I realize I’ve never really explained to you the process (which is sometimes hectic) behind this website. After nine years, it’s about time.
It often begins with an article, a book or a film whose subject or treatment deeply appeals to me. The theme of the article, the title of the book or film is added to a document which remains permanently open on my laptop, a document which bears the sweet name in 2024 of “Get a life babe” for 2024, but which was called for example in 2015 “But what were you thinking” – it was when the site opened, as you will have understood.
As I am mono-maniac but I am driven by many manias which sometimes border on obsession, I am pleased to report that I am multi-maniac. On the same theme, I can read three to four books and watch several documentaries. If I’m passionate about a book, I watch its movie adaptation. If I enjoy a film, I read the original novel.
Once I have assimilated the right amount of information, I frantically write a text which generally comes out like a cannonball. The finalized text can languish for weeks or months on my computer because I now have to move on to the photos to illustrate the text.
Comes the intense phase (yes, because the previous phase was not intense in reality).
The intense phase consists of imagining and finding the outfit that will illustrate the chosen theme.
It’s sometimes simple and obvious because I have the pieces in my closet that allow me to put together a suitable outfit.
Or I have a costume historian friend who has what I need in her shop, which explains how I find myself corseted in a late 19th century dress.
Other times, the process is laborious. Sometimes the link between the text and the outfit is tenuous, very tenuous.
Some other times, I cannot find the necessary hook to illustrate the chosen theme through photos. The best example of this is difficulty is “Basic Instinct” which is one of my favorite movies, but which I have not yet managed to mention in an article. The text of the article has been ready for a long time but I’m facing several difficulties: I don’t live in San Francisco, I’m not Sharon Stone, I don’t want to be overtly sexual and I don’t have the outfit that would be incendiary enough to properly evoke the heroine of the film. Maybe I’ll get there one day by finally impersonating Michael Douglas. (Update: I finally found the dress: here is the article).
Generally speaking, I like to be inspired, I avoid any copy/paste and hate feeling disguised – because I have a personal style and… I enjoy it.
The exception I sometimes make is when I have to wear a stupid crown of flowers on my head to illustrate a film – “Midsommar” in this case – and I feel completely ridiculous and get rid of said crown after ten minutes – my eleven-year-old daughter inherited it for her disguises.
When the outfit is finally ready, it’s time to find the location for the photoshoot. This phase can also become complex when the chosen location is far from Paris. I happened to make a return trip during the day to La Rochelle or Deauville to take photos on the beach or on a sailboat – painfully dragging a suitcase larger than me and changing according to the photographed outfits behind an open car door. It’s often awkward, it’s often comical. I never thought I would one day find myself in a bra on the street.
In Paris, things are noticeably simpler, even if it means being in an evening gown at 2 p.m. on the Champs-Élysées (ridiculousness doesn’t kill, they say).
I realize that I am often bossy because I know exactly what I want, which leaves little room for maneuver for the photographer.
It’s not because I know what I want that I get there: as we know, grimaces are legion and are duly documented – as is my now casual goofiness.
I receive all of the raw photos and choose the ones that will be published. I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again, only a negligible fraction of the pictures taken on a photoshoot are good – and that’s completely normal, life in motion has nothing to do with life frozen in a photo.
In rare cases, the photo is very good and it is not your humble servant who is being stupid but it is the environment that is wrong: the two pictures below illustrate the poor skills of my photographer and mine to erase an ugly column in the background – well I have to say that neither of us has Photoshop 😉
In short, it’s a happy mess as usual. A happy mess that stimulates me because it forces me to keep an open mind, to remain intellectually and humanly agile. A happy mess which, surprisingly, infinitely helps me in my life as a lawyer because it allows me to add skills to my purely legal expertise and therefore to help me move towards cases whose aspects involve law and media.
Who would have believed it nine years ago? Certainly not me.
October 4, 2024
