A few years later, I’m in Paris and Fabiola is in Rome. We both have jobs, but we also have other things we care about, things that exist outside our working hours and feel, in some ways, more personal.

For Fabiola, that thing is painting.

She started almost accidentally, alone in Rome one August, when everyone had left the city and there was very little to do. Three years later, her paintings have begun leaving her bedroom, appearing at events and workshops, and becoming part of a life she’s slowly constructing for herself.

We talk about the strange business of being young and employed, why she refuses to wait until Friday to enjoy herself, the difference between being alone and feeling lonely, and what happens when you start showing strangers something you’ve made.

There are conversations about psychology books, the importance of notebooks, a particular shade of electric blue, and whether Rome is actually as small as it sometimes feels.

Somewhere along the way, Paloma interrupts us, we get distracted by herbal tea, and Fabiola tells me something I find particularly interesting: she’s not the same person she was a few months ago.

Neither am I, probably.

Anyway, this is Fabiola.

A Life Outside Office Hours

Y: How have you been? What’s happening in your life at the moment?

F: I’m trying to change jobs, actually.

I don’t necessarily want to spend my entire life sitting in front of a computer from nine to six.

I think it’s important to find ways of stepping outside the ordinary.

Y: That’s actually a perfect place to start. How do you step outside the ordinary in your own life?

F: Because otherwise every day starts feeling exactly like the previous one, which I think is one of the biggest problems with working nine to six.

I have my routines, obviously. I also have two days when I can work from home, so I try to use those to organize things I don’t normally have time to do.

But I’ve realized I need to dedicate time to things I genuinely enjoy.

For me, painting is one of the ways I maintain that part of myself.

I paint, I participate in events where I can exhibit my work, and recently I’ve started organizing painting workshops.

Those things make me feel alive. They remind me that there are other directions I want my life to take.

I don’t think we’re only one thing.

I don’t want to do just one thing. I want to do a thousand different things.

The difficulty is finding the time.

Don’t Wait Until Friday to Be Alive

Y: I’m obsessed with routines, partly because I’m terrible at maintaining them. I feel like I’m constantly trying to do as much as possible, but I don’t necessarily have a healthy morning routine or even a consistent bedtime. You always struck me as someone quite organized, but not rigid. Is that actually true?

F: It’s something I’ve been learning over the years.

When I was doing my bachelor’s degree, I was a completely different person.

Actually, I’m not even the same person I was a few months ago. We’re always changing.

I’m much more flexible now, but I still need certain habits.

I know, for example, that I want to go to the gym three or four times a week. Sometimes I don’t feel like going, but I go anyway because I know I’ll feel better afterwards.

And I’ve made a rule for myself: at least once during the working week, I have to do something I genuinely enjoy.

It could be going out, seeing someone, doing something different.

I refuse to spend my entire week waiting for the weekend.

Because then Friday arrives, you’re exhausted, and sometimes you don’t even feel like doing anything.

I think we need to build things we enjoy into our ordinary days.

Someone said something to me recently that really made me think: maybe you don’t like your reality because you haven’t built a routine you actually like.

And I thought, that’s true.

You might not be able to choose your job at this particular moment, but you can choose what you do afterwards.

You have the gym, groceries, all the practical things you need to do, but you also have to make space for something that’s yours.

Y: I completely agree with the idea of doing things even when you don’t feel like them. Sometimes I really don’t want to go running, but I know that if I go for even half an hour, I’ll come home feeling better. The same thing happens with writing. I don’t necessarily want to open my computer, but once I’ve spent an hour working on an article, I’m so happy I did.

F: Exactly.

Eventually, those things become habits.

It’s really just that initial moment when you think, I don’t want to do this.

But then you ask yourself, what would I actually be doing otherwise?

Sometimes you’d just be lying on the sofa scrolling through your phone.

Although I also think moments when you’re tired and want to do absolutely nothing are sacred.

The Sacred Art of Being Alone

Y: Do you make time for yourself every day?

F: Yes. I really need it.

I’m a sociable person, but after a while I have to recharge my social batteries. I like having half an hour or an hour when I’m completely alone, not speaking to anyone. Especially after a full day at work or a day spent around lots of people.

I love getting home and thinking, finally, I’m alone. I can relax and do my own things. I think time you spend with yourself is sacred. I need it, and I’ve become very comfortable being alone.

Y: Is painting part of that time?

F: Almost always. I usually paint alone, in my own little world.

And the funny thing is that I only started painting about three years ago.

It was August in Rome, and there was absolutely nothing to do. You know what Rome is like in August. Everyone disappears.

I’d seen this artist on Instagram, Nuria Maria, whose paintings I really liked. I remember thinking I’d love to have something like that in my house.

So I decided to try making something myself.

I bought some paints and started experimenting, taking inspiration from her work.

That’s how it began.

August in Rome, With Nothing to Do

Y: Do you remember what those first painting sessions were like?

F: I was just experimenting. Even now, I don’t really have a fixed amount of time it takes me to complete a painting.

Sometimes it takes three days. Sometimes two weeks.

There have been paintings I’ve left untouched for months because I wasn’t inspired or didn’t like where they were going.

Then I’ll come back to them much later and finish them.

I don’t force myself to paint if I’m not feeling it.

Y: Have you ever started a painting, looked at it, and thought, absolutely not, this isn’t working?

F: Definitely.

There are paintings I’ve worked on and reworked so many times that eventually I start making them worse.

I add something, decide I don’t like it, try something else, and suddenly the whole thing becomes a mess.

That’s usually when I know I need to leave it alone.

I put it aside and come back when I’m feeling calmer or have a fresher perspective.

Y: So you don’t really throw paintings away?

F: No.

I might paint over something or change it completely, but I don’t usually throw away the canvas.

I work quite a lot with layers, so it’s not as though I’m following one precise shape or image that has to remain exactly as I imagined it.

I can change things as I go.

Sometimes I begin with an idea and then the painting becomes something completely different.

There are definitely paintings I’ve made that don’t represent me anymore, though.

Some of them I’d happily sell tomorrow.

Who Decides When Something Is Good?

Y: When did you realize that painting could become something you wanted to share with other people, or potentially even sell?

F: Quite recently, actually. Most of my paintings were just at home. I’d sold a few, but for a long time I wasn’t really showing them publicly.

Some friends had seen them and kept encouraging me to share my work. And I’ve always been open to criticism.

Art is subjective. If someone looks at one of my paintings and doesn’t like it, that’s completely fine.

There are paintings of mine that I don’t like anymore either.

Y: But does someone else’s opinion influence how you feel about something you’ve made? Because I’m definitely someone who can be influenced by other people’s reactions.

F: Not particularly. If someone tells me they like a painting, I’m happy. If they don’t like it, that’s fine too. What matters is whether I’m happy with it.

Until I feel that a painting is finished and I like what I’ve made, I’ll keep working on it. But if someone tells me I should add gold somewhere, and I don’t want to add gold, I’m not going to do it.

Unless it’s a commission and someone has specifically requested something, of course. Otherwise, I have to like it myself.

Y: What was it like the first time you actually posted your work?

F: Terrifying! A friend of mine sometimes helps me make videos and content, and when I posted one for the first time, I felt so exposed.

I kept thinking, what are people going to think? Then I realized that if I wanted to share my work, I had to start somewhere.

So I made a separate Instagram account for my paintings. It took me a really long time to do that because I was embarrassed to put myself out there. But eventually I thought, who cares?

It’s my page. I can put whatever I want on it. And now I genuinely enjoy sharing things. It’s become something I want to do rather than something I’m afraid of doing.

Y: I think that’s such an important part of creating anything. I always try not to focus too much on likes or the immediate response when I publish something. Otherwise you start thinking about who might dislike it before you’ve even finished making it.

F: Exactly.

And I think sharing your work becomes a personal exercise in itself.

You learn to become less afraid of being judged.

Electric Blue Is a State of Mind

Y: Do you think your emotional state changes the way you paint? Can you see different periods of your life reflected in your work?

F: Absolutely. I have to feel inspired to paint. Otherwise I don’t really know where to begin. There are months when I don’t paint anything, and other periods when I feel very productive.

I usually start because I’m feeling positive, or because I’ve seen something that inspires me. And I think my moods definitely influence the colours I choose.

In the beginning, I used much darker colours. Now I’m much more attracted to bright colours.

My favourite colour is electric blue. It’s funny because a few years ago I probably wouldn’t even have worn it, but now it gives me so much energy.

I’ve started making paintings with electric blue, and I don’t think I’d choose to make the same very dark, black paintings I was making before. I’m looking for colour now.

Different shades, combinations, things that give a space character and energy.

Y: Do you wear electric blue too, or does it only appear in your paintings?

F: I wear it too, especially in summer. I even like it in jewellery.

And I think about how my paintings will interact with interiors. I’m very interested in design, so I like creating pieces that can work within different spaces.

A painting can completely change the atmosphere of a room.

Y: Are there particular images or places in your visual archive that have stayed with you recently? Things you think might eventually appear in a painting?

F: Brazil, definitely.

I went in August, and the landscapes were incredible. Everything was so immense that I felt absolutely tiny. The colours were extraordinary. I know there are other parts of the world with similar landscapes, but being there and seeing everything in person was something else.

I brought those colours back with me, in a way. And there’s also a very particular shade of bright green I remember seeing in Canada. I’d never seen anything quite like it before.

Sometimes a colour stays in your head long after you’ve left a place.

A City That Feels Smaller Than It Is

Y: Let’s talk about Rome. I’ve been away for so long that I sometimes feel like I’ve lost touch with its younger cultural scene. You’re beginning to exhibit your paintings and organize workshops there. What’s it like being a young creative in Rome right now?

F: I think Rome is a strange city in that respect. It’s enormous, very touristy, and full of history, but in certain ways it can feel quite closed and not particularly international.

Which is paradoxical. I’ve always felt that I’m a better version of myself when I’m abroad.

Not because I’m idealizing other places, but because I genuinely feel more comfortable in certain environments. I feel less judged.

In Rome, there are social circles where everybody seems to know everybody else. You know someone, who knows someone else, and somehow you end up encountering the same people all the time. I don’t particularly like that.

I love my friends, but I also love meeting new people and having conversations with people who come from completely different worlds.

And sometimes, in Rome, you really have to make an effort to step outside your usual circles.

Of course, the city offers an enormous amount. There are so many initiatives, exhibitions and things happening.

You just have to look for them.

Y: How did you start becoming involved in painting events?

F: Very spontaneously. I knew someone who organized events, and they proposed doing something together.

Another event came about through a conversation where someone needed something and I suggested an idea. Then with the workshops, I actually approached the organization myself.

I wanted to try something different, something I’d never done before.

It was a way of challenging myself. I did my first workshop recently, and I loved it.

Getting Out of the Bedroom

Y: What was the most satisfying part of that first workshop?

F: Sharing the experience with other people. Because I started painting alone in my bedroom. For a long time, it was just something I did for myself. But at a certain point I felt the need to share it.

Social media is one way of doing that, even though I’m still not particularly consistent about posting. I want to move beyond the screen. I want to meet people, speak to them, exchange ideas.

And I think workshops are a lovely way to do that.

Not everybody who comes paints regularly. Some people have completely different jobs and have never tried painting before.

Which is actually similar to my situation, because painting isn’t my full-time profession either.

I’d love for it to become a second job eventually.

But for now, I really enjoy that exchange.

Y: How does the workshop actually work? Are you teaching people how to paint?

F: Yes, although it’s quite informal.

People sign up, and I provide the materials.

I also bring visual references, prints, colour combinations and images they can use as inspiration.

I thought that would be helpful, particularly for people who have never painted before.

Some might want to work from a landscape or a particular image.

Others might have an idea of their own, and we can develop it together.

I show them how to begin and help them throughout the session.

At the end, they take their paintings home.

And honestly, I think I enjoy it just as much as they do.

Y: That’s such a beautiful evolution, from painting alone in August to helping other people make something of their own.

F: Yes, exactly.

And it’s still very new.

I’m discovering this side of painting at the same time as the people who come to the workshops.

The Rome Address Book

Y: Let’s move on to your address book. First of all, an overrated neighbourhood in Rome?

F: Parioli.

Y: What about an underrated neighbourhood?

F: San Giovanni.

I live around that area, and I think it’s incredibly liveable. It’s central, well connected, and has everything you need. I also really like the area around Manzoni. People sometimes dismiss it, but there are some beautiful little streets and corners that people don’t necessarily know about. And San Saba is lovely too.

It’s quiet, residential, and very pleasant.

Y: A café where you enjoy spending time alone?

F: Casa Dante, in Piazza Dante. I love that place.

It’s not necessarily because they serve something extraordinary. I just love being there.

It makes me feel calm.

I practically wrote my master’s thesis there.

I also like Saba, Cucina e Caffè, in San Saba.

When I lived abroad, I had this habit of going out for breakfast alone. It became a little sacred moment for me.

I don’t do that as much in Rome, but on Sunday mornings I really enjoy going out for coffee and trying different places.

Y: A restaurant that reminds you of growing up?

F: La Caraffa, near my house.

It’s a neighbourhood trattoria that’s been there for more than twenty years.

I’ve been eating there practically my whole life.

I order from them all the time, sometimes on Sundays, sometimes during the week.

They make wonderful Roman food.

I love their pizza and their vegetables with breadcrumbs.

It’s one of those places you probably wouldn’t discover unless you happened to walk down that street.

For me, it’s a constant.

Y: If you could recommend just one museum or gallery in Rome, which would it be?

F: I really love the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna.

Partly because of the collection, but also because of the architecture.

I love museums where you can experience both permanent works and temporary exhibitions.

And I always pay attention to the building itself, not just what’s exhibited inside.

That’s something I connect to my interest in design.

I also really like MACRO, particularly as a space.

Y: I feel like MACRO is an experience regardless of what happens to be on display.

F: Exactly.

And Rome is full of smaller galleries and unexpected places to discover.

I particularly like Monti.

Sometimes you go into a bar and discover that there’s a space downstairs exhibiting artwork.

Or the owner has a relationship with artists or galleries and displays different pieces.

I love stumbling across things like that.

There are also galleries around Via dei Banchi Vecchi and so many other places I haven’t discovered yet.

I keep lists of places I want to visit.

I think there’s still a lot of Rome I don’t know.

Y: Where do you buy books in Rome?

F: There’s a Feltrinelli near my house, which is probably the most obvious answer.

But I also love looking through books at vintage markets.

You never know what you’ll find.

At the moment, I’m particularly interested in psychology books.

Reading has become a kind of personal reflection for me.

The Things We Write Down

Y: What are you reading at the moment?

F: Haha; I’m quite embarrassed but it’s a psychology book called Dentro di me c’è un posto bellissimo.

It explores different phases of a person’s life and the experiences we go through.

What I like is that it also contains exercises.

You don’t just read about something. You have to stop and think about yourself.

There are things I know I’d like to change about the way I approach certain situations, and I think books like that can help me look at them from another perspective.

Y: I love books that make you participate. Especially when they give you little scenarios or exercises that force you to recognize your own patterns.

F: Exactly.

And I always have my notebook with me.

Y: So you’re a notebook person, rather than someone who writes everything directly in the book?

F: I underline things in books, but when it comes to my own thoughts, I write them in a notebook.

My psychologist has also encouraged me to write things down.

Sometimes writing feels almost like composing a letter to someone you’re not actually going to send it to.

You can put your thoughts somewhere without necessarily having to share them.

And I think that’s much better than constantly being on your phone.

Y: I’ve been trying to reduce the amount of time I spend on my phone, but also the amount of background noise I have in my life. I listen to music while walking, cooking, cleaning, doing practically everything. Sometimes I wonder whether I ever let myself exist in silence.

F: I understand that.

I actually love making my evenings feel calm.

Candles, soft lighting, being at home.

Sometimes I work better that way, especially in the evening.

Y: And tea. I think tea deserves to be included in this conversation.

F: Absolutely. I make herbal tea almost every night.

I love red-fruit tea.

Y: Me too! It tastes like warm juice, in the best possible way.

F: And cinnamon. I love cinnamon in everything.

You Are Allowed to Change Your Mind

Y: I wanted to come back to something we have in common. We both studied international relations, but neither of our careers has followed a completely straight line. Does your current job have much to do with what you studied?

F: Not really.

My long-term goal has always been to work in international organizations, particularly in defence and security.

That hasn’t changed.

But when I finished studying, I was in a hurry to start working.

I don’t really know why.

Sometimes I think that if I’d waited another month, I might have ended up somewhere completely different.

But I wanted to get experience.

I’d already done internships in the public sector, so I thought it would be interesting to try the private sector.

And it has been useful, even if I’ve realized that this particular role isn’t for me.

At least now I know something I don’t want to do.

Y: Do you feel pressure to find the perfect job immediately?

F: Not anymore.

I want to change jobs, but I don’t want to change simply for the sake of changing.

I want to move towards something that genuinely interests me.

I’m continuing to apply for opportunities in international organizations and in defence and security, but I’m also open to discovering other areas.

Communication is something I’ve become interested in that I hadn’t really considered before.

And communication exists in practically every organization, including the international institutions where I’d eventually like to work.

I think at our age it’s normal to experiment.

You might spend two or three years somewhere, learn something, and then move on.

You don’t necessarily need to stay in the same place for six years just because you started there.

And working in a field different from the one you studied doesn’t mean you’ve abandoned your ambitions.

Sometimes you’re simply taking a different route towards them.

Somewhere Else, Another Version of Yourself

Y: You’ve said you often feel more like yourself abroad. Do you think you might leave Rome again?

F: Definitely.

I don’t dislike Rome, but I wouldn’t mind living somewhere else.

I think the environment you’re in makes an enormous difference.

Your job, the people around you, the places you visit.

I’m convinced that if I worked in a more international or institutional environment in Rome, I’d probably experience a completely different side of the city.

It’s not that Rome doesn’t have interesting people or interesting things happening.

Sometimes you just need to change your surroundings to see them.

And I love the feeling of meeting people from different countries, with completely different experiences.

I feel freer in those environments.

Maybe some of that is in my head, but it’s how I feel.

And anyway, if I leave, I can always come back.

Y: Exactly. We’re young. We’re allowed to try different places, different jobs, different versions of ourselves.

F: I think that’s really important.

You don’t have to decide where you’re going to be forever.

Y: Do you think you’re selective when it comes to the people you let into your life?

F: Very.

Sometimes I think I’m too selective.

I look around and wonder how other people seem to meet someone they like so easily.

For me, that doesn’t happen very often.

I need to feel something particular about a person.

Y: But isn’t that a good thing? Being selective?

F: I think it depends on what feels right for you.

I’ve learned to trust my instincts.

Usually, when I meet someone, I get a feeling quite quickly about whether we’ll get along, whether I’ll feel comfortable with them, or whether there’s something that interests me.

I try not to judge people superficially.

Someone might be incredibly attractive or seem interesting on paper, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll feel a connection.

And the opposite can happen too.

I trust that feeling a lot.

It’s something I’ve learned to pay attention to.

A Few Things Without Thinking Too Much

By this point, we’ve been talking for almost an hour. Paloma has begun demanding attention, apparently unimpressed by the amount of time I’ve spent on the phone.

Y: Right. Rapid fire. You don’t have to think too much. A colour you associate with childhood?

F: Light blue.

Y: Your favourite hour of the day? An actual hour.

F: It depends on the season.

In winter, around four or five in the afternoon. I like the light.

In summer, around six-thirty.

Y: A painting you wish you owned?

F: Something by Andy Warhol.

Y: A smell that reminds you of Rome?

F: That’s difficult. I need to think about that one.

Y: Something you collect without really noticing?

F: Paintbrushes.

I have so many.

And cameras, apparently, because I have two identical ones.

Also candles. I love candles.

Y: If you were leaving Rome tomorrow, where would you spend your final evening?

F: I’d go to Monti.

And then I’d probably take a ride around the city on a scooter.

I love being on a scooter in Rome, especially in summer.

I don’t actually drive one. I love being the passenger.

There’s something about moving through Rome that way that feels like freedom.

Y: Do you use Vinted?

F: Constantly.

Y: What would I find on your Vinted feed right now?

F: Oversized men’s jackets, belts, suede pieces, brown boots.

I love boots.

They’re probably my favourite kind of shoes.

Y: Any advice for finding good things on Vinted?

F: You have to train the algorithm. I open Vinted two or three times a day, almost like WhatsApp. I scroll, save things, search for particular keywords. At first, you open it and think there’s absolutely nothing interesting.

But once the algorithm starts understanding what you like, it gets so much better. You begin finding pieces you’d never see in a shop. I send things to my friends all the time, and they’re always asking me how I manage to find them.

Y: So essentially, replace your Instagram doomscrolling with Vinted doomscrolling.

F: Exactly.

Y: A city you could move to tomorrow?

F: Paris.

I love Paris.

I’m not always completely convinced by Parisians themselves, but I think it’s a city that reflects so many parts of my personality.

I’d love to live there.

One Word for Everything

Y: One word for Fabiola.

F: Complex.

Y: I love that. One word for me?

F: Versatile.

Y: And your favourite word, in any language?

F: Empathy.

Because I think empathy is connected to the ability to put yourself in someone else’s position.

You have to understand how other people experience the world.

In a way, you become a little bit of all the people you’re trying to understand.

Carlotta never really planned to start a fashion brand. Giglio Tigrato began almost accidentally, in her grandmother’s atelier, during a period when the rest of the world seemed to have stopped moving. First came the hand-painted vintage jackets, then the pop-ups, the collections, a fashion show, and eventually a store in Milan.

We meet in Paris, where Carlotta has returned for a pop-up after two years away. Surrounded by archive pieces, unusual fabrics, hats, and an impressive number of patterns, she tells me about a project that was never particularly interested in resembling anything else.

Her motto is responsible and rebellious. Two apparently contradictory words that, for her, describe the same approach to life: taking responsibility for your choices while refusing to be afraid of being different.

We talk about clothes that change with your mood, postage stamps as love letters, forgotten fabrics, imaginary trips, the differences between Milan and Paris, and a rather extraordinary lamp shaped like a pufferfish.

Because perhaps the most interesting thing about Giglio Tigrato isn’t the clothing, but everything that would remain if the clothes disappeared.

From Grandma’s Atelier to the World

Y: You’re based in Milan, right? What brings you back to Paris?

C: This pop-up was actually a bit of an excuse to visit a dear friend of mine who worked with me for two years. I hadn’t been back to Paris in a while.

I’ve done at least five pop-ups here throughout Giglio’s history, including when I was just starting out. I’ve also been to London, New York, and Copenhagen. But for one reason or another, I hadn’t returned to Paris in about two years.

Y: And you studied design in Milan before coming to Paris?

C: I studied at the Politecnico di Milano and then did my Erasmus in Paris. It was a completely different environment.

At the Politecnico, everything was much more structured, and I received a really strong technical education. In Paris, there was much more freedom to experiment creatively. I loved experiencing both sides.

I studied fashion design and specialized in jewellery and accessories.

When I graduated, it was Covid. I didn’t particularly want to do a master’s online, so I decided to start working while developing Giglio Tigrato.

And just when I was ready to officially launch Giglio, I found a job. So I started living this double life.

I worked in a brand’s design department, then with a Milanese designer who had a boutique in the Cinque Vie district. I was her assistant, but I did absolutely everything, from working in the store to social media and carrying things around. Later, I became a social media manager for an interior design and architecture company.

Y: And now you work exclusively on Giglio?

C: For the past two years, yes. And last year we opened the store.

Y: The Island. I love that name. Where does it come from?

C: Tiger Lily is a character from Peter Pan’s Neverland.

When I opened the store, I didn’t want it to be exclusively a Giglio Tigrato boutique. I wanted to give other emerging designers an opportunity to showcase their work, whether through consignment or temporary pop-ups.

Calling the store Giglio Tigrato felt a little limiting.

So it became The Island. Tiger Lily’s island, but also a space where other designers could bring their own worlds.

There Was Never a Master Plan

Y: When did you realize that Giglio could become something bigger than a personal project?

C: I don’t think there was ever one particular moment.

Everything happened very gradually, without rushing. I never started with the ambition of creating a brand. That wasn’t necessarily my dream.

