Everybody in France owns an item of Agnés B, she’s the peoples’ designer and, having played a part in the 1968 student riots in Paris, this is probably exactly who Agnés wants to be…
Click images to enlarge.
An ex-art school student, Agnés foerever celebrates this time in her life through her designs and sustainable lifestyle – the cool student, the whimsical artist and joker, the nonchalant Parisian, the bohemian… In this spirit Agnés B always shows on the last day of menswear when the foreign press has usually left town and her shows, one for press and buyers and another for friends and family, turn into quite the celebration as musicians, photographers and artists of Paris swing by. Whistles and catcalls were plentiful as the lead singer of a band (the CD was given as a gift to audience members) opened the show in smart office wear which rose to cheers when later a model ran across the catwalk in a black top hat flapping black wings like a bat. i-D online spoke to Miss B backstage.
You’re carrying flowers… They come from the French Mediterranean, I wanted a bouquet because two days ago I was surrounded by these Mimosa flowers, the flowers are still in bloom over there and half of me is still there and not here. Tell us about the look where the guy ran over the runway and waved his batwings… Ah that’s about vampires, vampire bats because I feel that there are a lot of vampiric people around at the moment, people who drink the blood of others, it’s a bit metaphoric. The last t-shirt of that section reads ‘malversation’ which talks about people who do things like stealing, trafficking goods, malversisation refers to people who do bad things in their work so it’s a talisman to protect people from that. And there were jackets that reversed to show a photograph printed on the material… Yes, those are photos that I took, I’ve been taking photos, mostly of Paris, I’ve been doing lots of photography infact, of men and women for about ten years. This collection was so coherent, congratulations, what else do you have in store for 2012? I know you’re launching the menswear skincare range but do you have any artistic things happening? Yes I’m doing a feature film. Oh wow. Yes, that’s a scoop for i-D as I haven’t talked about that but yes I wrote and am directing a feature movie. When does you plan to start shooting? March, soon, I’ll let you know.
Thanks Agnés!
Text: Sarah Hay
Photography: Mitchell Sams
Click here to see our AW12 Menswear coverage in full.
