed with local fashion market
Ines de la Fressange / Courtesy of Uniqlo
By Rachel Lee
Ines de la Fressange is so immersed in fashion that she does not give it a second thought.
“Fashion has been a preoccupation since I was a teenager,” said De la Fressange in The Korea Times interview.
The 57-year-old French model is now in hear third seasons in creating her collaborative collections for Japanese lifewear brand Uniqlo.
“With Naoki Takizawa, we do fittings like we’ve always been working on. It’s great to do things you like and you wear at affordable prices and become successful,” she said. Takizawa is Uniqlo’s creative director, who previously worked at Issey Miyake and Helmut Lang.
The model was in town last November for the first time for the launch of French fashion house Roger Vivier’s exhibition as the brand ambassador.
“Korea knows everything about fashion, brands and styles since a long time ago. There is a great culture and people are always ready for new things,” she said. “(Korean) women have sense of humor, and they like to play with looks and they are very connected.”
De la Fressange is also active as a designer, author and fashion consultant. Two years ago she launched Ines De la Fressange Paris, a luxury lifestyle brand that incorporates a wide range of products from ready-to-wear apparel to interior decorations.
Apart from her natural ease and sophistication, another part of her allure comes from an incredible fashion history- working as model and muse for Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel in the 1980s. Her experience with Lagerfeld was about “fun, frivolous, but serious work,” she described.
“It’s all about enjoying clothes and taste in details,” she added.
The style icon pursues her usual elegant, chic French style, but her favorite, essential items of all in the wardrobe are navy blue sweaters and off-white jeans.
“Usually I wake up thinking I look tired so I have many navy blue sweaters because it fits everyone and you look younger with this color, even men,” she said.
“I used to dress up at Uniqlo before I worked with them. I (also) love Isabel Marant and Prada, but as I don’t find all what I want, I will open a shop under my name in May.”
As always, the mother of two has kept herself busy with work- apart from launching her own shop in May, she plans to carry on with collaborations with companies including L’Oreal, writing newsletters and other projects like films and pictures.