Ever since I started studying at the Politecnico, I’d been interested in finding my own approach to upcycling, creating something that felt distant from trends.

It started in my grandmother’s atelier, as something extremely personal and intimate.

Then came the first pop-ups, and suddenly I was exposing my work to other people’s opinions. You begin receiving criticism, compliments, comments. I’ve always seen that as an opportunity to learn.

Of course, there have been moments when I realized something important was happening. This year’s fashion show, for example.

Having twenty naked people walk in a fashion show was certainly one of those moments when I thought, okay, we’re doing something big.

But I think Giglio has always been for other people as much as it has been for me. I wanted to offer an alternative way of buying clothes and invite people into my world.

Y: Do you remember the very first pieces you made?

C: Absolutely. My first pop-up was entirely vintage and upcycled.

I had about thirty jackets: leather coats, bombers, suede jackets, blazers. All hand-painted.

There were lots of postage stamps, which have become something of a symbol for Giglio.

A stamp is something you put on a letter when you’re travelling, when you’re sending something home or to someone you love.

For me, painting a stamp onto a jacket meant turning that garment into the carrier of a message, a journey, or an experience happening somewhere else.

There were always tigers, too, and lots of Eastern influences.

Then I started introducing small collections of tailored pieces. I remember one of my first designs was this reversible little bolero or waistcoat, with upholstery jacquard on one side and a sort of fluffy lambswool on the other.

When I look back at those pieces now, I find them so funny.

Responsible, Rebellious, or Both?

Y: Something that really caught my attention about Giglio is the combination of two words: responsible and rebellious. They almost contradict each other. Are you personally more responsible or more rebellious?

C: I’m exactly the combination of the two, because I am Giglio.

They’re contrasting ideas, but in everything I do, they coexist.

Being responsible doesn’t necessarily mean being the sensible girl who follows the rules. It means being responsible for my own actions and conscious of the choices I make.

I want everything I do to reflect who I am.

Being rebellious, on the other hand, isn’t about breaking rules simply for the sake of breaking them.

It’s about not being afraid to be different, to take risks, to move away from what everybody else is doing.

For me, it’s a complete rejection of conformity.

And that doesn’t only apply to fashion. It applies to everything, from the perfume you buy to the café where you drink your coffee.

So many people follow the crowd without really questioning whether something reflects who they are.

I want to make choices because they genuinely feel like mine.

Y: And in your personal life, when are you more responsible and when are you more rebellious?

C: I’m responsible in my relationships with people.

I have strong principles, and I like maintaining solid relationships. I meet new people almost every week through my work, and I try to approach those relationships with a sense of responsibility and respect.

I’m definitely more rebellious in how I make decisions. I’m instinctive, sometimes impulsive.

Y: There’s such a fine line between being instinctive and being impulsive.

C: Exactly. But sometimes you just feel something in your stomach, and you know.

Some Days a Berliner, Others a Can-Can Dancer

Y: You talk a lot about resisting conformity. How does that translate into the way you dress?

C: I change every single day.

One morning I might wake up feeling like a Berliner emerging from the most underground club, completely dressed in black.

The next day, I might feel like a can-can dancer.

And today I’m somewhere in between.

It depends entirely on my mood.

Sometimes, when I’m going through a period of uncertainty, I can see it reflected in how I dress.

When I travel, it’s easy. I pack four outfits for four days and know exactly what I’m going to wear.

But in Milan, when I open my wardrobe and have too many choices, I sometimes end up wearing the same jeans and striped long-sleeved T-shirt.

If you see me dressed like that for several days in a row, you can probably tell I’m going through a strange period in my life.

Y: What’s the strangest or most eccentric piece in your wardrobe?

C: Probably my Giglio chaps. Not everybody has cowboy chaps hanging in their wardrobe.

But I love accessories, so I have a lot of unusual things: cuffs, extravagant hats, vintage shoes.

Even this bowler hat I’m wearing today is quite eccentric.

Y: Did you build this wardrobe gradually?

C: Yes, and I’m still building it.

I’m obsessed with vintage, and a lot of my research starts with vintage archives.

London is probably one of my favourite places to look. Paris has some extraordinary pieces too, but sometimes you pay far too much for something simply because it’s vintage or has a particular label.

I think the interesting thing is finding pieces that genuinely speak to you.

An Imaginary Moodboard

Y: Let’s imagine a moodboard of Carlotta and Giglio Tigrato. You have to choose a person, a film, a magazine, a building, and a city.

C: A person? Vivienne Westwood. Today, at least. Tomorrow I might give you a completely different answer.

I think I woke up feeling a little Vivienne.

A film would be Paris, Texas.

A magazine, Mental Athletic.

For a building, I’d choose something like an old farmhouse in the Tuscan countryside. Something very bucolic.

And a city? Actually, today I don’t think I’d choose a city at all. I’d rather be in a small village somewhere.

Milan Doesn’t Try So Hard

Y: You know both Milan and Paris really well. They’re two major fashion capitals, but they have such different identities. What do you think Paris could learn from Milan, and vice versa?

C: I think they’re two parallel worlds.

In Paris, people sometimes exaggerate the fashion character they’re trying to embody. There’s this almost theatrical effort to look a certain way.

You can see it in how people dress on the street, especially in particular neighbourhoods.

Sometimes I prefer the naturalness of Milan. People seem to try a little less.

At the same time, Paris can be incredibly interesting because you encounter people with such distinctive personal styles.

There are outfits that make you stop and look.

In Milan, that happens to me less often. People tend to dress in a more relaxed way.

But I should also say that I’m quite detached from the fashion world itself.

Most of my friends don’t work directly in fashion. Some work in art, some in events, some move between different creative industries.

I like being able to look at fashion without feeling that I have to belong completely to that world.

Y: I love that. And today you’re a little romantic, a little pirate.

C: Exactly. I’ve got the hat with piercings, a slightly transparent pair of trousers, a corset, and this pirate shirt.

Sometimes I only realize what mood I was in after getting dressed.

I look at myself and think, okay, apparently this is who I am today.

The Fabric Comes First

Y: When you take something that already exists and turn it into a Giglio piece, at what point does it become yours?

C: Today I don’t actually work with finished vintage garments anymore.

I work with fabrics.

In the beginning, I would take existing vintage pieces and modify them. Now I create garments from scratch, but I still use vintage and deadstock fabrics.

My design process always starts with the material.

I have to understand what fabrics are available before I can imagine what to make.

If I find a particular cotton, a gauze, a silk, I need to know what I have in front of me before designing.

The fabric comes first, and the design follows.

I think the piece becomes mine when I start developing something new from those existing materials, especially when I begin creating the first prototypes.

Y: So how much of your work is actually research?

C: A huge part of it.

Researching materials, but also looking for inspiration.

I spend a lot of time at the store too. I want to be physically present because I think there’s something quite unusual about walking into a boutique and speaking directly to the person who designed the clothes.

And then, unfortunately, I also have to deal with the financial side of things.

Y: The glamorous side of having your own brand.

C: Exactly.

I have people helping me with product development and art direction, and I also work with interns.

But running an independent brand still means doing a little bit of everything.

Don’t Start a Brand Just to Start a Brand

Y: What would you tell someone who wants to launch their own fashion brand?

C: I’d tell them to do it when they genuinely feel they have an idea that can last.

Today, so many people launch brands simply because they want to have a brand.

And I’ve seen quite a few small brands close after only a few years.

Sometimes it’s because the idea didn’t work. Sometimes there wasn’t enough determination, or enough passion behind it.

It’s difficult. We’re already surrounded by products.

If you want to create something new, you have to know why it needs to exist.

You need determination, a solid idea, and probably a certain degree of financial stability too.

Y: Describe Giglio Tigrato in three words.

C: Independent. A traveller. Free.

If the Clothes Disappeared

Y: If you took all the clothes away from Giglio Tigrato, what would remain?

C: A community, I think.

A community of people, friends, and people who have become friends over the years.

There would still be the stories we’ve created, the projects, the experiences.

And I hope that people who have followed Giglio would retain that desire to dare, to step outside expectations, and to resist conformity.

That’s what I would want to remain.

The Trips That Haven’t Happened Yet

Y: Is there something you believed in when you started that you’ve since changed your mind about?

C: I’ve experimented with so many different ideas.

At one point I wanted to release just one collection a year. But I realized that was quite complicated, because people still want something new. You either have to constantly reinvent the way you present the collection or it can become monotonous.

I also thought about creating two separate lines, one more elaborate, almost haute couture, and another simpler one.

Eventually, I realized that would make the project too big for what we are today.

Then there’s another idea I haven’t abandoned, just postponed: the Giglio trips.

Y: Wait, what are the Giglio trips?

C: I imagined collections inspired by specific journeys, where you could almost buy a suitcase prepared for that particular trip, with clothes and accessories designed for it.

But more importantly, I imagined travelling together with a small group from the Giglio community.

Not a huge organized tour. Something intimate and adventurous.

It could be a journey to the Amazon, to India, or somewhere else where we could learn about a place, visit workshops, document something, or contribute in some way.

I want it to connect to the social and environmental responsibility behind the brand.

But I want to do it in a cool way.

Sustainability has acquired such an unattractive image. People often associate it with something boring or uncool.

I think being responsible can be incredibly cool. You just have to know how to communicate and experience it differently.

Y: So this project is still happening, eventually?

C: I hope so. We need a slightly bigger team first.

But I genuinely think that the brands that will matter in the future are the ones offering experiences, not just products.

And I don’t mean another exclusive dinner or breakfast in a store, even though those things can be lovely.

I’m thinking about trips, conversations, experiences that go beyond buying something.

Things that actually bring people together.

A Pufferfish Lamp and Other Important Possessions

Y: Time for some rapid-fire questions. You can steal anyone’s wardrobe for twenty-four hours. Whose would it be?

C: A stylist I know called Emma. I’d be so curious to see what’s actually inside her wardrobe.

Y: The best object in your house? Not necessarily the most beautiful.

C: At my family’s countryside house, there’s an inflated pufferfish that’s been turned into a lamp.

You switch it on, and the whole fish lights up.

It’s genius. It always makes me smile.

Y: I absolutely need a photograph of this. Is it a real pufferfish?

C: Yes, it’s an actual preserved pufferfish.

Y: Something you’ve seen recently that made you think, I wish I’d made that?

C: I don’t really think that way. I’m not jealous of what other people create.

Y: Something you collect without meaning to?

C: Little notebooks.

Y: Your current obsession?

C: Lace.

Y: A film you’d like to live inside?

C: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. The whole atmosphere of that period.

Y: A song that immediately changes your mood?

C: It changes all the time, but right now it’s Love Show by Skye.

I found it on my father’s old iPod. It makes me feel like a girl in the 2000s.

Y: The best compliment someone could give you?

C: That I’m unique.

Y: Somewhere you go when you need to think?

C: It used to be the little atelier at my grandmother’s house. I’ve just rented a new studio, so I think that will become my new place.

Y: Your favourite word?

C: Marmellata.

Carlotta’s Milan Address Book

Y: A bar where you can disappear for a little while, somewhere nobody knows you?

C: Milan is so small that it’s difficult not to run into someone you know.

But I recently discovered a little place near my new studio. It’s full of vintage details and has this wonderful atmosphere.

Actually, one place I love is Forno Cantoni.

Y: Your favourite place for a proper Milanese meal?

C: Trattoria Milanese.

I’ve known the people there for years. I love being able to order a risotto alla milanese, a scaloppina al Marsala with mashed potatoes, all those traditional dishes.

It feels like home. I can go there alone and feel completely comfortable.

Another place I love is Nuova Arena.

My mother’s waters actually broke while she was at that restaurant, just before I was born.

So I guess that place is part of my story, whether I like it or not.

Y: An underrated neighbourhood in Milan?

C: I think Milan is becoming so popular everywhere that it’s difficult to find a genuinely underrated neighbourhood.

Isola isn’t underrated anymore, neither is NoLo. Porta Romana and the area around Lodi have some really interesting new bars.

Maybe Giambellino is still a little overlooked.

There’s a lovely place there called Bicchierino Bar that I go to quite often.

I love moving around Milan on my scooter. The city is small enough that you can cross it in twenty minutes.

That’s one of the things I like about living there.

A Tattoo That Was Never Finished

Y: Is that a tattoo?

C: Yes. It’s a lily, obviously.

Although it turned out quite badly.

Y: When did you get it?

C: About three years ago. A guy who worked at my favourite vintage shop in Milan did it at his house.

Y: Did it hurt?

C: So much. Which is why, as you can see, I never really finished it.

Y: I love silly little tattoos, though. The slightly strange ones that don’t necessarily have some grand meaning.

C: Me too.

Making Something Out of What Already Exists

As the conversation comes to an end, Carlotta shows me some of the fabrics she has brought to Paris. We move between colours, textures, and pieces that don’t yet exist.

Y: When you put fabrics together, is it completely spontaneous or do you already know what you want to make?

C: It’s spontaneous, but also considered.

When I put certain fabrics together, I can already imagine what they could become.

Maybe I see a soft pair of trousers, a top with another layer over it, or two materials that could work together.

Sometimes I love combining colours that aren’t supposed to match, like different reds and pinks.

I organize my fabrics by colour, but also by weight and texture.

I usually take one day almost every month to visit suppliers, often around Como or Veneto, to look for deadstock.

With deadstock, you never know what you’ll find.

Something might be there today and gone tomorrow because somebody else has bought it.

So sometimes I’ll buy fabric without knowing exactly when I’ll use it. Maybe it’ll become part of the next collection, maybe the one after that.

I currently produce around four hundred pieces per season, so I have to be conscious of how much material I’m buying.

But I love that no two searches are ever the same.

Y: So every collection begins with something you discover rather than something you’ve already imagined.

C: Exactly.

And sometimes you find something so beautiful that you immediately know you have to make something out of it.

That’s one of my favourite parts of the job.

We met in Paris and started with the things you are supposed to ask someone who has built a brand: where the name comes from, how the objects are made, and what happens next. Very quickly, as usual, we found ourselves somewhere else. We talked about the impossible standards of being a “cool girl,” the Mediterranean as a kind of cure, growing up attached to Beirut and wanting to leave it, and the difference between liking a city and finding your people in it. There were detours through Coca-Cola, blonde roots, dogs, things we might regret losing, work we don’t want to do forever, dating in Paris and a plan to bring independent brands together in pop-ups. I like interviews that leave room for the conversation to become something other than what I originally planned. This one did exactly that.

On Being Busy (Or Not)

Y: I want to start with your name. Are you actually always busy?

L: My brand name? No, not really. But you can be busy seeing your friends, seeing your family, going to the beach, things like that. Busy working? Not really. I work about four or five hours a day.

Y: I like having a rhythm. Are you methodical in the way you work? I’m quite impulsive myself.

L: When I started doing what I do, I knew nothing. Now I know more, but methodical? Zero. Absolutely zero. I love talking to people and meeting people. I learn so much from them. Now I’m a little more limited by the people I can meet in Lebanon, and I want to develop a more methodical approach. Two days before travelling, I started writing down how I spend every hour of my day, to try to build some sort of system. Usually I’m very go-with-the-flow. I have big things I plan, big events, but I know I need to start planning the smaller things too. In general, am I organised? Not really. Not at all.

Y: When would you write down what you did? After every hour or at the end of the day?

L: More or less at the end of the day.

Y: I go through extremes with writing. Either I write absolutely everything or I write nothing. I have periods where I document every little thing and periods where I don’t write at all. I can’t find the balance. I saw in your posts that you started making jewellery because you couldn’t really find anything funky enough, right?

L: Yes. Now that I’m in the industry, I know so many brands that make fun things. But when I started, especially in Lebanon, there weren’t many doing this style. Internationally there are loads of them.

Y: When you started, were you making them just for yourself?

L: Only for myself.

Y: Only for yourself. So when did it become an actual name, a brand, rather than just something you did?

L: Little by little. People started complimenting what I was wearing, and then people wanted to buy it. I also love entrepreneurship, I love selling things, so I went into it.

Y: To to me your pieces are characters. I chose Frank, for instance, and I didn’t even think twice. I opened the website, saw Frank and thought, khalas, that’s it. I don’t need to look at the others. It was speaking to me. I love monkeys, and he reminded me of Paul Frank. He’s really a character. Do you imagine different necklaces for different personalities or moods?

L: Not really. Because I’m not that organised!

I’m lucky I have a flow. I tend to respond to things people like. People love ducks, for example, so I’ve made several designs around ducks. Or people love chillies, so I explore different ideas around chillies. But those ideas also just come to me. I can pick up one bead and immediately imagine a hundred thousand different designs, a thousand ideas. I try to make little categories for people, but I don’t really think in terms of different types of customers. When I create, I think about what’s in my head, and what I want, before thinking about what will sell or who will wear it.

Making a World, Not Just Jewellery

Y: So there is impulsivity in that. That moment when you have an idea and want to make it immediately.

L: There used to be much more of it. Now I control it more.

Y: That’s important. I’m exactly like that. I suddenly think of someone I want to interview, and immediately want to write to them. Then I have to tell myself, slow down. Think about it. Is this really worth doing? Is this person worth the time? Because you realise you can’t interview everyone.

L: Exactly. I’ve started choosing where to put my energy because I want the entire project to grow. I’ve realised it’s more about world-building than creating one product after another. I don’t want to make something every time an idea comes into my head. I’m learning to manage my time and my energy, especially my time.

Y: It’s not only about not putting all your eggs in one basket. It’s also about not putting your eggs absolutely everywhere.

L: Exactly. Exactly.

Y: Your jewellery is incredibly colourful and bold. Is that reflected in your personal fashion style too?

L: Yes. I’ve noticed that a lot of my friends are shy when it comes to clothes. I’m not really like that. If something speaks to me, I’ll wear it, regardless of its structure, cut, size or colour. I wear a lot of colour because it makes me happy. But on a normal day I’ll often wear jeans and something basic, because I don’t always have the patience to put together an extravagant outfit. In general, though, yes.

Y: There’s a concept in fashion that I absolutely hate: the “cool girl.” I’m going to contradict myself, because to me you are a cool girl. But I hate the term, and I don’t even know how to define it. Sometimes you meet someone and you just know they’re cool. What does cool mean to you?

L: First of all, if someone is making posts saying “cool girls do this” and “cool girls do that,” they’re already not a cool girl. But that’s a good question. What is cool? I used to ask my friends what compliment they most liked receiving. We all thought about it a lot, and I realised I love it when people describe someone as cool, or nice. To me it’s just a vibe. A snob isn’t cool at all. Being inclusive is cool. Being chill, easy-going, not selfish. That’s the kind of person I find cool. It’s a vibe more than a look.

What Makes Someone Beautiful

Y: I have a similar question about beauty. Is there something you find beautiful that other people don’t necessarily see as beautiful? It doesn’t have to be physical. It could be a quality, a person, a way of being. I find certain kinds of imperfection really beautiful, especially in people I know.

L: Let me think. Beautiful... I find intelligent, interesting, engaged people beautiful. People I can learn something from when we talk. I love people who care about causes, like animal rights, economics, improving ordinary people’s lives, sociology. I find that beautiful and important.

Y: Do you try to bring those values, that sense of engagement, into your brand?

L: At the beginning I wanted to express too much through my brand. One of its big pillars is breaking social norms, so yes, those values are there, but not as explicitly as they once were. I’ve learned to separate my brand from certain other things. For example, I know I don’t care about being rich. I want my brand to grow as much as it possibly can. If one day it makes a huge amount of money, I don’t want to have a more luxurious life than the life I have now. I feel like what I have today is already the maximum I need. Anything beyond that would be too much. If I succeed, I’d love to give the rest away.

Getting Dressed, Dogs, and Coca-Cola

Y: I love that. When you’re getting dressed, does the jewellery come first or last?

L: Last. But I don’t care whether everything matches. I wear whatever I feel like wearing and then add the jewellery.

Y: How do you choose which piece?

L: Whichever one I love at that particular moment.

Y: Do you have a piece you keep on for years? Some people have a necklace or something they almost never take off.

L: No, I don’t have that. I don’t really wear fine jewellery. I wear jewellery and accessories that are made to be put on and taken off. That’s how I like them.

Y: What’s something you love looking at?

L: My dog.

Y: That’s such a good answer. Dogs are wonderful and also overwhelming. Speaking of which, my mother hates my blonde hair.

L: I love it.

Y: She hates the roots. I don’t care, I like the dark roots.

Why are you drinking Coca-Cola with a spoon? Like it’s soup?

L: I don’t know. I felt like having some.

Y: Are you going to finish it?

L: Of course. In a second. I love Coke.

Y: I love Coke too. I had this long anti-Coke phase, literally years, and then one day I thought, actually, I love it. Now I drink it almost every day.

L: Me too. Do you drink alcohol?

Y: A little, but not much.

L: Same.

Y: I went through a period of drinking a lot, and then a period of drinking practically nothing. It depends on the people and the mood. One of my best friends loves drinking, so whenever I go out with him, I know we’re going to drink.

L: I know exactly what you mean.

Y: And that’s okay. I actually have some questions about Beirut.

L: Go for it.

Beirut, Belonging, and the Mediterranean

Y: My relationship with Beirut is complicated.

L: I think there are a lot of Lebanese people who didn’t grow up in Beirut who feel insecure about it. They don’t have friends there and feel like it’s difficult to integrate. I don’t know why, because I also know Lebanese people who didn’t grow up there at all, who visit as adults almost like tourists, and love it.

So I think it’s partly about your relationship to the social scene. Beirut has a complicated social scene, but Paris does too. There are circles in Paris that are very cliquey and exclusive. The difference is that Paris is a much bigger city, so it’s easier to find your own people. I love my life in Beirut because I grew up there. I’m very attached to my childhood, maybe less intensely now that I’m older. I used to spend so much time with my grandparents and all my family, my cousins and aunts.

Those memories shaped my attachment to Lebanon and Beirut. And I’m deeply attached to the Mediterranean. Really. The sea is like my cure for life. The sea, the sea. And the Mediterranean is the sea I know. I love going up north, where my family has a place. I’m also very attached to my friends. I love my social life, but I don’t let myself be completely influenced by it. There are aspects of the culture in our circles that I dislike, the superficiality and all of that. I’ve learned to live with both sides.

The beautiful thing about Paris is that you meet so many people. If you want to advance in your career and really make it, you need to be somewhere big. Someone in Beirut doesn’t have the same opportunities or connections as someone in New York. But you can still use your free time well, spend time on your own, take classes and explore your interests.

I love being online, reading Substack, discovering my own little things. I know how to occupy myself both socially and outside my social life. One thing I notice in big cities is that during the day there aren’t that many people I can just call and see. In Beirut, I have friends I can call on any day of the week, at any hour, and we can go for coffee. I have a nice balance there.

Y: So Little Miss Busy is happy in Beirut.

L: Sometimes more than others.

Y: Do you think Beirut has given Little Miss Busy something that wouldn’t have happened if you’d started the brand in Paris? Certain meetings, opportunities, experiences?

L: I’m still wondering what the essence of Little Miss Busy really is. I haven’t fully found it yet. As for Beirut, I don’t know. There are definitely people I’ve worked with and learned from. But I can’t know what would have happened if I’d started somewhere else.

Y: You’ve been coming to Paris quite a lot. Could you imagine moving here?

L: I want to move here. I’m willing to accept the difficulties of living in a big city because I want to give the project a chance to grow. I’ve developed it to this point, and now I feel the world needs to see it. For that, I need to be in a bigger city.

Y: When you’re in Beirut, what do you miss about Paris?

L: I have a love-hate relationship with Lebanon. More love than hate, of course, but still love-hate. What do I miss about Paris? Nothing, really, apart from meeting people. Professionally, it’s easier to meet connected people. I can also meet people who interest me in different subjects.

Little Miss Busy’s Address Book

Y: Somewhere in Beirut that feels like home?

L: I spend a lot of time in Gemmayzeh. My shop and Art House are next to each other, so I’m around those two places all the time.

Y: Somewhere to go for a drink?

L: Also Gemmayzeh. Pretty much any bar there. Lately I’ve been going to Standard a little, but I don’t really have one specific place.

