ROITFELD, CARINE

COMMUNICATION AND PUBLISHING ,   JOURNALISTS ,   R

CARINE ROITFELD IS A JOURNALIST, STYLIST AND FASHION CONSULTANT. SHE DIRECTED VOGUE PARIS FROM 2001 TO 2011

DEBUT OF CARINE ROITFELD

Carine Roitfeld is a stylist and fashion consultant born in Paris on the 19th of September 1954. His father Jaques, a film producer, worked in Ukraine and Berlin before moving to Paris and meeting Carine’s mother. Roitfeld’s childhood was happy: she lived with her family in the 16th Arrondissement of the French capital, an upper-middle-class residential area. It was in these early years that Carine’s sophisticated taste and style began to take shape. At 18, she was hired as a model for some teen magazines by an assistant photographer of English origin, while walking through the streets of Paris. Although she did not feel like a model, she liked the fashion system and wanted to be part of it. So she started writing for Elle France.

In 1986, Roitfeld took her daughter Julia to pose for a photo shoot for the Italian edition of Vogue Bambini. Who was the photographer? Mario Testino. There was harmony between the two. Soon a partnership started that lasted for over 20 years. The two made numerous shoots for Vogue UK and Vogue America, as well as various advertising campaigns for the major fashion brands.

She worked as a consultant for some of the most important fashion maisons such as  MissoniVersaceCalvin Klein ma soprattutto Yves Saint-Laurent and Gucci, coining a new style with designer Tom Ford, that of porn-chic.

The excellent skills, combined with a very strong personality, led Roitfeld to set trends in the fashion world in a very short time.

Carine Roitfeld and Mario Testino
Carine Roitfeld and Mario Testino

DIRECTION OF VOGUE PARIS

In 2001 Jonathan Newhouse, director of the Condé Nast group, offered her the direction of the French edition of Vogue. Her career at Vogue France was studded with success and awards. In 2006, according to rumors, she was close to the direction of Harper’s Bazaar.  Consequently in 2008, the American magazine Times, included her in the ranking of the 100 most influential people in the world. Furthermore, she was recognized as one of the 10 best dressed women according to the Vanity Fair America ranking.

February 2009 she was chosen by the Italian fashion house Prada for the project, ‘The Iconoclast’,. In the event, of which she took care of setting up and the image of the single-brand store in Avenue Montaigne. Uniquely, interpreting the collection for spring summer according to her own style. This project involved 4 of the most influential fashion editors in the world. The 4 fashion capitals: Alex White for NY, Katie Grand for London, Olivier Rizzo in Milan and Roitfeld for Paris.

In 17th of December 2010, with an official communication on the Vogue Paris website, the interruption of the working relationship between the Parisian fashion editor and Condé Nast was announced, officially due to Roitfeld’s desire to devote herself to “personal” projects even if there were several episodes that people think of economic and commercial reasons. There was a scandal, in fact, when during the Parisian fashion week, the maison Balenciaga denied access to the show to Roitfeld and to the entire fashion team of the French magazine.

Since January 2011, Vogue Paris has been directed by Emmanuelle Alt.

In September 2012 the first issue finally came out. The magazine, entitled CR Fashion Book was semiannual. The “CR” of the title is the acronym with which he signed the Vogue Paris editorials for years.

CAREER AS A STYLIST

Tom Ford x Gucci, ss03 styling by Carine Roitfeld
Tom Ford x Gucci, ss03 styling by Carine Roitfeld

In March 2011, Roitfeld followed the advertising campaign for Barneys, the New York luxury department store, working side by side with the photographer Mario Sorrenti and with the creative director of the store Dennis Freedman.

Carine Roitfeld, and her partner for thirty years Christian Restoin, owner of a clothing line that closed in 2001, have two children: Julia, a graduate of the Parsons School of Design in New York and face of Tom Ford’s perfume ‘Black Orchid’ in November 2006 and Vladimir, graduate of the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. Carine Roitfeld has reintroduced in glossy magazines a way of photographing the female body typical of the Eighties and of Helmut Newton in particular: the images are full of eroticism bordering on vulgarity and sex is the fundamental component of the message. An unmistakable style that led both Vogue Paris and Gucci to be reference brands throughout the 1990s and early 2000s.

In October 2015 Carine collaborated with Uniqlo in the role of designer. The two brands collaborated for the fall 2016 season. Carine came out in 2019 with Kar-Wai by Carine Roitfeld, a unisex fragrance. In 2020 she created a fashion show on youtube as a criticism of the pandemic.

Finally in 2021 (until February 2022) Carine organized a performance in Hong Kong with Adrian Cheng: «Savoir- Faire: The mastery of craft in fashion», in which haute couture garments are exhibited.

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Vogue and the Municipality of Milan together for the Photo Festiaval 2018