Y: Somewhere to go when you want to be alone?

L: Probably somewhere by the beach. I actually really like being alone. I don’t have that constant need to be with people. I enjoy having time to myself.

Y: I can see that. If I had only twenty-four hours in Beirut, what should I do?

L: Just go, sit in cafés and chill all day. And go to Raouché to see the sea. Spend some time there.

Y: And now Paris. If you moved here, what neighbourhood would you want to live in?

L: Somewhere between the 3rd and the 11th.

Y: When you visit, you’re usually staying in the 16th. You wouldn’t want to live there?

L: No. It’s boring. It’s comfortable, which is nice, but not somewhere I’d want to live.

Y: The 3rd and 11th have much more going on. Any favourite addresses in Paris?

L: Not really. I go wherever my friends tell me to go. I’m happy sitting on practically any terrace. I don’t get particularly hyped about a specific address.

The Things We Keep

Y: I’m obsessed with objects, and I have a whole section in my interviews devoted to them. I think they can tell you so much about a person. What’s one object you own that you would be genuinely sad to lose?

L: I’m not very attached to objects, honestly. I’m much more attached to people. I’m trying to think of something that would genuinely upset me to lose, but nothing really comes to mind.

Y: I don’t think I could answer that question easily either. Maybe that’s why I back up my interview recordings onto my laptop or iCloud. It’s one of the only methodical things I do, and I don’t even do it every night. If I lose this recorder, I can’t just tell someone, “Sorry, I lost our interview, let’s do it again.”

L: Exactly. I’m not very materialistic. I’d love to own something vintage with a really meaningful story, but right now I don’t have an object I’m particularly attached to.

Y: Is your style more minimalist or maximalist?

L: Neither. I love getting dressed and I have an expressive style, so I wouldn’t call myself minimalist. But I’m also not someone who shops constantly. I’m very intentional about what I buy and what I keep.

There are paintings, colourful objects, and what look like toys scattered throughout the room. I ask whether I’m looking at his home or his office. It’s his home, he tells me, and the figures behind him are art toys. Among them are pieces inspired by artists and several Iron Man figures, a character he’s loved for years.

I like that. There’s something endearing about adults who allow traces of their childhood to remain visible in the spaces they inhabit.

I’ve known Pao through Bangkok, a city that has become increasingly familiar to me, although we’ve never really had the opportunity to sit down and talk at length about everything he does.

Interior design, painting, modelling, acting, business. It’s difficult to decide which part of his life to begin with, and perhaps that’s precisely the point.

We talk about the strange things we inherit from the places where we grow up, and the difference between doing something because you’re good at it and doing it simply because it makes you happy.

At one point, I ask Pao to describe himself in three words.

He chooses optimistic, playful, and relaxed.

What interests me is how these qualities seem to coexist with a much quieter side of him. Despite his public-facing work, Pao enjoys being alone, painting without showing anyone, and spending time away from the attention of others.

There’s an ease to the way he moves between different interests. He doesn’t seem particularly concerned with choosing just one identity.

And perhaps being playful is precisely that: allowing yourself to try things without needing to know exactly where they’ll lead.

A ROOM FULL OF TOYS

Yasmina: First of all, where are you calling me from? I love the background. Is that your home or your office?

Pao: It’s my house. What you see in the background, they’re art toys. Some are inspired by famous painters and artists.

And then there are the Iron Man figures. I used to watch Iron Man, and I’ve always loved the character, so I bought a few.

Yasmina: I love when people keep elements of their childhood around them as adults. Sometimes I’ll go to a friend’s apartment and they’ll have drawings they made when they were children, but they’ve framed them and turned them into artworks. There’s something really nice about that. I think I’m going to get to know your interior style through this conversation.

Pao: I’m actually painting at the moment.

Yasmina: You’re painting yourself?

Pao: Yes. The one I’m working on is not finished yet.

Yasmina: I had no idea. Is painting something new for you, or have you always done it?

Pao: I’ve always enjoyed painting. I studied it as well. It just feels nice to paint.

Yasmina: Do you share your paintings, or are they something you keep private?

Pao: At the moment, they’re private. I haven’t really shown them to anyone. Sometimes I’ll send something to a friend who has an art gallery and ask for advice. Maybe one day, if the work is good enough, she could help me sell it.

But I need to like it first. Before I show it to anyone, I have to feel that it’s good.

WHEN A PAINTING DOESN’T WORK

Yasmina: How do you know when you like a painting? Because I have the same problem with writing. Sometimes I’ll write an interview or an article, look at it afterwards, and immediately think that something isn’t right. How do you recognise that feeling when you’re painting?

Pao: Usually, I can tell almost straight away. You might have planned the painting in your mind, you know what you want it to look like. But then you start painting, and the result is different.

Maybe the brushstrokes aren’t right. Maybe the colours or the composition don’t work the way you imagined. Even if you’ve planned everything, the result might only be twenty percent of what you wanted. And when you look at it, you know it isn’t right.

Yasmina: What do you do then? Do you keep working on it, or do you abandon it?

Pao: It depends. Sometimes I’ll stop and start again on a new canvas. Sometimes I’ll continue using the same canvas. For me, painting has a lot to do with how I’m feeling. I might work on something for a while and then reach a point where I don’t know how to continue.

So I’ll start another painting. And sometimes I won’t paint at all for months. If I don’t feel like painting, I don’t force myself. Then eventually I come back to it. That’s how painting works for me.

Yasmina: I love that. I think sometimes we put so much pressure on ourselves to turn everything we enjoy into something productive. But there can be something beautiful about keeping a creative practice just for yourself.

OPTIMISTIC, PLAYFUL, RELAXED

Yasmina: Something I’ve always found interesting about you is that you do so many different things. I knew about interior design, because that’s something you share publicly. But I also knew you’d done acting, photoshoots, and business.

And now I discover that you paint. I love people who are difficult to define through a single profession. So if you had to describe yourself in three words, which would you choose?

Pao: That’s difficult. I’ve never really thought about it. I think I’d say optimistic, playful, and relaxed.

Yasmina: I love those. I particularly like playful. Where do you think that quality appears most in your life? And are there areas where you wish you could be more playful?

Pao: I think I’m a playful person, but there’s something people don’t always realise about me. I’m actually quite introverted. When I’m with friends, or when I’m at an event, I’m happy to talk to people. I’m genuinely happy to see everyone.

I enjoy meeting people, and I don’t shut myself off from them. But there’s another side of me. I really enjoy being alone. I like my independence, having time to myself. And I don’t think everyone necessarily sees that. When I’m alone, I can feel just as alive as when I’m surrounded by people.

Yasmina: I understand that completely. I think people sometimes confuse being alone with being lonely. And they’re two very different things.

Personally, I need some time alone almost every day. Sometimes it’s waking up earlier and having a couple of hours before work. Sometimes it’s deciding not to go out and spending the evening at home. I need that time to think, reflect, or simply do things by myself.

Pao: Exactly. Sometimes you think much better when you’re alone. And I think reflecting is really important. Looking at what’s happening around you. Understanding what’s good, what’s bad, and what could be better. You need that space sometimes.

THE ENGLAND HE CARRIES WITH HIM

Yasmina: I want to talk about London. It’s a city I’ve always had a complicated relationship with. People often ask me whether I could imagine living somewhere other than Paris, and my answer is usually no. For me, it’s Paris or nothing.

I find London a little intimidating. It feels enormous, fast, and sometimes unsafe. You spent a long time in England. What memories do you have of living there?

Pao: I have amazing memories of London. It’s such an international city. You have people from all over the world living there, bringing different cultures and different energies. And every neighbourhood feels different.

Sometimes you only have to travel one station on the Underground and suddenly the atmosphere changes completely. That’s something I really love about London.

And the weather is funny. You can experience three seasons in one day. It can be freezing and raining, and then suddenly the sun comes out. I actually miss that unpredictable weather.

Yasmina: When did you first move to England?

Pao: I was around ten. I went to boarding school in Bath. It’s a beautiful area, about two hours from London. During school holidays, I’d spend time in London with my guardian. I loved walking around the city. When I was younger, I used to go to Oxford Street and visit Nike! I was really interested in sports, football, trainers, all those things.

Later, I spent around four years living in London itself. I haven’t been back for several years now, but I have very good memories of it.

Yasmina: Do you think there’s anything particularly British that you’ve kept with you? Because I already have an answer. Your accent. You have a very British accent, and I love it.

Pao: Yes, the accent has stayed with me.

Yasmina: And there’s something you always say. It’s great fun. I remember asking you about places to go in Bangkok, and you’d say, “It’s great fun.”

That sounds so British to me. An American would probably say, “It’s so much fun.”

Pao: That’s funny. But honestly, even after spending twelve years in England, I still feel much more Thai than British. Maybe eighty percent Thai. I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to study abroad and make friends there.

But I don’t think I really became English. The accent is probably the main thing that stayed.

Yasmina: That’s interesting.

Pao: For example, people are sometimes surprised when I tell them I don’t really go to pubs. I was never particularly interested in going out for a pint of beer. That part of British culture just wasn’t really me.

Yasmina: What did you miss most about Thailand when you were living in England?

Pao: Definitely the food.

Yasmina: I completely understand. Once you’ve eaten Thai food in Thailand, it becomes difficult to find the same thing elsewhere. I’m sure there are excellent Thai restaurants in Paris, but sometimes the taste just isn’t the same.

Pao: Exactly. It’s difficult to find all the ingredients abroad. So restaurants have to substitute certain things, and the flavour changes. But I had a favourite restaurant in England.

Yasmina: Which one?

Pao: Nando’s. I love Nando’s. It’s grilled chicken with Portuguese-inspired flavours and spicy sauces. I really like it.

There’s also a restaurant in Paris that I recommend. It’s called Malibu. They do grilled chicken with African-inspired flavours and different sauces. It’s really good.

Yasmina: I’m definitely adding that to our address book. That’s actually one of the things I want to develop with Palomita Office. A collection of recommendations from everyone I interview. Because sometimes you want to go somewhere and you don’t want to spend an hour searching through Google Maps.

I’d much rather go somewhere recommended by someone whose taste I trust.

THE HUNGER TO BECOME SOMEONE

Yasmina: I watched one of the films you appeared in. It was on Netflix, and it was about a chef and a restaurant.

Pao: Hunger.

Yasmina: Yes, Hunger. I watched it with some friends when we were in Thailand. What interested me is how you decide whether you want to take part in a project. Is it the people involved? The director? The story?

Pao: For that particular film, it was definitely the story. When I read the script, I found it very touching. It’s about the chef, his team, and society. But the word hunger has another meaning.

It’s about how hungry you are to succeed. How much you want to become someone, or reach a certain level. And sometimes people want success so badly that it changes the way they treat others.

The film is quite dark. But that’s what interested me. It has a lot of meaning.

Yasmina: And what was the experience of filming it like?

Pao: I remember feeling the energy of everyone on set. When you’re surrounded by people who are truly committed to what they’re doing, it helps you perform better. You feel their energy. And you want to give the same commitment back.

I think that’s incredibly important.

Yasmina: Was acting something you always wanted to do? Or did it happen spontaneously?

Pao: It happened quite naturally. I started doing photoshoots and some fashion work when I was around fifteen or sixteen.

I did that for several years. Then, after university, I met someone who owned an entertainment company in Thailand. It happened through a friend while I was in London.

We started talking, and she asked whether I wanted to try acting. I’d never acted before. I didn’t have the training. But the opportunity was there, so I said yes.

Yasmina: That’s quite brave.

Pao: I actually started taking acting classes while I was shooting my first television series. So I was learning while I was doing it. At first, I wasn’t sure I could manage, but once you’re in front of the camera, something happens. You realise there are all these people working around you. You can’t waste their time. You just have to do it. And I found that really exciting.

Yasmina: I love that attitude. Was there a moment when you realised you genuinely enjoyed acting?

Pao: I think the experience of doing it gave me confidence. Especially when I started doing more physical scenes. I really enjoyed action sequences. Running, fighting, moving around. It’s exhausting, but it’s exciting.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE

Yasmina: How would you describe the Thai cinema industry? I know a little about it, but not nearly enough.

Pao: Thai audiences really love horror films. Especially ghost films.

Yasmina: I’ve noticed. Whenever I’m in Thailand, my Netflix changes, and suddenly there are all these Thai horror films. Some of them are terrifying. Especially the ones set in forests.

Pao: Thailand is very good at making ghost films. They usually do very well. And comedies too. Horror and comedy are very popular.

Yasmina: Is there a film you wish you could have acted in?

Any film in the world.

Pao: Mission: Impossible.

Yasmina: Really?

Pao: I love action films. I love the physical side of them. Jumping out of planes, helicopters, fighting scenes.

That kind of thing looks like so much fun. My second television series had a lot of shooting and fighting scenes. I was running around, fighting bad guys, doing action sequences.

I fell in love with it. But it was tough.

Yasmina: Did you have stunt doubles?

Pao: Not really. In Thailand, we don’t always have that many stunt doubles for the actors. Usually, the stunt performers are the people playing the bad guys. So you punch someone, and they make it look like you’ve sent them flying five metres.

You barely touch them, and they do all the work. It’s really impressive.

Yasmina: Would you choose Mission: Impossible over James Bond?

Pao: That’s difficult. Very difficult. I love both. Whenever a new film from either franchise comes out, I go to the cinema.

Yasmina: Maybe you should be the next James Bond.

Pao: An Asian James Bond?

Yasmina: Why not?

DRESSED BY HIS MOTHER

Yasmina: Let’s talk about fashion. You’ve worked in fashion for years, and I’m curious about how your personal style developed. I’ve noticed that the brands I’ve worked for have influenced the way I dress. When I was at Saint Laurent, I wore a lot of black, leather, and more classic silhouettes. Then I moved to Balenciaga, and suddenly I was wearing oversized clothes, wider trousers, and more deconstructed pieces.

So I’m interested in how your style has evolved. Who influenced you when you were younger?

Pao: My mother, definitely. She loves fashion and dressing well. When I was young, she would choose a lot of my clothes for me. She’d tell me what kind of haircut I should get, which trainers to wear, which clothes looked good. I think I inherited a lot of my interest in fashion from her.

Then, when I was a little older, I became a huge fan of Paul Smith.

Yasmina: That’s very British.

Pao: Exactly. I loved the colours and the cuts. At the time, the fit was perfect for me. I remember buying my first Paul Smith suits with my own money. The suits, the shoes, the trousers. When I was living in London, I wore a lot of Paul Smith.

Yasmina: I think we’ve just found another British influence you kept.

Pao: You’re right.

Yasmina: Do you think your style has changed a lot over the last ten years?

Pao: Quite a lot. When I was younger, everything had to fit perfectly. My jeans and trousers were always straight-legged and quite fitted. I was very particular about that.

But as I’ve grown older, I’ve become more relaxed. Now I prefer trousers that are a little wider. Not necessarily baggy, but more comfortable.

I still want them to look good, of course. But comfort has become much more important.

I also used to wear jackets constantly. Now I wear them less often. Maybe a light jacket over a T-shirt when it’s cooler, or when I want to make an outfit look a little more put together.

Yasmina: Are you attached to your clothes as objects?

Pao: I used to be much more attached to them than I am now.

When I was younger, I’d watch runway shows and wait for certain pieces to become available. I’d get really excited about specific collections. Now I appreciate fashion differently.

I still love it, but I know how quickly things change. Fashion moves so fast. Still, I think it’s a form of art. The craftsmanship involved in making clothes is extraordinary. Choosing the fabrics, cutting them, stitching different pieces together. There’s so much work behind a single garment. And then you wear something, and it can make you happy. I think that’s important too.

Yasmina: Imagine a terrible scenario. There’s a fire in your house, and you can only save one item from your wardrobe. What would you save?

Pao: Probably the most expensive one.

Yasmina: Fair enough.

Pao: I have this Chanel hoodie. It’s bright yellow. I don’t even know why I bought it.

Yasmina: Sometimes that’s exactly how shopping works.

Pao: It was from the collaboration Pharrell did with Chanel a few years ago. There was this yellow hoodie, and I bought it. I don’t think you can find it easily anymore. So it’s become quite a special piece.

Yasmina: An archive piece. Do you still wear it?

Pao: Not very often. I take good care of it. And it’s so bright. Sometimes I have to wear a leather jacket over it because the colour is so strong.

Yasmina: Yellow is difficult. It’s such a statement colour.

Pao: I’ve always been quite colourful. I remember wearing a completely bright pink outfit in Paris once. Top and trousers. All pink.

Yasmina: For an event?

Pao: No, just on holiday. I saw it and knew I had to buy it.

Yasmina: I love that.

Pao: I can’t wear it anymore, unfortunately. It’s too small now. But I have good memories of it.

Yasmina: And what colours are you wearing now?

Pao: I’ve toned things down quite a lot. I used to have an extremely colourful wardrobe. Now I wear fewer colours. A lot of blue. And some purple.

Yasmina: Purple is a colour I’ve been interested in recently. But I find it difficult to wear sometimes. Maybe a darker purple.

Pao: Mine isn’t particularly dark. You can definitely tell it’s purple.

Yasmina: I like that.

BANGKOK AFTER DARK (AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN)

Before we finish, I ask Pao to take me through Bangkok, the city I know him through and the place he continues to call home. Not the Bangkok of guidebooks, but the one made up of familiar streets, childhood memories, late-night food and places he would rather never see disappear.

Yasmina: What is something about Bangkok that you think people from outside Thailand fundamentally misunderstand? Is there a particular version of the city that you’re tired of seeing represented?

Pao: I think some people still have a very narrow view of Thailand. They associate us mainly with nightlife, Pattaya or certain stereotypes, but Thailand is so much more than that. We have an incredibly rich culture, beautiful traditions, amazing architecture and a very long history. Thailand also has the distinction of never having been formally colonised by a European power, which is something I think is important to understand about our identity. Our monarchy has also played a significant role in shaping the country over generations. I just wish people would look beyond the stereotypes and take the time to understand the country more deeply.

Yasmina: Is there a place in Bangkok that feels almost unchanged to you, even as everything around it develops? Somewhere that still belongs to an earlier version of your life?

Pao: I think Bangkok is a city that will always change, and that’s actually part of what makes it special. Even places that feel familiar are slowly evolving. But I think what stays with me isn’t necessarily a particular place; it’s the memories attached to it. You can return somewhere years later and find that the buildings have changed, but you still remember who you were when you were there. In a way, Bangkok grows alongside you. And perhaps that’s why, even when the city feels completely different, it can still feel like home.

Yasmina: If you could preserve one ordinary thing about Bangkok forever, what would it be? It could be a shop, a street, a particular sound, or even a habit.

Pao: The street food culture. I love that you can walk out at almost any time of day or night and find someone cooking something delicious on the street. It’s such an ordinary part of life here that we sometimes take it for granted. But it brings people together from all walks of life, and I would hate to see Bangkok lose that.

Yasmina: What does Bangkok have that London could never give you, and what does London have that you sometimes find yourself missing in Bangkok?

Pao: Bangkok has incredible food available practically 24 hours a day. You can be hungry at three in the morning and still find something amazing to eat.

London, on the other hand, has that winter atmosphere that I really miss sometimes, especially Winter Wonderland. There’s something magical about being wrapped up in a coat, walking around in the cold with a hot drink. I love the gloomy London weather somehow haha.

Yasmina: Where would you take someone in Bangkok if you wanted them to understand your taste? Not necessarily somewhere fashionable or beautiful, just somewhere that feels unmistakably like you.

Pao: I’d start with the Grand Palace and a couple of temples because I think you need to understand Thailand’s culture and history to really understand Bangkok. Then I’d take them to a local restaurant for proper Thai food, nothing too complicated, and finish with mango sticky rice. For me, that’s a good way to experience Thailand: a little culture, a lot of food!

Yasmina: Is there a particular building, interior, or piece of architecture in Bangkok that you’ve always been fascinated by? Even something other people would consider completely unremarkable?

Pao: I love Baan Trok Tua Ngork in Chinatown. It’s an old family shophouse that has been transformed into a creative space while still retaining so much of its original character. What I love is that they didn’t just make an old building look new; they found a way to give it a new life while preserving its history. They reused original materials and details, and the contrast between the old structure and the contemporary design makes it really interesting.

Yasmina: What’s your relationship with the city's nightlife? Do you think Bangkok becomes a different place after midnight, or does it simply reveal another side of itself?

Pao: Definitely. Bangkok’s nightlife is second to none. I love that you can have so many different experiences in one city, from a relaxed cocktail bar to somewhere with great music where you end up staying until late. The energy changes as the night goes on, and there’s always somewhere to go, whatever mood you’re in. I think that freedom is part of what makes Bangkok so special.

Yasmina: If you had to make a film about Bangkok without including any of its famous landmarks, what would the opening scene look like?

Pao: A close-up of a young woman eating ice cream in the middle of a rice field. It sounds completely ordinary, but I’d shoot it in a way that makes the scene feel a little surreal and cinematic. I like the idea of finding something unexpected in an everyday moment.

Yasmina: Has your relationship with Bangkok changed as you've grown older? Are there places or aspects of the city that you've only recently learned to appreciate?

Pao: As I get older, I appreciate Bangkok more and more. I love seeing how the city has developed, especially with more art spaces, museums and parks that people can enjoy. We even have a beautiful riverside shopping mall where you can escape the heat, enjoy the architecture, eat well and spend an entire afternoon. How many cities offer that combination? I think when you’re younger, you focus more on what you want to do elsewhere. As you get older, you start noticing and appreciating what you already have at home.

Yasmina: What's the strangest or most unexpectedly beautiful thing you've encountered in Bangkok? Something you still think about, even if it seemed insignificant at the time.

Pao: I think it’s those little moments when you see traditional Thai life happening right next to modern Bangkok. You might be surrounded by traffic and skyscrapers, then turn into a small alley and find an old shrine, a family cooking together or someone quietly making offerings. The contrast is beautiful because it reminds you that beneath all the development, the soul of Bangkok is still there.

Yasmina: If you could spend one entire day in Bangkok without any obligations, where would you go, who would you see, and how late would you stay out?

Pao: I’d start with a slow morning, good coffee and breakfast, then visit a temple or an art gallery for a bit of inspiration. I’d have lunch with friends, spend the afternoon somewhere by the river, grab some street fried chicken and maybe stop by dib Museum. In the evening, I’d have dinner somewhere with great food, then go for drinks with friends and see where the night takes us. I’d probably stay out quite late. The best days are the ones you don’t have to plan too much.

Yasmina: If Bangkok were a person you knew, how would you describe them? And do you think the two of you would get along?

Pao: Bangkok would be that friend who is a little chaotic, always energetic, sometimes unpredictable, but never boring. They can be glamorous one minute and completely down to earth the next. I think we’d get along very well because I like that mix of personalities. There’s always another side to discover, and I don’t think I’d ever get bored of them.

THIRTEEN LITTLE THINGS ABOUT PAO

Yasmina: And before I let you go, thirteen quick questions. Don't think about your answers too much. The first thing that comes to mind is usually the most interesting. Your favourite street in Bangkok?

Pao: Sukhumvit Road.

Yasmina: Bangkok in the rain or Bangkok in the heat?

Pao: In the rain.

Yasmina: A film you could watch thirteen times?

Pao: About Time.

Yasmina: A piece of clothing you'd never give away?

Pao: My Manchester United 2007/2008 home shirt (reminds me of the good old days hahaha).

Yasmina: A Bangkok restaurant you'd defend with your life?

Pao: Charmkrung.

Yasmina: Your favourite thing to do completely alone?

Pao: Cooking.

Yasmina: A fictional character you secretly identify with?

Pao: Spider-Man.

Yasmina: Something you find beautiful that other people find ugly?

Pao: My fashion sense lol.

Yasmina: The most ridiculous thing you've ever purchased?

Pao: Kaws Four Foot Companion.

Yasmina: One place in the world you'd happily disappear to?

Pao: Some island with a lot of whales.

Yasmina: One word to describe yourself?

Pao: Peaceful.

Yasmina: One word to describe me?

Pao: Passionate.

Yasmina: Your favourite word in any language?

Pao: “Lush” means “cool” in English. First slang I learnt.

THANK YOU, PAO

I went through some very enlightening but also difficult-to-swallow realizations this past Halloween weekend, and I’m not really sure how I feel about all of it yet, but I think I want to go back to my natural colour.

I remember hearing stories about her devotion to One Direction, the kind of devotion that involved choosing a favourite member, defending him with your life, and convincing everyone around you that they absolutely needed to listen to the same music. Some people grow out of being fangirls. Ginevra simply found a way to make it part of her adult life.

Today, she lives in London and works in global PR for Paul Smith, a job that involves celebrities, stylists, fashion shows, and the occasional surreal encounter with someone she used to watch on Disney Channel. Somewhere between organising press opportunities and attending concerts, she’s become the sort of person who can discuss a Galliano collection, book a trip to Japan on her own, and tell you exactly which member of One Direction she would have defended on Twitter in 2012.

What I love about Ginevra is that she has never really abandoned the things that made her excited as a child. She’s still a fangirl, still curious, still collecting experiences, only now she has a job that sometimes places her on the other side of the fantasy. And there’s something quite beautiful about that: growing older without becoming embarrassed by the things you once loved so intensely.

Our conversation begins among the clothes at Paul Smith and somehow moves through school memories, the Jonas Brothers, One Direction conspiracy theories, celebrity encounters, fashion archives, solo trips to Japan, and the strange freedom of building a life in London.

We talk about the difference between admiring someone from afar and meeting them in real life, about why fashion is as much about the people behind the clothes as the clothes themselves, and about how the girl who once lived for concert tickets now gets to work behind the scenes.

I think there’s something particularly charming about interviewing somebody you’ve known since childhood. You arrive thinking you already know their story, only to discover that there are entire chapters you missed.

And with Ginevra, apparently, most of those chapters have a soundtrack.

Clothes, publicity, and pretending to call people “amo”

Ginevra: What language should I speak? Knowing myself, it’ll probably be a mix of Italian and English.

Yasmina: Okay, fair enough.

Ginevra: And a little French.

Yasmina: Totally, totally, totally. Are those all men’s jackets?

Ginevra: No, this is the women’s collection.

Yasmina: Paul Smith. I don’t know why I keep forgetting there’s a women’s collection.

Ginevra: Actually, in the nineties, womenswear was one of Paul Smith’s strongest areas. It was huge. The brand kept showing it on the runway until around 2022, then decided sales didn’t justify doing shows anymore. France was the strongest market for womenswear. So they said, you know what, there’s no point doing runway anymore. It’s more commercial now.

But Bianca Balti walked for Paul Smith womenswear. Cindy Crawford walked for Paul Smith, to give you an idea. And then, nothing. So this is what we have. There’s also a suit connected to Fashion Week.

Yasmina: So, sorry, they don’t show anymore?

Ginevra: Not womenswear, only menswear. That’s why there isn’t a Paul Smith show during this Paris Fashion Week: it’s women’s Fashion Week.

Yasmina: And how long have you been at Paul Smith?

Ginevra: Are you asking how long I’ve been there or what I do? Almost three years. I’m in global PR, and I look after all the markets in the world except the UK, Japan, and the United States. For everywhere else, I’m your press girl.

Yasmina: I have a question. What the hell are press relations?

Ginevra: Okay, imagine opening a magazine and flipping through it. You see all those photo shoots? My goal is for the models to be wearing pieces from the brand I represent. So most of my work is pitching to stylists and editors. Say we launch a product. Recently we launched the third edition of our collaboration with Barbour. I’ll pitch it to every relevant editor: news, features, shopping pages, whatever. I also approach editorial stylists, magazine stylists, and VIP stylists.

Yasmina: Did you always know you wanted to work in PR, or did you fall into it?

Ginevra: I studied fashion at university, and then focused more on communication, both digital and offline.

Yasmina: In Milan, right?

Ginevra: London. Then I did my master’s in Milan. I knew I wanted to do something in communication. But whenever people asked, “What do you want to do after university?”, everyone said, “Press, press, press.”

I thought it sounded so cool. I had absolutely no idea what it was, but everyone kept saying it, so I decided I wanted to work in press too. I thought it meant going to fashion shows and partying.

And yes, you go to shows and parties, but you’re the person organising them!

Yasmina: I actually remember your Facebook posts. You used to tag your friends, make these videos for people. God, I don’t use Facebook anymore. I swear I don’t use it now. But I remember you making videos whenever someone was leaving or something was happening.

Ginevra: God, you’ve just reminded me of the one I made for Costi Pinto. I don’t know how many hours that took. And during the last week before the BAC, when I should have been studying, I had to make a GoPro video. Studying was impossible. I was on a mission.

Yasmina: A video of what?

Ginevra: The BAC video! And I passed the BAC by sheer luck.

Yasmina: I can’t even remember what stream you were in at school.

Ginevra: I was terrible. I genuinely don’t know why I took the scientific BAC. It makes no sense.

When I was class representative in like 2nde, my chemistry teacher said, “Fiano, you’re amazing at chemistry.” I don’t know why I was good at chemistry.

He told me to do the science stream. I said I didn’t want to, and he was like, “Who cares? You’re doing it.” So I did, and somehow passed with a two out of twenty in maths.

Yasmina: What was the subject that actually got you through?

Ginevra: I have no idea. I think I’m an idol for children at school, because I’m proof that even if you’re completely hopeless at maths and choose science, you can still get anywhere you want in life.

Yasmina: “You can get anywhere you want.” That’s going to be the title of this section.

Ginevra: Wow.

Fangirling as a way of life

Yasmina: Let me explain Palomita a little. It’s always a mixture of questions that come to me in the moment and questions I’ve prepared. Sometimes an answer opens up another question. There are also the photographs and objects you sent me, and then the bigger concepts. So of course we’ll talk about concepts, because you’re the biggest...

Ginevra: My girl, I know. God, this morning already started badly.

Yasmina: What happened this morning?

Ginevra: Can you believe Elton John sold out in three seconds?

Yasmina: You didn’t get tickets?

Ginevra: No.

Yasmina: I think you’re the ultimate fangirl, and I mean that as a compliment. Is your concert budget basically the biggest budget in your life?

Ginevra: I think so.

Yasmina: Let’s start with concerts, then. I’ve thought of you as the ultimate fangirl since we were little. Bibi used to tell me how obsessed you were with One Direction. I also see your TikToks. We don’t talk that often, but I follow you, I see it. What’s the first person or thing you remember truly becoming a fan of?

Ginevra: In music or in general?

Zac Efron, probably.

Yasmina: So we’re talking 2006.

Ginevra: Exactly. When High School Musical came out. I don’t know the month, but it was 2006.

Yasmina: You were six.

Ginevra: I was six. But if we’re going right back to the very beginning, my first real fangirl addiction was Spirit.

I watched that movie eight times a day. I had everything related to Spirit.

For music, I think it was Lucio Battisti, because of my mother. She only played Lucio Battisti. When we went to the seaside, there was always this boy playing “La canzone del sole” on the guitar, and for years it was the only song I knew all the way through. I learned piano, unfortunately, from someone who didn’t teach me solfège, so I never learned to read music. I just memorised the melodies.

Yasmina: I sort of do that too. I play notes and pretend it’s proper piano playing. But when you don’t like your teacher, it can ruin it for you.

Ginevra: My secret dream is to learn bass. Deep down I think I’m a rock star who hasn’t been released yet.

Yasmina: And when did the pop-band side of your personality arrive? When did you become truly obsessed?

Ginevra: The first band I was crazy about, but not fully addicted to, was the Jonas Brothers. I think it all came from Disney Channel. As a child you’re surrounded by this whole world where practically every main character in every film sings.

Yasmina: I think everyone had someone to look up to. For me it was Selena Gomez. I loved her.

Ginevra: That makes sense. For me it was the Jonas Brothers. But in terms of Disney personalities, I probably identify most with Miley Cyrus. Because in the evening I become Hannah, and then when I disconnect from the world, like in Japan, I’m Miley.

You see me all dressed up in London, and then I go to Japan and cycle around an island without a phone for two weeks.

Yasmina: How many times have you been to Japan?

Ginevra: Twice, and I’m already planning the next trip.

Yasmina: Both trips alone?

Ginevra: Always alone. Well, my first trip I organised completely by myself, yes. I first travelled alone when I was nine, when I came to London for summer camp.

Yasmina: But Japan was your first proper solo trip? And you did Korea as well?

Ginevra: Yes, Korea too. It was more a challenge than a dream. I’m getting sidetracked and I haven’t answered your question. So, Jonas Brothers...

Yasmina: We absolutely need to come back to Korea and Japan.

Ginevra: Obviously. To finish the story: I knew I was truly addicted when I discovered One Direction. I talked about nothing else. People at school thought I was insane.

If there was a talent show, we had to do One Direction. Every musical performance was One Direction. I wore a One Direction T-shirt to school. I forced Bianca, who didn’t even know who they were, to listen to them every day if she wanted to be my friend.

I was bullying everyone. Basically: “If you want to be my friend, you have to listen to One Direction.” And it was actually my brother who introduced me to them.

It’s even stranger because he was always obsessed with X Factor. He followed all the different international versions. He discovered them. I went into his room and he said, “Look at these four...” And then I watched.

Yasmina: Who was your favourite? Harry?

Ginevra: Not who you’d expect. Louis.

Yasmina: No way.

Ginevra: Yes, Louis.

I also had a twitter account full of edited photographs of me with Louis, and with the drummer from 5 seconds of Summer.

Yasmina: Publicly? Under your real name?

Ginevra: No, under a fake fangirl name.

Yasmina: Both of them together?

Ginevra: Exactly. Mixing universes. I was fighting with anyone who tried to tell me Louis was dating this or that person; for me it was like “impossible he only loves me”.

Yasmina: The whole “he only loves me” idea makes me think that everyone at some point imagined there was an actual chance of dating their idol. For me, British celebrities seemed closer. I’d think, maybe I’ll move to London and meet them. Was there ever anyone you genuinely believed you might end up with, or were you always realistic?

Ginevra: I always thought it was impossible. Why me? I’m not famous.

But people I thought I’d never run into, I’ve actually met through my job. Like when we were kids, anyone who grew up with television was obsessed with The Suite Life of Zack & Cody. Then I find myself on a red carpet high-fiving Cody! And I’m thinking, if I were eight right now, how the hell would I react?

I was so excited, but he’s also a human being. Maybe he’ll fall in love with me, who knows? As a child you either think things like that will never happen, or you’re convinced your idol is obsessed with you. Lies.

Two songs called “Kiwi,” and the freedom to leave Rome

Yasmina: Let’s look at your playlist. It’s so eclectic. Going from Bocelli to Charli XCX is a roller coaster. Queen and Bob Marley next to Justin Bieber, and two songs called “Kiwi.”

Ginevra: I realised the Kiwi thing too. And I don’t even like kiwis.

Yasmina: Why did you choose those songs? What’s the story?

Ginevra: Harry Styles’s “Kiwi” was one of the first songs on his first solo album. I think it’s one of the songs where he’s most authentically himself, because that’s where he finally broke away from the pop he was trapped in. For the first time he talked about drugs, something he hadn’t really done before.

There’s electric guitar rather than just ballads… and it sounds almost like a rebellion against the character he’d been before.

In a way, I’ve had that feeling about leaving the Roman bubble. We were incredibly lucky to have international educations, to study in multiple languages and be exposed to different nationalities.

But at school there were real problems with open-mindedness. I don’t want to insult the school; academically it was excellent. But the mentality? Terrible. I remember people being looked down on because they didn’t speak Italian all day. And I was like, why can’t I be friends with anyone I want?

So when I left, it was like, finally I can be who I want to be.

London gave me the opportunity to be that person. At school I sometimes felt isolated because, as we grew up, little cliques formed. There were the mean girls, as there are in every school.

I like everyone, and I want to talk to everyone. That could get me excluded.

When I came here, I noticed people were more like me. I thought, how amazing! Nobody judges you. You can spend time with whoever you want. You can dress however you like. If I want to show up at university with pink hair, nobody’s going to say, “God, what have you done?” They’ll say, “That’s so cool.” You really feel free to do whatever you want. In Rome, I think you could even be at an art school and still not have that freedom.

Yasmina: You moved to London straight after high school, right? When did you realise you wanted to live there?

Ginevra: Yes, straight after. But I had come as a little girl, then kept coming back in the summers. The first time I came, I told my mother, “I don’t care about anything else. After school I want to come here.”

Yasmina: So your relationship with London started before university.

Ginevra: When I was really little. I saw this girl dressed in this completely strange outfit. I remember thinking, how cool is that? Nobody was saying anything. I want to be able to go out dressed all in white, or however I want, and nobody comments on it.

Yasmina: I know London so badly. I really need to come visit, and maybe we could do a second part of this as a video tour.

Ginevra: You would go insane for London.

Yasmina: I think it’s similar to Paris in that respect, although obviously it depends on the neighbourhood. I live in the sixth, but the sixth isn’t necessarily where I feel most at home. I feel that more in the Marais, the eleventh, the tenth.

Ginevra: I’d associate my life in London with the eleventh arrondissement in Paris.

Ginevra’s London address book

Yasmina: Okay, let’s do a mini London address book. These aren’t the rapid-fire questions yet. Those come later. You can elaborate as much as you want.

Ginevra: My classic place when the weather’s good is London Fields. It’s a park where I spend afternoons playing cards. I was literally there on Saturday.

Yasmina: What do you play?

Ginevra: President when there are lots of us, or burraco.

We have a group of around thirty people. A typical weekend is going to one of London’s food markets, because there’s a huge food-market culture here. Everyone gets whatever they want. It’s incredible because there are so many different cuisines and you can eat practically anything. Then we spread out blankets, eat together and play cards. It’s the most grandparents-core activity imaginable.

But the energy is hilarious. We’re so competitive, we’re shouting at each other. So definitely London Fields. And there’s always somebody visiting or somebody bringing along another person, so you end up meeting new people every time. It’s really fun, in the simplest possible way: playing cards.

I could give you twenty places, or just two. Right now London Fields is what comes to mind, because it’s probably where I spend the most time.

Another place I love is The Dreamery, it’s this little place like that spot in the eleventh in Paris where you have ice cream and wine.

Yasmina: Folderol?

Ginevra: Exactly.

Yasmina: Where to go vintage shopping?

Ginevra: I think Brick Lane was one of the very first streets I explored for vintage shopping.

Yasmina: What’s a shop you go into even when you don’t need to buy anything? Clothes, vintage, records, anything.

Ginevra: Lately I’ve found this place called Files, again near London Fields. My God, I practically live in London Fields. It’s a shop with archival runway pieces.

This is my new thing. For a few years now, I’ve been trying to invest in vintage pieces, preferably pieces from collections with a history behind them. I get so excited by the story of a runway piece.

I prefer investing in vintage fashion because I know those pieces last. The latest purchase I made was a Dolce & Gabbana jacket from the Autumn/Winter 2006 runway. If it has lasted twenty years, it’ll last another twenty. Unlike people who buy a pile of new stuff every single week. Boring. And honestly, it’s not ethical. If we can change our habits even a little, why wouldn’t we?

I love Files. Even yesterday, it was closed and I was still saying, come on, let’s go in, let’s have a look. The other person was telling me it was closed, and I was like, I don’t give really care, let’ see.

Yasmina: In so many of my interviews, especially with women, vintage always comes up. What’s your relationship with Vinted?

Ginevra: I use Vinted more to sell, because I need money to buy other things. I have a box full of random stuff. But I do buy on it, especially when I’m searching for a very specific piece. I’ll research it obsessively.

Yasmina: You can’t see it here, but I have a whole pile of Vinted clothes, in the pink Agent Provocateur bag. That’s what I call my Vinted bag.

Ginevra: I do search for particular pieces on Vinted. But I spend a lot of time looking for them.

Yasmina: Do you have a Vinted tip you’d share?

Ginevra: Always ask for the lowest price. Always.

Yasmina: Someone I interviewed told me you need to doomscroll and like everything so the algorithm learns exactly what you love.

Ginevra: I like that. But to be honest, since travelling to Asia, I source most of my pieces there. The market is incredible. Things cost so little and are in impeccable condition.

Yasmina: And what brands are you looking for when you source?

Ginevra: Comme des Garçons. I said that with a really strong Italian accent. Comme des Garçons! And Issey Miyake, not going to lie, I’m a huge fan. Lately, Miu Miu too.

Yasmina: When you said Comme des Garçons, I expected you to stay in that very archival, avant-garde world. I’m trying to move more in that direction myself, though it’s difficult because I’d have to get rid of all the colour in my wardrobe. I love the avant-garde designers, Margiela for instance, Ann Demeulemeester, that darker world. But the pieces are expensive, so I’m doing it gradually. They’re investments.

Ginevra: After Palomita, I automatically associate you with Paloma Wool. I’m sorry. The silhouettes are really cool.

A brand I’m enjoying a lot is MM6, because it has that Margiela approach but with more vibrant colours and pastels. And it’s at a lower price point, the entry-level line compared with Margiela, a little like Emporio Armani.

Yasmina: You know what I discovered in Rome? There’s this shop called Massimo Degli Effetti in the centre, specialising in avant-garde fashion. I’m fascinated because I struggle to imagine the Roman clientele being interested in some of these designers. Milan, sure. But Ann Demeulemeester in Rome? Where are those people?

Ginevra: Maybe in Bologna!

Galliano, McQueen, fashion shows, and a pirate hat

Yasmina: John Galliano. You chose him as the designer whose world you’d want to enter for one day. Why?

Ginevra: Genius. He’s very controversial, obviously. He’s done a lot of terrible things. Verbally, in the way he communicates, no bueno. But his creative mind is absolutely insane. If I think of the most iconic fashion pieces and collections, I think of Galliano at Dior. Or his own line, with that whole newspaper collection. Genius. Or the Margiela invitation he had children draw, or his last artisanal collection for Margiela, where the models looked as if they were made of porcelain.

And he was one of the first designers to embrace so many different body shapes on the runway, to experiment with fabrics and silhouettes. I find it fascinating. He’s so closed off in one form of expression, verbally, and so completely open when he creates. I want to understand what goes on in his brain. How do his synapses work? How can somebody express themselves in these two completely opposite ways, when everything is coming from the same mind?

Yasmina: I have such a soft spot for Alexander McQueen. Those incredibly theatrical runway shows. Do you think that kind of scenography is still relevant? You work in the industry and see more of it than I do. Is there still room for that kind of spectacle?

Ginevra: Fashion can be very traditional. But if you want a recent visual example that really sticks in your mind, even shocks you, think of the last Diesel show Glenn Martens did. The collection itself was interesting because of how he deconstructed denim. But then there were around two hundred actors in the crowd making out. It was deliberately uncomfortable. At a certain point you remember the concept around the show even more than the clothes.

And of course there were Karl Lagerfeld’s insane Chanel sets. But there’s a dilemma: do people remember the collection or the background? With Alexander McQueen, for me, it was always the entire world. The scenography, makeup, accessories, clothes, it all worked together.

I think some designers have tried to reproduce that, sometimes in quite a drastic way, and I haven’t always liked the results. You can’t necessarily reproduce another person’s genius. Sometimes I wonder whether those theatrical moments are really coming from an instinct, or whether designers are thinking, “The great fashion icons did crazy shows, so let’s do one too.” Simply copying the effect doesn’t work. It has to come naturally.

Yasmina: And Paul Smith is more restrained, more classic.

Ginevra: Exactly. The motto is “classic with a twist.” Let me show you something, because this is really funny.

Yasmina: Wait, let me get this right. I want to film this. Okay.

Ginevra: Here’s an example. I don’t know if you can see it. This is a shirt. Its silhouette is completely normal. But the fabric comes from a curtain that was in Paul’s own house. Not a factory curtain, his curtain! It could look like a perfectly ordinary shirt, but you’re literally wearing a curtain. Who would think of that?

I have another thing I want to show you.

My favourite hat from the collection is this. It’s actually just a bucket hat with pins attached to it, but suddenly it becomes something completely different. Underneath it’s a normal bucket hat.

Yasmina: It becomes a bit Robin Hood.

Ginevra: And from this angle it’s a pirate hat. This one is going to be mine.

Yasmina: I don’t know whether I’ll be able to use these videos. You’ll have to tell me.

Ginevra: You can use this one. Everything I’m showing you is already available in stores. I’m not showing you unreleased pieces.

Yasmina: The pirate hat is beautiful. I love the idea of these little videos as teasers. At first I thought I would do a model-like approach, and I love the makeup with the hat.

Ginevra: This is my office personality. I walk into the office and put on this hat. It’s amazing. Maybe I should find an influencer to wear it to Paris Fashion Week.

Yasmina: Make a face for the photo shoot.

Ginevra: The photo shoot? What do I know? I don’t walk the runway. I don’t pose. I do the shoots.

Yasmina: And I’m taking a picture with my camera of a screen with my own picture on it. It’s so anti-aesthetic that it becomes its own aesthetic. It’s absurd.

Ginevra: I’m not taking this hat off.

Dinner, community, and the end of the call

Yasmina: I actually have so many questions, but you don’t realise we’ve ended up answering most of them already. We can call each other again, or I can send you voice notes for the rest.

Ginevra: I’d rather call. It’s lovely to talk to you like this; it’s much more natural than just sending messages. Anyway, a friend of mine who’s Italian went to a mushroom festival and bought mushrooms to bring back to London, and tonight he’s cooking an entire dinner made of mushrooms.

Yasmina: Ready for rapid fire?

Ginevra: Yes.

RAPID FIRE

Yasmina: Last song you listened to?
Ginevra: Luna by Gianni Togni.

Yasmina: A song you know how to sing from beginning to end?
Ginevra: One Thing by One Direction.

Yasmina: A song that makes you think of London?
Ginevra: American Boy. Even though it’s not really about London.

Yasmina: Who do you call when something amazing happens to you?
Ginevra: My mum.

Yasmina: Something you wear when you want to feel like yourself?
Ginevra: A necklace with a Little Prince star. It’s not technically clothing, but there’s no competition.

Yasmina: Something that’s always in your bag?
Ginevra: My phone charger.

Yasmina: The first thing you do when you get home?
Ginevra: Pee.

Yasmina: One word for London?
Ginevra: Performative.

Yasmina: One word for Ginevra?
Ginevra: Music.

Yasmina: One word for me?

Ginevra: Creative.

Yasmina: And your favourite word?
Ginevra: Merenda.

AND FOR THE PHOTO EVIDENCE

(I added a reference photo of me as a child to prove that it’s true. There has genuinely never been a day in my life without Pan di Stelle.)

THANK YOU GINEVRA

1. Make people feel comfortable.
   They do not need to become your best friend. They should still feel that there is space for them at the table.

1. Good manners matter.
   Notice how people behave towards everyone around them, not only the people they want something from.

2. Politeness is not hypocrisy.
   You can dislike someone and still treat them properly.

3. You do not need everybody to like you.
   Making people feel at ease is different from trying to please everyone.

4. Not every disagreement deserves an argument.
   Sometimes you are genuinely just not that angry.

5. Mix your friends.
   School, university, work, another city. Let the different chapters of your life meet each other.

6. Let them become friends without you.
   Suddenly two separate parts of your life are connected.

7. Invite people home.
   A Sunday lunch is already enough of an occasion.

8. A dinner table is beautiful twice.
   Once when everything has been arranged perfectly, and again afterwards, when the glasses are half-empty and you can see that people were there.

9. Photograph the traces, not only the people.
   Sometimes the remains of the evening tell you more about it than the group picture.

10. Buy a disposable camera for the trip.
    Take the photograph and move on.

11. Not being able to check immediately is part of the pleasure.
    Finish the camera. Forget what you took. Discover it later.

12. A home should contain things that make you curious.
    Not everything needs to serve a purpose.

13. Lived-in is better than sterile.
    Paintings, objects, details, things everywhere. A home should feel like someone actually exists inside it.

14. Your style does not need one personality.
    Bohemian one day. Minimal the next. A blouse, jeans, cowboy boots and a big belt can coexist with the polished version of you.

15. Absorb what surrounds you without becoming it.
    Jobs, cities and people will influence your taste. You still decide what feels right enough to keep.

16. Less is better. Trends are optional.
    Something being fashionable is not a particularly convincing reason to wear it.

17. The right bag can change everything.
    You can be wearing something completely basic and still let one object carry the entire outfit.

18. Get comfortable doing things alone.
    Lunch is easy. Dinner might take practice. Neither has to mean that nobody wanted to come with you.

19. Choose instinct over unnecessary complication.
    Go out when you want to go out. Stay home when you want to stay home. Invite everyone over when you feel like having people around. Some things are better left uncomplicated.

You can read the full conversation with Didi here. Find Didi’s playlist here, and the question she asked me here.

file 11

Diana and I are actually quite similar in a lot of ways. We both like people, places, plans, going out, discovering things, having something to look forward to. I think we just express it a little differently.

She has this very natural enthusiasm for things. For people, for places, for dinners, for plans. She can make something very simple feel like an event, even when it’s just lunch at home on a gloomy Sunday. I think I’m more likely to overthink things, dissect them, turn them into questions. Diana has a way of just living them.

We also share this slightly complicated relationship with Paris. We both love it, but not in a blind way. We have our favourite streets, our comfort zones, our places we keep going back to. We both talk about neighbourhoods as if they have personalities, and probably attach far too much meaning to where we have coffee (Diana has chai).

What I love about her is that she makes things feel easy. Conversation with her moves quickly. One minute we’re talking about cities and growing up, then clothes, then relationships, then where to get a chai, then suddenly I’m upstairs photographing her wardrobe.

There’s something very generous about the way she lets people into her world. Her home, her table, her routines, her recommendations, her stories. I think that’s why interviewing her never really felt like interviewing her.

It just felt like spending an afternoon with Didi, except this time I happened to bring a recorder.

Diana is the first at-home interview I do, which already makes it feel slightly different. I go to her place for lunch on a Sunday afternoon. It’s gloomy outside, very Paris-doesn’t-really-know-what-season-it-is. I take my bike and cycle to the 8th, only to discover that the Champs are blocked. Extremely irritating. Minor logistical drama before lunch.

The first part of the interview happens while Diana is preparing food, which I immediately like. Nothing ceremonial, nothing staged. She makes a salad with salmon and feta, which, weirdly enough, is exactly what I had been craving for lunch. Good start.

We talk while she moves around the kitchen, and from the beginning she’s incredibly enthusiastic. About the questions, about the conversation, about showing me things. There’s something very easy about it. It feels less like sitting someone down for an interview and more like I’ve accidentally brought a recorder into a Sunday lunch.

Y: Pretend the recorder is not here.

D: Sure.

Y: When I was preparing the interview, I had to remind myself of all the cities you’ve lived in over the past four years.

D: There have definitely been quite a few! Through university, I had the opportunity to live in Milan, Turin, Madrid, London and Paris. I could have done another semester in Berlin too, I think, but I said no. At some point I just thought, enough. Now I’ve been more or less settled in Paris for three years.

Y: I travelled a lot as a child and while growing up, and people often ask me whether living in so many different places changed me. I always say no. What changed me were the people I met and my interpersonal relationships.

D: That’s true, but I also think that depending on where you live, you meet very different kinds of people, and those people can make you grow more or less. I would say that, fundamentally, I’ve always been more or less the same person. I’ve always been very euphoric, someone who likes going out and having fun.

In Milan, I was that person to the extreme. There was no such thing as staying home on a Saturday night. Sometimes I would go out simply because staying home felt strange to me. I think I stayed like that in Turin, and during my first semester in Madrid too. Madrid is such a lively city, everyone is always outside, and I naturally followed that mood.

London was probably the moment when La Didi calmed down a little. I still go out, have fun, organise dinners, but I can also say no now. I can spend a weekend at home and be perfectly happy being quieter.

Y: Did you have FOMO?

D: When I was in Madrid, Turin or Milan, it wasn’t FOMO in the sense of, “Oh my God, I absolutely need to do this thing.” It was more like, “It’s the weekend, I have to go out. Staying home simply isn’t an option.”

I would genuinely get anxious at the idea of staying home and watching a film. Completely out of the question! I had to go out, or at least have people over and do something at home.

Y: You host a lot of dinners at home.

D: I love having people over.

Y: And you have an amazing apartment.

D: I try to use it as much as possible, including the terrace. And in general I really, really love inviting people over. I think it’s such a nice thing to do.

Y: Where does Paris sit compared to all the other cities?

D: I think Paris was another step entirely. When I started university, I started it with the goal of eventually coming to Paris. Paris had always been my final destination. I had always had this love for the city, and I knew I wanted to live here.

So when I finally arrived, I was incredibly excited, like a child in a sweet shop. And because my sister was already living here, I had always found excuses to come and visit her. Sometimes she would be at university during the day and I would just wander around Paris on my own. I loved it.

When I actually moved here, it was beautiful. I remember thinking, okay, I have to experience everything fully. But it felt different from before. It wasn’t, “I need to be outside all the time because otherwise I feel bad.” I could absolutely spend a whole weekend at home.

I wanted to go out because I was curious. There was so much curiosity.

Y: And does that curiosity stay, even after three years? I’m always slightly afraid of falling into a comfort zone. Then I remember that Paris is full of completely different places and arrondissements.

D: Absolutely. Obviously, because it’s convenient, I also started going back to the same places all the time: Saint-Germain, the 7th… the places inside my comfort zone. Like a lot of people, I would say Mazarin and Balto are definitely part of mine. I love them.

There was also a period when my comfort zone, and actually it still is, especially on Sundays, was the Marais and Café Hugo, sitting under the arcade. If I’m with one particular friend and I just want to see her, feel comfortable and sit somewhere familiar without necessarily running into loads of other people, that’s where I go.

And then I remember that at the time so many of my friends lived in the Marais too. I think I might even have suggested we meet there once!

Y: Any places you’ve discovered recently?

D: I’d really like to get to know the 11th better. The problem is that I’m very, very lazy, and for me the 11th is genuinely inconvenient. If someone tells me we’re having dinner there, or if it’s already planned, fine… but otherwise I’ll always choose somewhere closer.

I’m also becoming really curious about the 9th. It feels very young, and I went to this place there once with my boyfriend and we ate incredibly well. It’s called La Boule Rouge. It’s really nice for a girls’ night, but also a little romantic if you’re going on a date.

Y: Can we have Didi’s Paris address book?

D: Go.

Y: A place to have a coffee when you actually have time?

First of all, I’m not really a coffee person, I’m a chai person. I barely drink coffee anymore since I discovered chai last year. Before that, I didn’t even know what it was.

Otherwise, tea with milk, always. Every time I see a coffee shop with chai latte, I go in, so I’m slowly trying all of them. The Marais has loads, and so does the area around my office in the 1st and 2nd.

I like getting one and drinking it at Palais Royal.

Another place where I used to meet my friends all the time last year is Le Fumoir, near Louvre-Rivoli, right on the corner. I had lunch there once too. The food isn’t amazing, but the location is really strategic because you’re close to the Marais, and you’re also not far from Saint-Germain.

Y: A place for my next date? Which won’t be happening anytime soon because I’ve officially declared a break from men.

D: In the 9th, like I was saying, La Boule Rouge. Otherwise, Sugaar on Rue Gozlin. They also make really good cocktails. The raw dishes are great too, and I’m a huge fan of prawns.

Y: A place for girls’ night?

D: I love girls’ nights, and I love organising dinners. I actually have places saved specifically for girls’ nights that are different from the places I suggest when I’m organising mixed dinners.

One I really love because I adore the vibe opened a few years ago. It’s called Anahi, in the Marais. They serve meat and it’s really, really good.

But there are a thousand others. Tekès, and Safado in the 2nd, where they have live singing.

Y: A place for shopping?

I’m obsessed with this French brand, but fun fact, I actually discovered it in Italy, in the mountains. It’s called Maison Hotel.

There’s this tiny, tiny multi-brand boutique in the Marais that carries a lot of Maison Hotel pieces. And I love their little necklaces.

I’m not actually that much of an accessories person. I don’t really wear anything too bold. But this summer, for example, I bought some bangles and those became a must for the entire summer.

When it comes to jewellery, though, I don’t really follow trends. I also don’t really follow that whole idea that gold suits some people better and silver suits others better.

Y: I always mix them.

D: I have to say, I own much more gold than silver.

Y: Can we see your wardrobe?

D: Sure, let’s go up, follow me.

A Bag Can Change Everything

At some point, we leave the table and move towards Diana’s wardrobe. She shares the apartment with her sister, which means the clothes, shoes and handbags have to coexist in a slightly complicated arrangement.

Y: Can we look inside your wardrobe?

D: It’s a bit of a mess.

There are shoes here, jackets over there, and then we have the bags.

Y: Your bag collection is incredible. Do you and your sister share everything?

D: We share quite a lot. Some things are hers, some are mine, but the bags are all kept together. My sister is much more careful about storing them properly. She keeps them in their dust bags.

I’m less organized. Sometimes I’ll open a dust bag that’s mean for a bag I think is inside and discover a completely different bag inside.

Y: Terrible question. Your apartment is on fire and you can save one bag. Which one are you taking?

D: That’s horrible. I have quite a few bags that I’m emotionally attached to.

Some are bags we’ve bought over the years, but I also have vintage bags that belonged to my mother.

There’s one in particular that I absolutely love.

I don’t think it’s necessarily worth very much, but it means a lot to me. It has these gold details, and I feel like it makes an entire outfit.

That’s probably the one I’d save for sentimental reasons.

Y: How important is a bag to an outfit?

D: I think it’s one of the most important things.

I dress quite simply most of the time.

And a bag can completely transform what you’re wearing.

You can be wearing something very basic, but the right bag changes everything.

Y: And what about other accessories?

D: I love belts.

In the past few years I’ve really started collecting them.

Vintage belts, unusual buckles, different textures.

I have some with animal prints, some with beads.

I think they make an enormous difference.

I don’t usually wear very extravagant jewellery, although recently I’ve been wearing bigger bracelets.

But bags and belts are probably my favourite accessories.

The Brands We Work For, the People We Become

Y: You’ve worked with different fashion houses, all with quite distinct identities. Do you think the brands you work for influence the way you dress?

D: Definitely.

Sometimes I’ll wear something and people immediately associate it with the brand I’m working for.

But I don’t think I have one very specific personal style.

I love certain bohemian influences, for example.

I might wear a blouse, jeans, cowboy boots, a big belt.

Then another day I’ll dress very simply, almost minimalistically.

Sometimes I look at someone who dresses in that very polished, understated Parisian way and think, that’s exactly how I’d like to look.

But I don’t always dress like that myself.

Y: Do you think you have to choose one identity?

D: Not really.

I like different things.

And I think it’s normal that your taste evolves depending on what you’re surrounded by.

Working in fashion exposes you to different aesthetics.

You start appreciating things you might not have considered before.

Y: I’ve experienced that too. Working for different houses has definitely changed my wardrobe. Sometimes I feel like I have pieces representing different chapters of my career, and now I just mix everything together.

D: I think that’s quite natural.

You absorb different influences, but in the end you decide what feels right for you.

A House Full of Little Things

Y: I have to talk about your apartment because I think it’s beautiful. Does the interior reflect your taste?

D: Thank you! Actually, my sister and I didn’t decorate it ourselves. It was already furnished when we moved in.

But I really like it. I like that it’s a full house, with lots of paintings and decorative things.

Little objects everywhere.

Some of them don’t really serve any purpose, but I like that.

I don’t think I’d necessarily recreate this exact interior if I were starting from scratch, but I love the feeling it has.

Y: Would you like a more minimal apartment eventually?

D: I think I’d still want a home with personality.

I like spaces that feel lived in.

Something a little smaller could be lovely too, especially if I were living alone.

But I like homes that have objects, details, things that make you curious.

Mixing the People You Love

Y: You have friends from so many different periods of your life. School, university, work, all the cities you’ve lived in. Do you prefer keeping those friendship groups separate, or do you like mixing everyone?

D: I love mixing them.

I really don’t understand why some people prefer keeping their friendship groups completely separate.

Obviously, everyone is different, but personally I love introducing people to each other.

I think it’s beautiful when friends from different parts of your life meet and get along.

Then they become friends independently of you.

And suddenly different parts of your life are connected.

Y: What’s a quality you really value in a friend?

D: Good manners.

That might sound very basic, but I think politeness and respect are fundamental.

Even before someone becomes a friend, I notice how they behave towards other people.

I really dislike rudeness.

And I think it’s important to feel comfortable with the people around you.

Y: You have this quality I’ve always admired. You’re very good at making people feel comfortable. I’ve seen it when you’ve invited people over. Even if they don’t know anyone, you manage to make them feel included.

D: That’s so nice of you to say.

I think it’s something I care about.

My sister is even better at it than I am. She’s one of those people who can make absolutely anyone feel at ease.

I really admire that about her.

And I hope it’s something I do too.

Y: Is it something you’ve always been conscious of?

D: I think I’ve become more aware of it over time. When I was younger, I might not always have realized what impression I was giving people. Not because I was trying to be unpleasant.

I just didn’t necessarily think about it.

As you grow older, you become more aware of how the people around you feel.

I don’t need everybody to like me. I don’t want to be a people pleaser.

But I’d like people to feel comfortable around me.

On Arguments, Honesty, and Being Chill

Y: Is there something you find particularly difficult to tolerate in friendships?

D: I really dislike unnecessary conflict.

I’m not someone who gets angry easily. People sometimes interpret that as avoiding confrontation, but I don’t think that’s quite right. It’s not that I’m secretly furious and pretending everything is fine.

Most of the time, I’m genuinely not angry. I just don’t think every disagreement has to become an argument.

Y: And what about being honest with people? I sometimes struggle with knowing whether it’s better to say something difficult or simply stay quiet.

D: I think there’s a difference between being polite and being hypocritical. If you’re around someone you don’t particularly like, you can still be courteous.

That doesn’t mean you’re being dishonest. For me, hypocrisy is more about pretending you genuinely want a relationship with someone when you don’t.

You don’t have to like everybody.

But you can treat people properly.

The Pictures She Takes

Y: I was looking at your Instagram before coming here, and something struck me. You post so many photographs of your family, your boyfriend, your girlfriends, places you’ve visited. It’s almost more of a visual diary than a collection of photographs of yourself. Is that intentional?

D: I think so. Obviously, I take photographs of myself too. But sometimes my friends have to convince me to post them. And when I do, I tend to hide them somewhere in a carousel.

I love taking pictures of the people I love. My family, my boyfriend, my friends. And I also love photographing places.

Actually, there’s something very specific I photograph all the time. Tables.

Y: Tables?

D: Tables that have been set for dinner.

I have so many pictures of them on my phone.

At restaurants, at friends’ houses, at home.

I love the way a table looks when everything has been arranged beautifully.

Y: Before the food arrives?

D: Yes, but I also love the opposite.

A table after dinner. When everything is messy, the glasses are half-empty, the plates have been moved around. I love that.

Y: I completely understand. Sometimes a table after dinner is even more beautiful than it was before. You can almost see the evening that happened around it.

D: Exactly.

There’s something about all those traces of people having been together. I find it beautiful.

A Little Kodak for Every Trip

Y: You also sent me photographs taken with disposable cameras. When do you usually use them?

D: Mostly when I’m travelling or when I know I’m going to have a particularly full weekend with friends.

My boyfriend and I have developed this habit of buying a Kodak disposable camera whenever we go on a trip together.

This summer we went to Brazil, and we brought one.

I love the effect of the photographs.

But more than anything, I love that you can’t see what you’ve taken immediately.

You have to finish the camera and wait until the photographs are developed.

Y: So you don’t know whether they’ve turned out well?

D: Exactly.

And I think that’s part of the fun.

You don’t spend the whole time checking the photographs or trying to make them perfect.

You take them, forget about them, and discover them afterwards.

It’s a lovely way of remembering a trip.

A Walk Around the Eighth

We eventually leave Diana’s apartment and walk through her neighbourhood. She has promised to show me a few places she likes, although we immediately take a wrong turn while trying to find one of them.

Y: Where are we going?

D: I want to show you Biche.

It’s one of my favourite restaurants near home. When I don’t feel like going far away, or when I don’t know where to go, I come here. It’s a classic French restaurant. Tartare, fries, things like that.

But the atmosphere is lovely, and it always seems to be full.

I also want to show you a little pedestrian street nearby.

It’s funny because that part of the neighbourhood doesn’t really feel like Paris.

There are lots of offices, and after work everyone comes outside for drinks.

Sometimes it reminds me more of Milan.

Y: It’s a very different side of the 8th from the Champs-Élysées.

D: Exactly.

The neighbourhood has these little corners that are much quieter and more personal.

You just have to know where they are.

Y: Do you ever go out for dinner alone?

D: Lunch, yes. All the time.

But dinner? Not really.

I was out with Flo recently, and there was this incredibly cool girl sitting next to us having dinner alone.

And I thought, I wish I could do that.

I think it’s so chic.

But if I’m alone in the evening, I’m usually too lazy to go out.

I’d rather order delivery, stay home and watch something on Netflix.

Y: I think I sometimes treat dinner alone as a wasted opportunity, as though I should always be sharing it with someone. But actually, it’s probably something we should do more often.

D: I agree.

There are so many things we could do alone.

I think it’s a question of getting comfortable with the idea.

Books, Mothers, and Other Recommendations

Y: Do you read a lot?

D: I’ve loved reading since I was little. When I really like a book, I can read it incredibly quickly. I remember finishing quite long novels in just a couple of days.

I read all sorts of things, but I particularly like thrillers and psychological novels. During the year I don’t have as much time as I’d like.

Most of my reading happens in the summer.

Y: How do you choose what to read?

D: My mother recommends a lot of books to me. She loves reading too, especially during the summer.

And she’s very funny because she follows people on Instagram who recommend books, so she’s constantly telling me about new titles. Otherwise, I’m quite old-fashioned.

I go into a bookshop, read the descriptions, and choose something that interests me. I never choose a book just because of its cover.

Actually, sometimes I think the books with the most beautiful covers are the worst ones.

Y: Is there a book you’d particularly recommend?

D: Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts. It’s enormous, around a thousand pages, but I absolutely loved it.

It’s such an extraordinary story, following a man who escapes prison and ends up in India. So much happens to him.

It’s almost like an odyssey.

I read it over one summer and became completely absorbed in it.

They made a television adaptation too, but I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much.

The book has so much more to it.

Some Things Are Better Left Uncomplicated

Y: Let’s finish with a few quick questions. Gold or silver?

D: Gold.

Y: Dinner party at home or dinner at a restaurant?

D: It depends, but probably a dinner party at home.

Y: Instinct or overthinking?

D: Instinct.

Y: A fashion rule you believe in?

D: Less is better.

Y: And one you ignore?

D: Trends.

Just because something is fashionable doesn’t mean you have to wear it.

Y: Something everybody seems to love that you can’t stand?

D: Those little charms people put on handbags.

And Labubus.

I really don’t like them.

Y: Something you’ll defend even if everyone disagrees?

D: Wearing makeup without mascara.

I almost never wear it.

Partly because I’m lazy and hate removing it properly.

But also because my eyelashes are quite short and straight, so mascara doesn’t make much difference anyway.

I stopped wearing it regularly years ago.

I’ll wear blush, lipstick, lip gloss, but usually no mascara.

And people always ask me why.

Y: That’s so funny because I’m the complete opposite. I can leave the rest of my face alone, but I almost always want something on my eyes.

D: I know!

I just don’t feel the need.

And I’m not particularly good at elaborate makeup anyway.

One Word for Everything

Y: One word for Bologna.

D: Home.

Y: One word for Milan.

D: Firsts.

Because Milan represents so many first experiences for me.

Y: Paris?

D: Dream.

Y: Friendship?

D: Life.

Y: Family?

D: Breath.

Y: Didi five years ago?

D: Free.

Y: Didi today?

D: Mature.

Y: And one word for me?

D: Free.

Y: Your favourite word in any language?

D: Coucou !

Palomita’s photo evidence:

Now studying Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Warwick, Ansh has built an intellectual universe that extends far beyond the classroom. Between Bangkok and England, his bookshelves have become something of a personal archive, filled with everything from Russian literature and political theory to childhood favourites he refuses to part with. For our first proper conversation without our parents around, we moved between those books, the objects he holds on to, his family, music, identity, and the increasingly complicated relationship between technology and the way we think.

What I love most about Ansh is that he doesn’t seem interested in knowing things simply for the sake of knowing them. He wants to understand how they connect, how they shape the world, and how they might change the way we live. This conversation is, in many ways, a little journey through his mind, one book, one memory, and one unexpected tangent at a time.

Our Mothers, and Sisters, Have Opinions

Y: When I started Palomita Office I thought of you instantly. Because every time we would meet with our parents for dinner and talk, I remember I would go back home with so many references of stuff I had to catch up on, read, podcasts to listen to…

But we’re starting easy. You know how I work in fashion, so a fashion question is a must.

A: My mother and my sister are the ones who style me. I have no fashion sense, like, at all.

When I first moved to the UK, I was still wearing, like, skinny jeans and all of that. And my sister looked at me and she was like - okay, stop it. We’re going to buy you some new jeans right now.

Y: I remember we talked about this! And you started wearing a baggier stuff, right?

A: Yes. So now all of it is just super baggy. My sister was like “I’m not letting you walk into my boarding school unless you don’t have good fashion style”. So everything I’m wearing now is a byproduct of her, mostly, or my mom.

I never really cared too much about how I dressed, you know? It was always like whatever. I’ll wear a football shirt or something.

Y: How old is your sister?

A: Ava, she’s 14 now.

Y: 14 and already dictating your fashion style. I love that.

A: Oh, yeah.

Y: I’m always so curious about these fashion questions, because as someone who works in fashion, I feel like my fashion style is still not defined.

It’s actually very much related to the places where I work.

What happened to your old clothes? Do you still own them somehow, as a memory of the past, skinny jeans Ansh? Or do you secretly wear them?

A: I don’t wear them, that’s for sure.

I have a pair or two in my closet back there, actually. I mean, I just, like, I haven’t dealt with it.

A lot of the stuff, which I just do not touch anymore, it gets donated.

Y: I used to have a hard time letting go of my stuff. Lately I don’t. I won’t go into the details of why because I’ll bore you. I mean, I had this necklace that my first boyfriend ever gifted me when I was like 19 or something. I always thought, whatever happens, I’m never getting rid of it. Recently I have, not because it reminds me of him, but just because it’s not my style anymore you know? It’s like yellow, I hate yellow.

How would you describe your, like, object attachment style?

A Bookshelf Is a Biography

A: It’s very dependent on stuff, the objects we’re talking about. One non-negotiable thing I will not get rid of? Books.

Every book I’ve read, I’m not giving anything away. I don’t care if it’s been eight year or more.

My sister Ava once came into my room and pulled out some of my really old books. And they have mold on them. They’re changing color. The pages, the exterior. She said you have to get rid of these.

No, I don’t care. They can be black with mold. I’m not getting rid of my books.

Y: I think I’m the same. I’ve lived in so many places, I couldn’t bring all my books with me but they’re all safe in Rome. Right now here in Paris I’m the luckiest girl alive because I currently have my landlord’s incredible philosophy books collection. There’s everyone on that shelf you see in the background. Foucault, Derrida, which I love.

A: I forbid anyone from touching my shelf. I would hate it if someone rearranged it! I feel like I’m generally quite calm but that’s one thing that would get me quite mad.

Mostly because I love to arrange them them in a specific way: I’ll have politics, philosophy, economics, history, critical theory, all that stuff, on one side. Then my Thai novels and stuff, then all my series, all the Star Wars trilogy books, all the Lord of the Rings etc.

You’ll even find biographies of basketball players, all the Nat Geo magazines I have, or some of my parents’ really old books. There’s everything.

Y: Is Ava also a big reader?

A: I am trying to force her to be because I am so scared about the lack of critical literacy and critical thought that is coming from her generation because.

Ultimately, she’s the first generation that had an iPad since she was a kid. And, I guess, for us, the first half of our childhood, we didn’t have screens, right? I remember I was in year seven and I had a Blackberry, pretty much. I had Snake on the phone. That was it.

I buy her books like The Anxious Generation that show you the psychological impact of social media as you’re becoming an adolescent. She reads a lot of fiction and she’s starting her own collection which is nice. But, I feel that half of it is performative and half of it is, like, actually wanting to read. But I’ll take what I can get. As long as she’s reading.

Before I forget, I’ll show you my bookshelf here.

Pussy Riot, Russia, and Other Obsessions

Y: I love that.

A: On top, I have the lot of stuff I’m reading. This is Political Girl, probably one of my favorite books I’ve read.

This is a book that I started in June during my exams. It’s written by Maria Alyokhina. She was part of the political group Pussy Riot in Russia.

Y: I got so obsessed with them at a certain point.

A: Yes, they actually came back into the news this morning, which is actually really interesting.

I love how the book is written, it’s very free-flowing, in a way, because she has very rebellious. I’d say open she’s a soul that I think cannot be contained, and she’s a very explosive, vibrant person.

She also mentions reading the Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov.

Y: It’s my favorite book ever.

A: Is it? I just read it as well. I’ll show you as well. I have this really cool version.

Y: I have a copy in every language.

A: Really?

Y: Yes.

I know you read so much. How do you choose what you read next? Do you go through obsessive spirals where you’re, like, I want to read about this topic?

The Accidental Bookshop Purchase

A: Okay, there’s a number of ways.

I generally never have a set idea in my head unless there’s a specific book I’m waiting for. Yesterday, I went to Waterstones again because there’s this new book by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor, End Times Fascism. I knew this was coming out for ages. I love Naomi Klein. I’ve read Doppelganger. I’ve read The Shock Doctrine. And I follow a lot of her work. And I agree with a lot of her critiques of Western capitalism and Western hegemony and how the global South has been impoverished or necessarily kept in a way of economic subordination to the core countries.

In Doppelganger, she went through the rise of conspiracy culture during COVID - and how everything kind of felt like an alternative reality. All meaning was kind of being stripped of its original basis and everything sort of started to feel quite jarring.

Y: How often are you at Waterstones?

A: Not so often. I’m not there every day, because I actually live in the middle of nowhere, in a way. Like, where I’m staying is not in Coventry, it’s very much in a nature-based area.

Like, I went to buy this coffee, but there’s no coffee within a 30-minute walk of where I am. But that’s fast walking.

I went Thursday though and as I always do I went around the Critical Thinking, Politics, and Economics sections. And I found these two books, which I ended up buying.

On Fangirling Over Academics

He shows me his copy of Hyperpolitics by Anton Jäger.

Y: I would buy this for the cover, because, wow.

A: Oh, yeah. The cover is really cool.

I also feel like mentioing one of the critical theorists online I love. Her name is Louisa Munch. She graduated from her Ph.D. at Warwick. She is one of the few people I fangirl over, because I don’t really get celebrity culture.

I understand why people feel so attached to certain celebrities. Because academics, who I’m very fond of, I end up fawning over to some degree.

So, I was eating at the student pub, it’s called the Dirty Duck, and she was right there. And I actually went up to her, and I was like, okay. I’m sorry if it’s a bit weird, but I started praising her, I was talking about how I really like her take on critical theory, and how a lot of the phenomenon we experience in our day-to-day lives is a direct consequence of the material realities we face, and the trends within neoliberalism.

And then she was like, you’re going to stop. You’re going to make me start crying, or whatever. And it was really nice. Anyways, I look up to her. So, on her Instagram, she had actually talked about Hyperpolitics.

The premise of the book is that politics is everywhere around us. Like, it’s never been easier to read about what’s happening since every time you scroll on social media, it’s always some form of polarized politics.

Y: You don’t read multiple books at the same time, or do you?

A: I generally try not to, because I feel that it’s very difficult to grasp the ideas or to stay focused on something.

Y: A lot of people that I know do, like, one fiction, one non-fiction.

One P, One P, One E

A: For me, I like the idea of just getting on with whatever you’re reading, being fully immersed and engrossed in it.

I do have some exceptions. Occasionally, I do try to change it up and read something that’s not strictly PPE, but, like, 99% of the books I read are to do with philosophy, politics, or economics somehow.

Y: When do you read in your day? Because, I mean, I imagine you read every day, right? Like, how’s your reading schedule?

A: I have a routine where I wake up in the morning, shower and everything, get ready. When I’m eating breakfast, I’m always reading the news, like, perpetually.

It generally takes me maybe, like, 45 minutes to an hour in the morning. I block this hour out for myself. If I have a class at 10, I’ll get up at 8 just so I can have my hour to read.

One thing that’s really important and I try and emphasize and I try and stick to is to read absolutely diverse range of sources.

But yes, I always do this never without fail.

Y: cause of discipline. I love that.

A: Yeah, so, so in the morning, I always do this never without fail.

When it comes to books, when I’m in the middle of uni, it’s actually quite difficult to find time to read because of how much PPE reading I have to do for my uni. But in between classes, I’ll try and find time to read or if it’s the weekend, I’ll block out a few hours in the afternoon or in the evening just to read.

One thing I always do is I read before bed like 30, 40 minutes just because I can’t really sleep without reading whereas, like, reading does relax you.

Even if I’m reading this book about Trump’s fascism or whatever, I still feel that I’m, like, more relaxed and able to sleep because I can’t really sleep after being on a screen.

Y: Yeah, I love that. Okay, I think we can switch to another media because it’s also related to what you sent me. You sent me the photo of your record player and your broken record player, right?

A: Oh, yeah, it’s busted, yeah.

Y: Why this object?

A: I mean, honestly, I just felt that, like, it’s kind of a frustration with the digital as well.

And I think that since the rollout of AI that feeling in me has just become ever stronger where it’s like I’m sick of this constant necessity and expectation to just be online and with all the detrimental effects it has on our minds, on our physical.

A few years ago when I wanted to get into record collecting, I had bought this record player. It’s a really shitty record player to me, but I love it.

Y: I think everyone’s first record player is shitty.

A: Like, it’s like the cheapest one I found. It was like 100 euros

I do have a very nice speaker in my room. So, like, I thought, okay, I can buy a bad record player because I have a nice speaker.

Y: Yeah.

A: But anyway, it broke down in, like, a year and, like, damaged some of my records which is exactly what happens with a not so good record player.

So, it’s been broken for years and the lid is broken. Everything’s broken. The needle’s broken. Everything’s busted. You know, the wires are breaking down. But it’s sitting in the same place underneath my bookshelf. I just don’t want to get rid of it. Yeah. Just because, to me, it’s very symbolic and I guess it’s very, like, I don’t know, I just feel like it’s very symbolic of being able to escape the digital in one sphere.

The Broken Record Player and the Wish to Log Off

A: And now we have a better one. It’s in Ava’s room.

Y: How does music fit in your daily life? L

A: I am, like, 30 minutes from my campus by walk around. So it is quite a far walk.

I used to never really listen to music. I was listening to podcasts on the way to stuff. Very political. I also try and listen to hai podcasts. I feel that my Thai is atrophying here and I feel so bad about that.

But in terms of music, it’s something that I think I don’t necessarily have time to listen to so much. Like, in the morning if I’m getting ready, I’m showering, yeah, I have the speaker on and I’m listening to music.

Y: What’d you listen to in the morning?

A: I love the Marías. I also love TV Girl. They’re like my favorite band for the past five years. I try to collect all the records for every album they have. I love TV Girl.

I found this band, the The Bilinda Butchers. They’re pretty good. I also ike Sombr. I went to his concert.

Y: I love Sombr. I love Sombr so much.

A: It’s really good. He loves throwing things.

Y: Do you listen to music when you read?

A: Very occasionally, but that is more for fiction. I can. And it’s only like piano.

Where Do We Go After University?

Y: Are you planning on going back to living in Bangkok after your uni?

A: I have no idea yet. I think it’s something I have to kind of explore more this year.

Should I just go straight for my master’s? Because I don’t want to stop studying. I love academia. I love education. I think that it’s, in fact, the most important thing that people can access now, especially in this age where AI and AI companies are trying to destroy every book on this planet. You know, like, it’s where intellectualism and where critical thought is under assault in various ways. I feel that it’s very important.

Y: I was really interested in something about Bangkok that you wrote to me and you said that certain experiences at university could simply never have happened had you still been living in Bangkok.

Is there a version of you in this case that became possible only because you left? What is this version?

A: I think it’s the idea or the necessity of having to meet more people, be more extroverted. Because I would describe myself as an extroverted introvert.

Here, I try and make the most of the campus. I try and go out to other cities. Like, I try and go out to Leamington a lot. I go out to pubs with my friends. I do activities. I’m always trying to do something.

And I feel that if I was in Bangkok, I wouldn’t necessarily be this liberated version whereI’m always out and about. I’m always trying to socialize. I’m always trying to meet new people.

I want to be able to, you know, expand run into new groups which I never thought I’d be a part of and just kind of have more variety and diversity than people I meet. So, like, and in fact, I have a lot of interesting stories, like, from being a new version of myself here that I wouldn’t have been in Thailand.

And I like that. Like, I like the transition a lot. That’s why I feel, like, I think I alluded to this in the email, is that it’s two different worlds for me where I feel like I come in here and I feel like I’m in a literal world of myself, like, like a completely different, yeah, sphere of reality I’ve been here.

I think I made myself on my own here.

Becoming Someone Else, Somewhere Else

Y: To some extent it makes me think of one time I had this exchange over LinkedIn; at some point I was considering doing another master’s in fashion to just have some extra experience. I messaged this girl who had done a master’s I was considering, she was very blunt about it.

She was like, don’t do another master’s, but stay in Paris - she said, “I made myself on my own”.

And that sentence, it struck me so much, like, I made myself on my own too here in Paris and I think we should all be trying to be making ourselves on our own because it’s just through learning and failing, which is the best thing ever I think, the best gift you can give yourself is just trying to be and being independent, you know?

A: I just finished Camus. He writes about how can one fail to realize that in this vulnerable universe, everything that is human and solely human assumes a more vivid meaning.

This idea of needing to stay very authentically human and to make mistakes and to, you know, explore.

Also this idea of transition that the beauty of a lot of things is only amplified when you realize that everything is within transition. I guess it applies it in a very existentialist way, but I guess you can apply it to a lot of what, you know, what we do in our, like, day-to-day lives, so it often, like, enhances my ability to kind of observe stuff around me, especially when it comes to nature or, like, trees and stuff.

A Bed Is Not a Desk

Y: You might have read about this, but I’m so obsessed with beds, you know?

A: Like beds, like B-E-D-S?

Y: Yes, like, just the concept of a bed, and I’m obsessed with it in so many of its forms, both as an object, but also as a concept! It’s weird, but I’m the most productive ever on my bed. I wrote all my dissertations from my bed(s). Where are you your most productive self?

A: Definitely not on the bed. I think we’re quite different in that regard. Like, I just associate my bed with trying to get a bit of relaxation and normality in my life that. Not necessarily normality, but just trying to unwind and kind of shut down. So for most of the day, I’m just not on it. And I’m just always working on, like, a table or, like, in library at uni.

Y: Oh, I love libraries.

How to Read the World Without Drowning in It

Y: Do you remember everything you read or do you, keep track of everything you read?

A: I used to try and do that. But the issue I have with that is that you begin to approach reading not as something where you can critically develop your ideas or to engage in different perspectives, but it’s something that you try to, like, hyper fixate on and hyper memorize every single text. And I think this is an issue more broadly that people have with their expectation of reading, where reading should not, like, so for example, if I read a book like Dostoevsky, for example, a book that he’s written, it’s really long, it’s really dense, I shouldn’t be able, like, I shouldn’t be expected to remember what was said in, like, chapter 36, where this character went on, like, a rant about this topic.

When I’m trying to read something, or, like, more generally, I’m trying to, like, move away from, like, remembering what was said all the time.

The Things We Save

Y: Do you ever feel like we’re becoming obsessed with tracking everything? What we read, how much we exercise, even how well we sleep?

A: Absolutely. And that’s why I’ve tried to stay away from a lot of these platforms. When you’re constantly tracking and optimizing every aspect of your life, you end up in this cycle of commodification. You start doing things not because you enjoy them, but because there’s something to measure or achieve.

Take reading, for example. I don’t have a Goodreads account. I’ll occasionally look at reviews before buying a book, but I don’t want reading to become another performance. I’d rather spend weeks on a short book and engage profoundly with its ideas than rush through ten books just to update my progress.

I see it with my sister sometimes. She measures how much she’s gained from a book by how far she’s gotten into it. I always tell her that reading is important, but reading for the right reasons is just as important.

What’s fascinating is how closely this relates to our economic systems. I recently came across this idea that our obsession with self-improvement and optimization is turning virtue into vice. We’re told to wake up at four in the morning, take cold plunges, track our sleep, optimize our bodies and our brains. But at what point does the pursuit of well-being become detrimental to our actual well-being?

There’s almost an inversion happening, where traditional vices, like having a cigarette or a midweek drink, start looking like small acts of resistance against this relentless culture of optimization.

It reminds me of Byung-Chul Han, a Korean philosopher whose work I’ve studied and taught in philosophy classes. He writes about how contemporary economic and political systems exercise control, not necessarily through overt authoritarianism, but through the pressure we place on ourselves to be productive.

We internalize the demands of the system until constant consumption, achievement and self-optimization become forms of self-imposed control.

Reading his work made me realize that many of the frustrations I experienced weren’t simply individual failures. They were symptoms of something much larger.

Do We Have to Optimise Everything?

Y: It’s everywhere. We track our periods, our food intake, our running, our cycling. Everything is measured in the name of productivity and well-being.

A: Exactly. And so much of it has very little to do with actual well-being.

I’ve been trying to become more conscious of that, but I still struggle with switching off. I constantly feel like I should be doing something, even if it isn’t work. I feel compelled to engage with something intellectual all day.

Sometimes I’ll sit down to watch a television show I genuinely enjoy, and after an episode I’ll start feeling guilty, as though I should be doing something more productive.

Y: You mentioned vices earlier, and I think we all have them. What’s your biggest vice?

A: That’s a difficult question. I wasn’t prepared for it!

I suppose it’s probably food cravings. Sometimes I’ll watch an old BuzzFeed food video late at night and suddenly crave everything I’m seeing. I’ll end up eating far more than I intended and regretting it the next morning.

It’s quite a basic answer, but it’s the first thing that comes to mind.

Y: I used to love BuzzFeed. I actually dreamed of working there. Their articles were so random, and those quizzes at the end were incredible.

A: I remember doing those quizzes too. They were hilarious.

The People We Actually See

Y: I want to come back to social interactions. Why do you think they’re so important? And, on a more personal level, who are the people you see every day?

A: I think our generation is defined, to some extent, by loneliness.

So much of our communication happens online, through interactions that are fleeting, superficial and require very little commitment. We’re increasingly confined to digital spaces designed to maximize our attention, often by appealing to our most negative emotions.

But those interactions don’t come close to replacing the value of communicating with someone in person.

That’s why I think the smallest everyday encounters matter. Speaking to the barista who makes your coffee, exchanging a few words with someone in the morning, seeing a familiar face. These interactions accumulate. They give structure and meaning to our days, especially as the digital world becomes increasingly all-encompassing.

At university, I try to see my close friends every day. There are professors I see several times a week whose conversations I really value.

And despite everything I’ve just said about digital communication, I call my parents every day. Even if it’s only for a few minutes, that connection is essential.

But I probably see my barista more often than most people.

Y: Same. My barista is usually the first person I see in the morning. The coffee shop opens at seven, and I go almost every day. Shoutout to Artur. If I don’t see him, the whole day feels strange. And he knows it.

A: Exactly. Those little routines become much more meaningful than we realize.

Being Twenty, Feeling Older

Y: Palomita Office is expanding into small artistic experiments, from participatory projects to dinners where guests take on fictional identities. I’ve always been interested in creating these little worlds.

When I was a child, my sister and I had three friends who were also sisters. We used to pretend that all five of us were siblings. We’d tell people we were one big family, and I’d write plays for us to perform for our parents.

Somewhere in my parents’ house in Bangkok, there’s still a notebook full of those plays.

I think I’ve always had that kind of childhood energy. Which makes me wonder: is there still a child inside you?

A: That’s a difficult question, because I often feel much older than I actually am.

I’m twenty, but sometimes I feel as though I carry the worries of someone considerably older. My parents tell me I stress too much. I even have grey hairs already, which probably doesn’t help.

I think part of it comes from feeling disconnected from what people my age are supposed to enjoy.

At university in the UK, for example, there’s a huge expectation to go clubbing. But the idea of queuing for ages just to enter a crowded room with sticky floors, loud music and the same songs playing over and over doesn’t particularly appeal to me.

I’ve tried it, both here and in Bangkok, but I’ve never really understood the attraction.

Y: I actually hate clubbing most of the time. Fashion Week is probably the exception, because you end up meeting interesting people through work.

But my ideal evening is a good dinner, especially one where everyone cooks together. I love inviting two or three friends over, preparing a meal and spending hours talking.

A: That’s exactly it. For me, a good night out might be spending seven hours talking with one person, or going to five different pubs with a group of friends.

Sometimes I wonder whether I’m strange for not enjoying the things other people my age enjoy. Not that I necessarily want to change, but I do wonder what it would feel like to experience those things in the same way.

At the same time, I think I’ve retained something quite childlike: my curiosity.

As a kid, I loved reading anything I could get my hands on, whether it was fantasy, science fiction or something completely different. That intellectual curiosity has stayed with me.

When an idea enters my head, I find it almost impossible to let go of it until I’ve explored it fully.

Where Ideas Go When We Have Them

A: Sometimes I’ll be sitting in a lecture and suddenly have an idea that has nothing to do with what’s being discussed. I’ll completely tune out for ten or fifteen minutes and start writing.

I have to capture the entire thought while it’s there, because I know that five hours later I won’t be able to reconstruct it in quite the same way.

Y: Is writing how you record your ideas? I’m always interested in how people preserve their thoughts.

For me, it’s usually my Notes app, voice memos or a notebook. Sometimes I’ll even take out my recorder in the middle of doing something and start talking.

Some ideas are terrible. Some are good. Sometimes I delete them. But I like knowing they’re there.

How do you capture that moment when you suddenly think, fuck, I have an idea?

A: It depends on where I am. Ideally, I’ll have my iPad and can write everything down. Otherwise, I’ll open a Google Doc.

I don’t like writing down just keywords. I need to capture the entire chain of reasoning, because that’s where the interesting part lies.

I remember sitting in a philosophy lecture when I suddenly had an idea for an entirely different essay.

I started writing all over the handout, connecting arguments, implications and contradictions. I was writing from the bottom of the page upwards, across the margins, everywhere.

I’d start with a thesis in political philosophy and ask myself: if this is true, what follows from it? What tensions does it create? What does that imply for another argument?

By the time I returned my attention to the lecture, I had absolutely no idea what the professor was talking about. But I had the foundation of an essay.

Later, when I discussed the draft with my seminar tutor, she told me she’d never seen anyone argue quite that way. It was unorthodox, and not what they’d expected, but she encouraged me to pursue it.

That’s what I love about philosophy. You can follow an idea somewhere unexpected and see what happens.

Y: I love that. And I’d love to see that handout, especially because the ideas were written somewhere they weren’t supposed to be.

A: I’m sure I still have it somewhere. I’ve got stacks of papers covered in random thoughts.

Notes From a Walk

A: The problem is that ideas don’t always arrive when you have somewhere to write them down.

I’ve had moments when I’m walking home and suddenly think of something that feels incredibly important. I’ll tell myself I’m only ten minutes away, so I’ll write it down when I get back.

And then I get home and it’s completely gone.

Y: That’s exactly why I love carrying a recorder. You don’t have to depend on your phone, and you can capture something the moment it happens.

I’ve literally gotten out of the shower, still dripping wet, because I needed to write an idea down before forgetting it.

A: I know that feeling.

I walk about half an hour to university, so I spend at least an hour walking every day. Sometimes I’ll be listening to a podcast, or just thinking, and suddenly something clicks.

It might be an idea for an essay or something entirely unrelated to my studies. But for a couple of minutes, everything feels connected. I can almost see the whole argument unfolding in my head.

And I know that if I don’t capture it, I might never arrive at exactly the same thought again.

I think I need to start recording those moments, even if it’s just a voice memo while I’m walking.

Y: Next time you find an idea scribbled somewhere completely unexpected, send me a photograph. I love seeing where people’s thoughts end up.

A: I will. Especially with philosophy, I try to work through ideas on my own, without relying on AI or anything else to do the thinking for me.

I’m sure there are pages everywhere with thoughts that shouldn’t be there, written in the middle of something completely unrelated.

I’ll find one and send it to you.

The Bangkok Address Book

Y: Bangkok. Somewhere to start the morning.

A: This coffee shop called Pacamara. It’s really nice.

Y: Somewhere you go for food and you’ve been away and have missed Thai Food.

A: Ros'niyom. It’s difficult spelling.

I also love this amazing restaurant called Coda. It’s so hard to get a booking, but, like, their 10 courses are so good.

Y: Where do you buy your books in Bangkok?

A: I have yet to find small indie bookshops. I’m just gonna go for the classic Kinokuniya for now.

Y: Which one?

A: The one in Siam Paragon I really like!

Y: Yeah. Honestly, I love that bookshop.

Okay. Somewhere to walk with absolutely no objective.

A: Benjakitti Park.

Bangkok, Beyond the Postcard

Y: Somewhere visitors in Bangkok completely misunderstand. And by visitors, of course.

A: Oh, misunderstand. I would definitely say just what you can really get out of Bangkok.

There’s so much more to Khao San Road.

There’s so much art and culture to discover.

Y: What’s a place that reminds you of growing up?

A: This diner called Took Laa Dee. It’s super cheap. Everything is like, two or three euros there; and they’ll cook you really nice fried rice. Open 24-7. I could go at 3am, 5am after, aftergoing out at night. And they’re just open. It’s always consistent.

Y: And, somewhere you would take me?

A: I’d probably take you record collecting. I love that. At, like, secondhand record shops.

Y: Ready for the rapid fire?

A: Okay, yeah. This should be, I guess, somewhat easier, because I don’t have to, like, agonize over it.

Y: It’s more like this or that. Okay. PPE. P or E?

A: Definitely the P for philosophy. The most interesting aspect to me.

Y: Book or podcast?

A: Book. 100%.

Y: Fiction or essays?

A: You’re tearing me apart. I would say fiction, like, philosophical fiction.

Y: Notes in the margin or in a separate place, like, in a separate place?

A: I like notes in the margin, usually. Or, like, around, like, scattered around the page.

Y: Do you write in books, right?

A: Mostly on my iPad, but if they’re giving me a handout, I’ll write physically.

Y: Pen or pencil?

A: Pen.

Y: Okay, I love that. Me too. Like, keep it permanent. Yeah, 100%.

A: If you make a mistake, like, scribble it. It’s fine.

Y: Yeah.

A: I like that.

Y: Okay. 20 open tabs or a terrifyingly organized browser?

A: 20 open tabs.

Y: Vinyl or Spotify?

A: For the experience, vinyl. For sure.

Y: Album, you listen to it. Front to back or shuffle?

A: Shuffle.

Y: Morning or night?

A: Used to be night, but mornings now.

Y: Plan everything or improvise?

A: Plan, generally.

Y: One thinker you’d have dinner with.

A: Naomi Klein.

Y: Palomita is about conversations with people whose brains I desperately want access to for one hour. One person whose brain you’d desperately want access to for one hour?

A: Oh my god, Dostoevsky, for sure.

One Word for Everything

Y: One word for Bangkok.

A: Unique.

Y: One word for economics.

A: Anachronistic.

Y: One word for politics.

A: Hope.

Y: And for philosophy.

A: Mind bending.

Y: One word for Ansh two years ago.

A: Nervous.

Y: For Ansh now?.

A: Confident.

Y: One word for me?

A: Fascinating.

Y: Thank you! And last question, and be careful with this, because this also makes it into a collective archive. Your favorite word.

A: My favorite word. God. I’d probably just go for compassion.

1. Let your little sister, or your older one, influence your personality. Sometimes borrowing someone else’s confidence is how you discover your own.

2. Read whatever the hell you want. Nobody becomes more interesting by pretending to enjoy a book.

3. Make mistakes worth writing about. Perfect people make terribly boring fictional characters.

4. A city can give you another version of yourself. Amsterdam, Paris, New York. Different streets, different possibilities.

5. Never underestimate the emotional importance of a good burger. Some things deserve their own hierarchy.

6. Learn to enjoy your own company. A walk without music isn’t necessarily a walk in silence.

7. Have a very active imagination. It’s one of the few forms of entertainment that doesn’t require a subscription.

8. Don’t rationalize every feeling before you’ve had the chance to feel it.

9. Make things you don’t necessarily want anyone to see. Not everything beautiful needs an audience.

10. If you need ten hours to paint, take ten hours. Inspiration doesn’t care about your calendar.

11. Steal your sister’s clothes. And occasionally her mug. With affection, obviously.

12. Dress like someone who knows herself, even if you’re still figuring out who that is.

13. Let art embarrass you a little. Crying in front of a Kandinsky at twelve sounds like a perfectly good beginning.

14. Never force yourself to admire something. Art isn’t an exam, and neither is taste.

15. Ask people who they’d trust to remember their life. Their answer will tell you almost everything about love.

16. Share a bottle of wine when the conversation deserves one. The best evenings rarely follow the original plan.

17. Don’t confuse being lost with being uninteresting. Sometimes uncertainty is where everything begins.

18. Allow yourself a little ridiculousness. Purple sequins, fictional women, pickle martinis. Whatever works.

19. Stay curious enough to admit how little you know. There’s always another book, another painting, another person to understand.

20. Keep a little ecstasy in your vocabulary. Not every feeling needs to be reasonable.

    

Joseph Arzoumanov is one of those people.

I visited him at his atelier in Paris, where almost everything seems to have a story attached to it. A crown made from bullets he collected as a teenager in a Second World War bunker. A ring in which a tiny mechanical heart beats when you turn a crown. A chess set populated by kings, queens, and other characters whose clothes have been designed with the seriousness of an entire fashion collection. One of the rooks has lost his heart and spends eternity carrying it up a staircase. I found that particularly upsetting, in a good way.

I had prepared questions about jewellery, craftsmanship, fashion, and the relationship between objects and the people who make them. We ended up discussing medieval fools, childhood treasures, Armenian volcanic stone, bad dreams, and the rather ambitious project of building a palace.

What interested me most was Joseph’s relationship with imagination. He tells me that he remembers having bad dreams almost every night, and that creating things allows him to transform those impressions into something harmless, even comforting. I like the idea that an object might exist not only to be admired, but to protect someone from something.

At some point, he showed me a miniature portrait of his grandmother, made in white gold, with rubies in her cheeks and diamonds in her eyes. Inside, he had sculpted her dreams. I didn’t really know what to do with that information, except ask more questions.

We began in the atelier, surrounded by unfinished objects, drawings and tools, and eventually continued our conversation over drinks. I was supposed to be interviewing a jewellery artist. Instead, I found myself wondering about the difference between inventing a world and discovering one.

Perhaps there isn’t much of a difference.

This is Joseph Arzoumanov, and a few of the things that exist inside his head.

SOMETHING A LITTLE MORE NATURAL

LPT: What does a typical day look like? I’m actually going to ask Joseph the same question.

ALIENOR: It’s funny because a typical day is usually one where you think you’ve planned everything.

LPT: And then completely different things happen.

ATELIER: Exactly.

We work while listening to music. Then we’re constantly interrupted by different things. There’s the administrative work, Joseph drawing, working on jewellery, checking the quality of everyone else’s work.

And then there are all these little side quests.

Going to galleries to deliver works, meeting clients, attending exhibition openings.

No two days are really the same.

LPT: That’s what makes it exciting, I think.

ATELIER: Completely.

A CROWN MADE OF BULLETS AMONG OTHER THINGS

LPT: I’m trying to photograph stuff. For example, what’s this?

JA: This is a reliquary that we’ve just restored. Inside, there’s an Indian gold-embroidered crown.

Now, guess what this is made of.

LPT: That’s exactly what I’m wondering. Can I touch it? They look like... How do you say it in French? Like little... Are they cartridges?

JA: They’re bullets.

They’re bullets from a Second World War bunker that I used to explore with my brothers and cousins when we were children. We discovered hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

When I was seventeen, I made crowns out of them.

I even made the little leather headpiece underneath, so the crown could be worn more comfortably.

LPT: Was this your first creation?

JA: My first sculpture. My first sculpture made with the awareness that I was creating a work of art. I’d made things before, but without really thinking of them in those terms.

LPT: Was that the moment when you realised you could actually create something? I wanted to ask you about your background and how everything started, but was this the turning point?

JA: I’d already been thinking about it before, but more in relation to fashion.

And in a way, the crown is a fashion accessory.

Originally, I wanted to create a fashion brand and design entire collections of clothes.

I really liked Olivier Rousteing’s creations on that note.

Here, there’s a little penitent figure that screws into the wood. It’s part of the ceiling installation.

The ceiling still needs some work. It’s Chinese ink on wood, on fir. There’s quite a lot left to do. You can see the false ceiling over there.

And these are tests using Armenian volcanic stone.

LPT: You learned to sculpt volcanic stone in Armenia?

JA: Yes. These are just little experiments. I spent a month there.

And over here, there’s a robotic arm.

LPT: A robotic arm?

JA: It’s a prototype of an arm used in Venice. We’ve been running tests with it.

Here, these are the tools we use every day.

THE FOOL, THE CIRCUS AND THE ART OF MISCHIEF

LPT: The circus as a universe is something that really interests me. I’ve been obsessed with the circus since I was a baby. Although I don’t know whether it’s actually the circus or the medieval figure of the fool that fascinates me more. I think the two are connected somehow. What about you? What’s your relationship to that universe?

JA: For the circus, not so much. I think I’m connected to the circus almost in spite of myself.

But fools? Much more. I love fools.

A lot of my characters are figures who appear to be playing tricks. Not necessarily tricks, exactly, but they do things that could be interpreted that way.

Sometimes they overturn chalices or commit little acts of mischief.

Look at this one. He’s overturning a chalice onto a small house.

LPT: I love that.

JA: He’s being mischievous. He’s committing some kind of offence.

Although it’s not really an offence.

LPT: Did you play a lot of pranks when you were younger?

JA: A lot. An enormous amount.

LPT: What’s the biggest prank you’ve ever played?

JA: The biggest?

There are so many different kinds of pranks. Some are funny. Some aren’t funny at all.

A HEART THAT BEATS ON YOUR FINGER

JA: This is something I’m working on at the moment.

It’s a piece of jewellery. A ring.

The proportions still need some work, but the concept is that when you turn the crown of the character, his heart starts beating.

So I’m first developing the mechanism on a larger scale, before miniaturising it.

It’s relatively advanced, although there are still improvements to be made.

The objective is to transform a rotational movement into a linear movement.

The idea is that the parts beneath the star rise and fall.

For now, I’ve only managed to create a very small movement.

But it’s actually a real achievement, because it proves that the rotation can lift all four parts simultaneously.

LPT: And when it’s on the ring, does the movement have something to do with the person wearing it?

JA: It’s her lover lying on her finger. It’s a portrait of her lover.

When she’s wearing the ring, she turns his crown like this, and his heart beats.

LPT: So it’s a living ring.

JA: Exactly.

LPT: And the jewellery you’re wearing, I imagine those are your own creations too?

JA: Yes.

Here, I’m wearing a portrait of my grandmother in white gold. There are little rubies in her cheeks and diamonds in her eyes. And inside, her dreams are sculpted.

LPT: Can I take a picture of that?

It’s so personal.

JA: Yes, of course.

Although my jewellery isn’t always easy to photograph. There are so many details.

COMFORT IS PART OF THE WORK

JA: This is a recent ring I made for an exhibition at the Grand Palais. It’s extremely comfortable. I also wanted it to be able to stand on its own. It’s a palace ring, an actual little palace.

And here, at the front, there’s a naked female figure lying down, relaxing, with a flower in her hand.

She’s wearing a mask.

LPT: Is comfort something you think about when you’re designing jewellery?

JA: When I make jewellery, it has to be wearable. It needs to be something that can be worn in everyday life.

I like comfort. Although I’ve also made uncomfortable things.

The crown isn’t comfortable, even if I added leather to make it a little easier to wear.

I’ve also made a pharaoh’s beard. That one is very comfortable to wear, even though it’s quite an unusual object.

But I work on the principle that if I’m selling jewellery, it should be perfect in every respect.

LPT: So it needs to be comfortable too.

JA: Exactly.

LPT: What I love is that there’s always a story behind your work. Actually, it’s more than a story. It’s not just an image. There’s movement.

JA: I love movement. There’s always something moving in my work.

It’s as if the scene is taking place in the middle of an action, as though you’ve captured something while it’s happening.

I love that.

THE MOST EXPENSIVE PRACTICAL JOKE

JA: I’m currently working on two rings. These are twin rings.

One has a 4.50-carat Zambian emerald, and the other has a 3.14-carat emerald. They’re for my best friend and me.

Basically, I want to play a prank on him. In about ten days, I’m having dinner at his father’s house. I’m going to wear my ring and show it off.

It’s going to be magnificent, with this beautiful stone. I want to make him interested in it. I want him to make a few slightly jealous remarks.

Then his father will ask to have a look at it. He’ll take it, put it in his pocket, and secretly replace it with the other ring.

Then he’ll hand that ring to my best friend so he can have a look.

Except that one will actually be his. So we’re going to see whether he notices the difference.

LPT: Now that’s a prank.

JA: Completely. It’s entirely a prank on my best friend.

And the design is very personal. My best friend is a sailor and a chef. The ring represents a boat, a kind of little rowing boat, with a palace built on top of it.

There are two thoughtful figures.

One is looking towards the sky, and the other is looking down towards the ground.

Here, there’s a character holding an anchor connected to the boat.

Another has his hand on his heart and is holding on to the boat as well.

Their legs are intertwined to form a sailor’s knot called the love knot.

It represents the love between my best friend and his father.

Filial love. Family love.

I can’t wait for the ring to be finished and for him to discover it.

LPT: And I absolutely love this prank.

ALIENOR: It’s such a good prank.

JA: I think he’s going to be really happy.

THE STORY OR THE OBJECT?

LPT: Do you think about the story first, and then the piece of jewellery? Or do they come together?

JA: It really depends.

For example, with these two rings, I knew that I wanted a big stone for mine. I don’t own any rings with large stones, and I really like them.

So I just waited until I found the right stone. As it turned out, there were two beautiful stones, so I bought both.

And I’d known for several months that I wanted to make a ring for my best friend.

I knew it had to have a boat, an anchor, and a sailor’s knot.

Essentially, I start with strong symbolic principles. And then, in the moment, I fantasise about something. Sometimes I need to turn the idea over in my head for a month before it finds a form that I feel I can present to the world.

LPT: And you tell the stories afterwards?

JA: Yes. But I don’t write them down very much.

When it comes to telling the stories behind my creations, it comes very naturally. Because, to me, it all makes sense.It’s one big story with its own internal logic.

I don’t really need to write the stories down.

And people will read what they want into the works anyway.

As for my ideas, I write them on loose sheets of paper. I draw them in notebooks.

Look, this is the chess set.

Originally, I just wanted to make a simple chessboard.

THIRTY-TWO PIECES, THIRTY-TWO OUTFITS

JA: At first, I was considering different materials for the board, including ceramics. Now I’ve decided on Armenian volcanic stone.

And here are the drawings. These are sketches of the embroidery, the king, the different characters.

LPT: There’s a real fashion element to all of this too.

JA: Absolutely. There are thirty-two chess pieces, with thirty-two different outfits. Every single garment is meticulously detailed. Here, for example, this is the king’s trouser leg.

LPT: Without thinking too much, which is your favourite piece?

JA: I’d say it’s between two pieces.

There’s the Child King. Let me find the drawing.

Actually, first, there’s the Black Queen.

LPT: I love her.

JA: She’s my grandmother.

I already knew what I wanted her to look like. I drew her, but I only designed the dress after sculpting the piece.

The dress came afterwards. Here, these are the technical drawings. This is the actual pattern for the dress.

By the way, what do you do at Balenciaga?

LPT: I work on the business side, so it’s completely different.

But I can see what you’re doing here.

It’s miniature fashion.

JA: Exactly.

Now, our dear Child King, who may or may not decide to appear... Here he is. He’s a portrait of my little brother when he was seven years old.

He’s a child sitting on a raised throne. Almost like a baby sitting in a high chair.

LPT: Your family seems to be very present in your creations.

Your grandmother, your brother...

JA: There are several family portraits, yes.

It’s something I do naturally.

THE ROOK WHO LOST HIS HEART

JA: The other piece I really love is one we saw earlier. Here it is.

This is the rook carrying his heart.

He’s a rook who has lost his heart, there’s a hole where his heart should be. He cries tears made of diamonds. And he climbs the steps of an infinite staircase.

In the original drawing, he wasn’t climbing the stairs, but I eventually decided that he should be.

LPT: It almost sounds like an infernal punishment.

Something out of Dante’s Inferno.

JA: There could be a connection, yes.

THERE IS NO TYPICAL DAY

LPT: I asked the same question earlier, but what does a typical day look like for you?

JA: The ideal day would be that the atelier opens at nine, although I like starting a little earlier. It depends on how much energy I have.

I do a lot of prototyping. But actually, it depends entirely on the stage of the project.

After the chess set, for example, there was a period when I was mainly having meetings with people.

Then there are periods when I do a lot of drawing. There’s a typical process, but there isn’t a typical day.

For example, tonight I’m going to have to work on some gold rings before leaving for India.

I’ll probably be working for most of the night.

LPT: You think you’ll be up for a good part of the night?

JA: I think so. I need to finish two rings by tomorrow so that I can give them to the stone setters.

RED VELVET, SILK AND VENETIAN SLIPPERS

LPT: A question that has absolutely nothing to do with anything, but since I work in fashion, I’m always curious.

You’re dressed quite casually today. Is this how you normally dress?

JA: When I’m at the atelier, yes. I almost always wear this necklace, though. Sometimes I take it off, but not very often.

LPT: Has it always been this necklace?

JA: Always. It’s the first necklace I ever made. I’ve worn it ever since.

LPT: That’s beautiful. And the ring?

JA: I wear the ring when I’m not working. I wear it a lot, but usually not during the day, unless I have meetings. This is more or less my atelier uniform.

LPT: It’s very relaxed.

I’ve seen photographs of you dressed differently, though. You sometimes wear these quite romantic shirts.

JA: Yes. Fringes, cords, laces.

I love red velvet, black velvet. I love silk.

I love fringed shirts.

And I like friulane, too.

LPT: Really? I’m actually starting to give up on those.

I’m from Rome, and in Rome people wear them a lot, just like in Venice. They were almost the standard shoe when I was in high school. Everyone had them.

At first, it was mostly girls, but eventually even the boys started wearing them.

And now, I don’t know, I just can’t anymore.

JA: I found an incredible pair in Venice. A Venetian friend took me to a particular shop and helped me find this very unusual shape.

Instead of having the usual rounded front, they end in a pointed Gothic arch.

It gives the slipper a really distinctive shape.

LPT: That’s actually really nice.

JA: Otherwise, I wear trainers. I love my Salomons.

I like them black, matte, simple and comfortable.

Or leather shoes with a flap.

INVENTING OR DISCOVERING?

LPT: I have the impression that the worlds you create exist somewhere in the past. There’s this medieval dimension to them, for example. Do you feel like you’re inventing these worlds, or discovering them?

JA: I think I’m inventing and discovering things that are inspired by many different cultures. My childhood in Morocco had a big influence on me. Islamic art, the mausoleums of Moroccan kings, the Hassan II Mosque, even the Moroccan desert.

I loved all of that.

But there’s also Catholic culture, Catholic churches, and particularly medieval goldsmithing and religious treasures.

And then there’s the entire imaginary world of treasure. The way a child imagines treasure, but also the way an adult imagines it.

For example, the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb.

That absolutely fascinated me. I thought it was incredible.

But also blockbuster films like Indiana Jones, or manga like One Piece.

I love One Piece because anything is possible.

There’s this elastic character travelling across the oceans in search of the ultimate treasure.

I love that.

THE TREASURES I WANTED TO FIND AS A CHILD

LPT: I have a slightly more personal question.

Since I work in luxury, I’m interested in how people relate to it.

And I think we’d agree that your creations belong to the world of luxury.

JA: Completely.

LPT: But when you were a child, what did luxury look like to you?

JA: For example, in Lego sets, there were treasures.

I was an absolute Lego fanatic. There were these little transparent coloured bricks, sometimes used for lights or decorations.

I loved them.

To me, those were precious stones.

And like many children, I collected little objects I found on the ground, things I’d dug up.

I also dreamed of becoming an archaeologist. But as I grew older, I realised that archaeologists don’t discover Tutankhamun’s tomb every day.

That was one archaeologist among many, and something like that might happen once in a lifetime. Of course, archaeologists discover extraordinary things.

A piece of fossilised wood that’s forty-five million years old is incredible.Today, I can appreciate that.

But when you’re a child, with a child’s idea of treasure, a piece of fossilised wood isn’t necessarily what you imagine.

So now, as an adult, my goal is to make the treasures I would have dreamed of discovering as a child.

It’s a kind of shortcut.

BUILDING A PALACE, PIECE BY PIECE

LPT: I’d read somewhere that you wanted to build a palace.

Is that true?

JA: That’s my dream.

LPT: But in a way, you’re already building your palace, piece by piece, aren’t you?

JA: Not exactly.

I’m building a universe that will hopefully give me the opportunity to build my palace one day.

PATIENCE IN THE MIDDLE OF A TORNADO

LPT: I imagine you work with techniques that require an enormous amount of patience. Are you equally patient in your personal life, or is that something that disappears once you leave the atelier?

JA: I think I’m resilient.

And I think resilience is one of the components of patience. If something happens, I tend to tell myself, well, that’s life. If something takes longer than I wanted it to, I generally accept it.

So I think I’m patient in everyday life too.

But it’s complicated.

For example, I worked on the chess set for three years with a team of sixty people. And you might imagine that a project lasting three years requires a great deal of patience.

But in reality, every day was a tornado.

Every day, so many things were happening. Every day was a sprint.

So you look at this very long project and assume that it must have required patience.

But every day was so intense that there wasn’t really any opportunity to be patient.

Everything was happening in the heat of the moment.

It was constant fire.

But then there are certain techniques, especially embroidery, where there’s a minimum amount of time that simply cannot be reduced.

Even when you’re in a hurry, even when there’s an enormous amount of work to do, the process takes the time it takes.

And that’s particularly true of embroidery.

LPT: Are you usually able to predict how long something will take?

JA: It always takes much longer than I expect.

Although I’m getting a little better at estimating things now.

RAPID FIRE: OBSESSIONS, TREASURES AND OTHER THINGS

LPT: I really like obsessions.

What’s the last thing you became obsessed with?

JA: Love.

LPT: What’s an obsession you’ve managed to get over?

JA: Dyeing my hair.

LPT: Really?

JA: Yes. Multicoloured hair.

LPT: What’s an obsession you think will never leave you?

JA: Treasures.

I’m obsessed with treasures.

LPT: Gold or silver?

JA: Gold.

LPT: A material you could touch for hours?

JA: My bedsheets.

Because I’m tired.

LPT: A place you return to mentally?

JA: The world of my dreams.

LPT: Past or future?

JA: Future.

LPT: Minimalism or excess?

JA: Excess.

LPT: An artist you wish you could have met, from any period in history?

JA: Fabergé, I think.

LPT: One word to describe your universe?

JA: Fantastic.

LPT: One word for Venice?

JA: Serenissima.

LPT: One word for Paris?

JA: Intense.

LPT: One word for Joseph?

JA: Determined.

IGNÉ: A WORD FOR FIRE

LPT: And your favourite word?

JA: That’s difficult.

JA: Igné.

It’s a word that can describe a kind of heat appearing in the cheeks. But it can also be used poetically.

In a poem, I used it to describe cheeks that were burning.

Instead of saying someone’s cheeks were completely red, I called them ignées.

WHEN DOES AN OBJECT BECOME A WORLD?

LPT: Your work sits somewhere between sculpture, jewellery, architecture, and embroidery. At what point does an object become a world?

JA: Instantly. For me, even a pencil stroke is already a world.

It doesn’t matter what it is. Even an industrial object is a world.

Everything is.

LPT: Your pieces almost look like relics from a civilisation that never existed. Or perhaps one that existed a very long time ago. Imagine an archaeologist discovers your work in two thousand years. What would you want them to understand about it?

JA: They can imagine whatever they want.

My sculptures aren’t there to communicate one fixed message.

They’re there to awaken whatever comes instinctively to the person looking at them. So if an archaeologist discovers one of my works in two thousand years, I’d like them to understand just as much as someone seeing it today.

In other words, I’d like them to have an instinctive reaction.

FANTASMAGORIQUE

LPT: That’s what really attracts me to your work. I love dreams, too. And I’ve always been fascinated by characters, especially the figures in chess. The rook, the king, the queen, the knight. They’ve always intrigued me. And in your work, I recognise figures that somehow speak to me.

There’s something almost reassuring about them.

JA: I think there’s an important distinction between fantasy and the fantastic. They’re not quite the same thing.

Actually, I think phantasmagorical would be a better word to describe my universe than fantastic.

Something that mixes fantasy, imagination and a surreal dimension.

LPT: What I also find interesting is that your characters seem benevolent.

I come from a Lebanese background, and there are a lot of protective symbols in our culture. The eye, for example.

You find it in Greece and Turkey, too.

And in Italy there are other symbols that serve a similar purpose.

I feel that if I had one of your pieces, it would be something benevolent.

Something that protected me.

MAKING NIGHTMARES HARMLESS

JA: You’ve actually touched on something very important in my work. I’ve had bad dreams every single night for as long as I can remember.

Every night. And I remember them.

For me, creating things is a way of transforming those agitated impressions into something harmless and wonderful.

LPT: Do most of your characters come from your dreams?

JA: Yes. Creating allows me to turn very troubled feelings into something harmless and wonderful.

And for me, an object is perfect when it produces a feeling of comfort.

A sense of wonder, or something sacred. Beauty. Meaning.

LPT: When you showed me the Black Queen earlier, and told me she was your grandmother, I felt that. When you told me she represented your grandmother, I immediately felt that if I had her in my home, I’d feel protected. I’m very emotionally attached to objects. I have things that probably mean absolutely nothing to anyone else. But to me, they mean something.

They make me feel safe.They protect me, in a way.

JA: That’s exactly it.

You can discover Joseph’s work HERE and follow along on Instagram here.

LAST PEOPLE THERE is an independent editorial project exploring art, fashion, design, architecture, and the people behind things. A collection of conversations, observations, objects, and places. We go to vernissages and notice the wrong things.

I keep clothes that no longer fit, objects that have lost their purpose, and things that belonged to people I don’t necessarily speak to anymore. Sometimes I think we’re not really keeping the objects themselves, but the versions of our lives that came with them.

Hugo Sire keeps things too. Including a jacket that belonged to his father, which he discovered in a wardrobe when he was still a student. Before SIRE, before the collections, before any of it. He already had the feeling that one day he’d do something with it.

Hugo is one half of SIRE, the menswear label he founded with Yojiro, whom he met at fashion school. We originally sat down for Last People There to talk about clothing, Japanese factories, Paris, Tokyo, and the peculiar pleasure of making something you wish existed.

But somewhere between Art Deco furniture, old jackets, and deciding whether it’s better to be perfectly dressed or slightly wrong, I started thinking about something else.

The things we choose to keep say an awful lot about us.

And that’s exactly the sort of thing I like collecting at Palomita Office.

THE BOY WHO DIDN’T SPEAK FRENCH

LPT: You met Yojiro in 2017, when you were both students?

H: I started fashion school not long after finishing high school. Yojiro had arrived in Paris a little earlier, and eventually decided to settle here and attend fashion school too. We met because we were in the same class. We were classmates.

LPT: Do you remember the first thing you noticed about him? Maybe his taste, his style, something that made you think you could eventually work together?

H: A certain discipline. I thought he was a good student, that he had interesting things to propose.

I also thought he was incredibly brave to come to a school in France where all the classes were taught in French, especially when he didn’t really speak the language.

I remember thinking that if he was already this good while working in a foreign language so different from his own, he must be pretty talented.

He was also a very nice guy.

After school, he went to Hermès.

And we didn’t exactly find each other again by coincidence. I was the one who called him.

That was several years after school. I told him it might be interesting for us to work together.

And that’s how it started.

A SMALL WARDROBE, NOT A FASHION EMPIRE

LPT: When you first started, was there something missing from your own wardrobe? A particular piece you wanted to make because you couldn’t find it anywhere?

H: I think there’s something a little nerdy about it. It’s being a geek about clothing rather than fashion, because I think those are two quite different things.

It’s about thinking, “I’d really like to own this particular piece,” and finding it amusing to make it yourself.

At the beginning, the idea was really to create a small wardrobe.

Today, we make around fifty pieces per season. It’s a small wardrobe, and that’s how I think of it, how we both think of it. I think that’s why the pieces work so well together.

FIFTY PIECES AND A THOUSAND REFERENCES

LPT: When you move from one collection to another, what guides you? Is it a mood, a story? What makes one collection different from the next?

H: Conceptually, Yojiro and I draw enormously from things we share. Memories, books we’ve read, films we’ve watched.

There are a lot of cultural references.

Paris inspires me enormously.

I grew up quite close to the Marais, which is, in a way, Paris’s fashion neighbourhood.

Our inspirations are extremely varied.

Even the trousers you’re wearing could become an inspiration.

MENSWEAR HAS RULES. DOES ANYONE CARE?

LPT: I wrote something down, but you might completely disagree with me. I feel like menswear is full of rules compared with womenswear. What do you think?

H: I love menswear precisely because it’s so simple.

Every season, we make shirts, sweaters, V-necks, coats, jackets...

There’s a relatively defined structure.

But I don’t think that structure limits my creativity as much as people might imagine. I actually like it.

But now that we’re stocked in different boutiques, we’ve noticed that when we make a navy-blue coat, it sells better than if we make the same coat in mustard yellow.

VENETIAN SLIPPERS AND THE SAINT-GERMAIN DANDY

LPT: What’s the most underrated piece in a man’s wardrobe?

H: Maybe slippers.

I think they’re quite beautiful.

LPT: Furlanes!

H: Exactly, furlanes. It’s only fairly recently that men have started wearing them.

LPT: I live in Saint-Germain, so maybe that’s why I see them everywhere. You see guys dressed like that just going out for a drink.

H: The Saint-Germain-des-Prés man never dresses quite like anyone else.

There’s always a kind of nonchalance.

And I think there’s a desire to be a little bit of a dandy, which isn’t necessarily the same in every Parisian neighbourhood.

And that’s a good thing. It’s nice that different neighbourhoods have their own identities.

But there’s a particular energy in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, that dandy spirit you might encounter at Castel, for example.

WE ALL WEAR A UNIFORM, EVEN WHEN WE PRETEND WE DON’T

LPT: I’m really interested in personal style.

Would you say you have a particular style, or do you like to experiment?

H: I don’t have one very specific style.

But I think, like everyone, we create a sort of uniform for ourselves.

Sometimes that uniform can be imposed on us, unfortunately.

But I tend to wear the same things quite regularly. More or less what I’m wearing today.

LPT: Do you have a uniform?

H: Yes.

I’m usually wearing jeans or pleated trousers.

I’m trying to wear more and more of our own brand because we finally have quite a complete wardrobe.

Otherwise, it’s usually a shirt, a tank top or a T-shirt underneath, and jeans, sometimes ripped, sometimes not.

A lot of vintage.

LPT: Did you make the holes yourself?

H: I think I probably wore this particular pair out until it ripped. Although they weren’t new to begin with.

And now we make denim too.

THE MAN WHO NEVER GOES HOME TO CHANGE

LPT: You mentioned the different customers who shop at SIRE, Hermès, and so on. In three words, who is the SIRE man?

H: I’m discovering more and more who he is.

And I should say the SIRE man or woman, because there are women who wear our clothes too. We shouldn’t forget them!

LPT: I love stealing men’s clothes.

H: I think a lot of women like that slightly oversized, boyfriend-jeans feeling, as if they’ve stolen something from their boyfriend or their father.

It works really well with women.

But I would say the SIRE man is relatively elegant, discreet, a little bit of a dandy.

It also depends on the occasion.

We’ve created a wardrobe with clothes that can be worn every day, for all sorts of occasions.

I like the idea of being elegant from morning until evening.

I’ve never really understood why people go home to change before going out.

I think it’s quite nice to be able to have a coffee at ten in the morning and go to an exhibition opening at seven in the evening wearing the same jacket and jeans.

LPT: I love that, but I’m absolutely not like that.

Sometimes it’s frustrating having to think about going home to change, but I never plan my outfits in advance either.

H: Maybe that’s also why I always wear the same things.

You just take whatever is at the top of the pile. I think that’s quite a human thing to do.

TOKYO, TECH PACKS, AND THE TROUBLE WITH MAKING THINGS

LPT: Production in Japan is central to SIRE, isn’t it?

H: It’s essential.

For several reasons.

We started in Japan because Yojiro is Japanese and already had a few contacts there.

Initially, we were just looking for fabrics.

Eventually, we found a workshop in Tokyo that became something like the centre of our production operations.

LPT: So it was Tokyo from the beginning?

H: From the very beginning.

We also struggled to find workshops in France.

France has undergone so much deindustrialisation that it’s quite difficult to find manufacturers willing to work with very young brands producing very small quantities.

And since we were already working in Japan, we thought it made more sense to centralise everything there rather than send packages all over the world.

There were only two of us managing the whole thing.

So we decided to keep everything together.

Today, I’d say around 99% of our production is in Japan.

And I hope we can continue doing that for as long as possible.

I think Made in Japan is also one of the reasons the brand works today.

It’s a real mark of quality in the industry.

And at the same time, I’d love to make things in France.

It’s not going to happen immediately, but I think it would be quite beautiful to have a brand based in Paris and Tokyo, producing exclusively in France and Japan.

It would make perfect sense with the story of the brand.

And for once, it wouldn’t be bullshit storytelling.

Maybe that’s the next step.

LPT: And I imagine it would make you happy as a Frenchman!

H: Absolutely.

I love visiting factories in Nagoya, Osaka, or little workshops in Tokyo.

But I’d be just as happy to visit a workshop in the middle of nowhere in Normandy, Brittany, Lyon or Calais.

It’s a beautiful way to discover a country.

Obviously, I know France reasonably well because I’m French, but you discover a country differently when you meet the people who make things there.

ART DECO, BAD DRAWINGS, GOOD CONVERSATIONS

LPT: Let’s move on to your cultural references.

Is there a reference that has absolutely nothing to do with fashion or clothing, but that somehow finds its way into your designs?

H: Yes and no.

It’s not necessarily something you’ll see directly in my clothing designs, but I think there’s a general aesthetic, a kind of atmosphere, that appears in other things I make, like furniture.

Because I design furniture too.

LPT: Yes, I’ve seen it! I love it.

H: We actually started the brand by designing the furniture for our showroom.

It was also a way of distinguishing ourselves a little from other brands.

LPT: I love design, but I can’t draw at all. I imagine it’s difficult to be a designer without being able to draw.

H: I’m far from being a brilliant illustrator, but I enjoy it.

I like making sketches.

And above all, I like conversations with people.

When your sketch isn’t particularly good, you have to use words to express your idea.

You have to explain it, go into details, make the other person understand what you’re imagining.

I really enjoy that exchange.

But to come back to your question, there are an enormous number of references I love.

One period speaks to me particularly strongly: Art Deco.

The late 1920s and early 1930s.

That period comes back quite often in the furniture we make.

There’s something about the lines, which are quite hard, quite masculine in a way.

Art Deco has straighter lines, a certain symmetry that I really like.

And I try to transpose that into clothing, into how we photograph the clothes, and into our furniture.

LPT: Do you handle the art direction of the photography too?

H: I do the creative direction, yes.

I do have a fairly precise idea of what I want for the brand.

Sometimes there’s furniture in the images, or particular shapes and references to certain periods.

I’d love to create a wardrobe that feels a little more historically rooted.

But it’s not always easy to make something that recalls the 1930s while still feeling modern, especially in menswear.

People don’t necessarily want to wear something that looks like fake vintage.

But maybe if we ever do a runway show, we could stage it in a theatre from the 1930s.

TWO JACKETS, TWO STORIES

LPT: If SIRE disappeared, and fifty years from now someone found just one piece from all your collections, which one would you want it to be?

H: It would be nice if it were the first one.

We started with a suit, a jacket and a pair of trousers that were sold separately.

I think I can show it to you.

This is the very first prototype of the brand. The first piece I received, from the very first DHL package I opened.

It’s quite precious to me.

It’s not necessarily the most beautiful piece we’ve ever made, or the most interesting, or the one made from the nicest fabric.

But it inevitably has sentimental value because it was the very first.

LPT: I had a slightly personal question, but it’s something that really interests me.

Is there anything in your wardrobe that you’ve kept even though you probably should have got rid of it?

Maybe something damaged, too old, something you don’t wear anymore, but you’ve kept for sentimental reasons?

H: I have a habit of keeping everything, so that’s a difficult question!

I have quite a few of my father’s clothes that I’ve kept because I think they’re really beautiful.

And also because I always tell myself they could be useful for a future collection.

This one, for example.

It’s a jacket that belonged to my father. Technically, it still belongs to him, but I’ve more or less stolen it.

We’ll probably rework it in one way or another.

And actually, it’s quite similar to the first piece I just showed you.

I was still at school when I found this jacket in a wardrobe and started wearing it.

It was probably already quite old, but I immediately thought, “One day, I’m going to do something with this piece.”

And I was still a student.

SIRE didn’t exist at all. Although maybe the idea was already somewhere in the back of my mind.

So yes, that’s exactly the sort of piece I keep.

Partly because I find it interesting as a garment, but also because of its sentimental value.

PARIS IS A VERY SMALL VILLAGE WITH TOO MANY SHOWROOMS

THE LAST PEOPLE ADDRESS BOOK

LPT: Where do you write down your ideas?

H: Usually on a corner of a table. (note to reader: Hugo said “sur un coin de table” and I thought he literally meant on the table).

I used to have all sorts of little notebooks, notepads, scraps of paper...

LPT: On a corner of a table? Like, directly onto the table?

H: No, no! It’s an expression!

I mean on a piece of paper, or a notepad.

LPT: I thought you literally had an ideas table, where you could write directly on the surface. That would actually be quite cool.

H: Why not? That could be an interesting piece of design.

LPT: Where might I run into you after work?

H: At L’Étincelle. It’s a bar not far from the office. I go there quite often.

LPT: Which Parisian arrondissement has the best-dressed people?

H: I’d say the 3rd.

Not always, obviously, but I think people make a certain effort there.

Even people who don’t live in the neighbourhood.

When they come to the Marais, they know they might run into someone, or maybe they simply feel like dressing a little differently for the occasion.

Sometimes you almost get the impression that people want to look fashionable because they’re spending their Sunday in the Marais.

It can result in some outfits that aren’t entirely convincing, but I still think it’s an area where you see interesting personal styles.

LPT: You mentioned growing up nearby. Did that influence you?

H: Enormously.

The entire neighbourhood transforms during Fashion Week.

All the art galleries suddenly become showrooms for a week.

It’s almost like watching a caterpillar turn into a butterfly.

You have these spaces sitting empty for weeks, which actually damages the life of the neighbourhood a little.

And then, suddenly, there are clothing racks everywhere, people drinking outside, block parties, four hundred people standing on the pavement...

There’s this extraordinary energy.

And because I grew up more or less around here, it always intrigued me.

WHERE TO BUY A GIFT WHEN YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE DOING

LPT: I need to buy someone a present.

I don’t know what to get them, and I don’t necessarily know the person very well. Where should I go?

H: I’ll keep it simple: Merci.

And it’s in the neighbourhood.

It’s close to the office, close to L’Étincelle.

So I can go to Merci, buy a present and then have a drink. Or the other way around.

LPT: A shop you can’t walk into without buying something?

H: Since I started getting more interested in Japanese culture, there’s a place I’ve really fallen in love with: Ogata, in Paris.

It was opened by Mr Ogata several years ago.

I actually think that place was partly responsible for making me fall in love with Japanese culture while I was still in Paris, before I’d had the chance to visit Japan.

It’s almost like a temple dedicated to Japanese culture...

And whenever I go there, I’m incapable of leaving without buying something.

If I don’t have much money left in my account, I’ll leave with a pastry.

Otherwise, I buy ceramics.

I love that place.

SLIGHTLY WRONG IS BETTER THAN PERFECTLY DRESSED

RAPID FIRE

LPT: Paris or Tokyo?

H: Paris.

LPT: One person whose style you always notice?

H: Matteo Artuso, designer.

LPT: New or vintage?

H: Let’s say new. We make new clothes, after all!

LPT: One object you always have with you?

H: A pair of sunglasses. Or prescription glasses, sometimes.

LPT: What is the SIRE man doing at two in the morning?

H: Either he’s at home watching a film or the eighth episode of a series in a row...

Or he’s closing down one bar before going to another party.

LPT: I love that. A brand you wish you’d created?

H: There are quite a few.

But if we’re choosing from the biggest and the best... Giorgio Armani.

LPT: Makes sense. Day or night?

H: Night.

LPT: Perfectly dressed or slightly wrong?

H: Slightly wrong.

LPT: One fabric you’ll never get tired of?

H: Cashmere. A wool-cashmere cloth.

LPT: Now, five words. One word for Paris?

H: Light.

LPT: One word for Tokyo?

H: Effervescence.

LPT: One word for Hugo?

H: Focus.

LPT: One word for me?

H: Successful.

LPT: Thank you! And your favourite word?

H: I like ribambelle.

LPT: What does that mean?

H: It’s a collection, an accumulation of things.

For example, une ribambelle de gens. It means there are loads of people in a room.

LPT: Okay. I think we’re good.

You can discover SIRE’s collection (gorgeous!) HERE and follow along on Instagram here.

LAST PEOPLE THERE is an independent editorial project exploring art, fashion, design, architecture, and the people behind things. A collection of conversations, observations, objects, and places. We go to vernissages and notice the wrong things.

I met Valentina over a bottle of wine in Paris, and we ended up talking about almost everything except what I had originally planned. New York, Amsterdam, sisters, stolen clothes, hamburgers, Jane Birkin, painting, growing up, making mistakes, and the very serious business of having an imagination.

Valentina is one of those people who can spend hours inside her own head without getting bored. She tells me about crying in front of a Kandinsky painting when she was twelve, borrowing her older sister’s personality whenever she needs a little courage, and hiding her own paintings because having someone look at them feels almost like standing naked in front of a stranger. I find all of this terribly interesting.

We also talk about the cities we choose, the people we steal little pieces of ourselves from, and whether being happy sometimes makes us less interesting artists. Somewhere along the way, Paloma gets involved, we discuss the emotional significance of a really good burger, and the conversation becomes something quite different from an interview.

I think that’s what I like most about doing this. You sit down wanting to know certain things about someone, and you leave with a hundred things you didn’t even know you wanted to ask.

Anyway, this is Valentina. Or at least, a little bit of what goes on inside her head.

A DOG, A BOTTLE OF WINE, AND A MEETING PLACE

Y: Ok, let’s order a glass of wine.

V: We can take a bottle. I always take a bottle. Off the record.

Y: This place feels very Milan, but also a little Parisian.

V: Is red okay?

Y: I only like red.

V: Okay, fantastic.

Y: Ok. So, a question I always like to ask: why this place? Why this time?

V: My roommate, who is one of my closest friends, lived on this street, so we’ve always come here. It’s close to both of us and to another friend whom I would come here with a lot, who used to live here. So it’s the perfect place to meet. The atmosphere is lovely. You feel very at home because it has something Italian about it, but it’s French too.

BETWEEN PARIS AND NEW YORK

V: It’s almost a little touristy, but I think that’s part of what makes it nice.

Y: And how long have you been in Paris?

V: Since last September, and now I have to decide whether to go to New York next September or stay in Paris.

Y: For work?

V: For work, because I graduate in June. I did my first year in Amsterdam and I studied Global Arts, Culture and Politics, which is more philosophy, sociology, and all of those things. It’s super interesting because I adore philosophy, I find it fascinating. But I wanted to do something a little more practical, more art history, more art in general, the art market. So I found this university, and I already had all my friends here in Paris, so I immediately thought okay Paris... And you, have you been in Paris for a long time?

Y: For two years.

V: Oh okay, two years, okay, okay.

V: And how did you make that decision? What was the...

Y: Because I knew I wanted to live here, because I actually had to live here.

AN ORDINARY DAY, MORE OR LESS

Y: What’s your typical day like?

V: I wake up five minutes after my alarm, while the phone is already ringing, and realize I’m late. So obviously I have to get ready in a hurry. I go to uni, every day from nine or ten until five. And sometimes, like twice a week, I have French too, so I finish around seven. Actually, yesterday I skipped.

Y: I feel tired already, so happy the wine arrived I need it.

V: Wine fixes everything.

A CITY AND A BOTTLE OF WINE

Y: When did you realize this?

V: When did I realize that wine fixes everything?

I used to live in Amsterdam which to me is a little village, and you’re doing very wholesome things with your friends. And then night comes, and it’s like havoc. I think Paris has a similar drinking culture to, like, Italy. For example, when there’s an in-between, but I feel, I love drinking wine. I love wine. It makes me happier to share a bottle of wine with someone than to just have a drink, or drink a beer.

READ WHATEVER YOU WANT

V: Sorry, I keep on getting sidetracked. I wanted to fully answer your question on my day.

I forgot to mention I go to uni and just mind my own business, or I read my Kindle. I actually bring my Kindle to uni and I just read the whole time. Because I feel like a lot of the things they can just upload it to a PowerPoint or something.

Y: You’re a big reader.

V: I absolutely love reading. But I also feel like people should read more what they actually enjoy.

I read something recently about people trying to dictate what everyone should read. And I think we’re at a moment where there’s a lot of people reading a lot and a lot of people not reading at all. So I think if you want to read, just read whatever you want. It could be, I don’t know, a book about fishing, a book about how to open your own restaurants, how to be more confident.

It’s the same with music and it’s the same with art. I don’t want to be staring at an art piece and trying to think about it for half an hour, to just, you know, prove something to the world. I want to look at something and enjoy it fully.

Y: The book that you sent me was City of Girls. Are you still reading it?

V: No, I finished it a while ago, like a year ago. But it’s a book that really changed me because it talks about this girl, her name is Vivian Morris. And she’s living in New York.

And it’s a lot about her discovering herself and living her own life and making a bunch of mistakes, very big ones, huge ones. I just love reading about people making mistakes because no one ever talks about mistakes. I think no one ever talks about, you know, fucking up or treating someone badly or all these things. Everyone talks about, I don’t know, oh, this situationship, this internship; everyone tries to put the front that they want to show to the world. But she really is truly herself. It’s very natural in that sense.

GIRLS, MISTAKES, AND FICTIONAL WOMEN

Y: If you could spend a weekend - an absolutely chaotic weekend - making mistakes with three women of your choice, who would they be and why?

V: Holly from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Jane Birkin, and Dakota Johnson because I love her dry humor. And I think this weekend would have to happen in New York City.

NEW YORK CAN BE ANYTHING

V: I love New York. It’s a city you can live in a thousand different ways. Based on your life, your people, your emotional state, your intellectual preferences, your cultural background. Whatever, it can be so many different things! I think it’s a place where your personality really shows itself.

You can have everything in New York. Chinese food at 6 a.m, you want to party until 4 on a Tuesday you can party until 4 on Tuesday.

Y: I’m excited about your New York address book.

V: To me a lot places in New York are underrated and overrated at the same time, depending on what moment of the day it is or how the crowd is.

Because I feel like in Paris if you go to a certain spot you know that you’re going to get a certain experience, and in New York if you go to a certain spot a lot of the times you get a completely different experience than the last week you went there.

One thing you should know: I have a burger hierarchy in New York. I love burgers so much. I also love sushi, I think if I could eat one cuisine for the rest of my life it would be Japanese food, but burgers just touch a specific part of my soul.

SISTERS AND THE PEOPLE WHO KNOW US

V: The moment I land, I need to have a 7th street burger. A very greasy delicious burger, hard to describe because there’s nothing quite like it, and the fries are perfectly crispy but soft on the inside.

I’m a huge foodie, and my sister too. My sister is a big part of my life, I love talking about my sister, like I could talk about my sister every day.

When she’s in the room you can really feel her presence, she can talk to anyone and she’s the person who, regardless of the conversation, you are listening to her because it’s just the way she is. It’s her aura.

I love asking people this question, so I will ask you this question as well.

If you lost your memory, didn’t know your name, your last name, nothing, your experiences, and you had to pick one person to tell you about your whole life, who would it be?

Y: My sister. I love her so much - she’s everything, she’s my babysitter, she’s my accountant, my manager. My therapist.

V: I don’t know who I would be without my sister. Does your sister live in Paris?

Y: Yes but we don’t live together We live at like 5 minutes distance.

V: That’s so nice. Oh my god I’m so jealous of you.

I’m so jealous, I can’t wait to be close to my sister.

LIVING INSIDE YOUR HEAD

Y: I have a question because it took me 45 minutes by walk to get here and I listened to music the entire time, but maybe too much and then I felt nauseous. I realize I always have background noise, when I’m cooking (pretending to cook), commuting, writing, etc. I can’t disconnect. Do you ever. disconnect daily?

V: 90% of the time of my day I’m disconnected.

Y: I’m so jealous.

V: I’m in my own world.

Y: So you walk without music and stuff?

V: Yes. I don’t know, I have a lot of imagination.

Y: I love that.

V: And I just entertain myself.

Y: Where does your imagination take you?

I think about a lot of ideas, I think about people and the way they influence me or the way I might have influenced them. I love thinking about my choices and my future choices, I love hyper analyzing every single thing in my life. I think sometimes because when something difficult happens in my life I tend to rationalize it before I even feel it.

PAINTING, FEELING, AND CONTROL

V: I love painting. I used to paint a lot. If I start, I can’t stop painting until it’s finished - so the moment I sit down, I know that it’s going to be like a 10 hour thing it doesn’t matter if it’s 8pm, it doesn’t matter if it’s 10am, I’m cancelling on all my plans to paint and I’m not stopping before I get my spark back.

Most of the times it works.

Y: Do you keep your paintings here in Paris?

V: I have a lot of them in Italy but I don’t like looking at them too much.

And I keep them kind of hidden away because I feel like it’s very.. I feel naked when someone looks at my paintings.

A PURPLE OUTFIT AND A BORROWED PERSONALITY

Y: Why didn’t you bring anything here?

V: Partially because I have a lot of clothes.

Y: It happens to me a lot. I’m thinking of that purple corset you showed me a picture of, what’s the story behind it?

V: I was when I was living in Amsterdam and I needed a Halloween costume and my sister buys a lot of stuff - her wardrobe is beyond the size of anything you could imagine. I was like oh I need a Halloween costume I don’t really know what to wear, and she kind of started scavenging through her closet and found this purple corset. I was like “oh my god this is me, in a piece of clothing”. I so I took it and I wore it and she was like you know what, you keep it.

Y: You stole her mug.

V: I stole her mug, I steal her personality at times. Her confidence.

I love channeling my inner Isabella.

IF YOU WERE A FASHION HOUSE

V: I think my mom has a huge impact on my style, but also my dad as well. My mom has a very modern look but also kind of classic.

And then my roommate. She’s my style icon, I love her so much. She has an insane taste but everything she wears you know that it’s her. I love looking at people and every outfit that they wear whether it’s super elegant or super laid back or going to the gym or going to run an errand whatever, you can tell that their outfit is theirs.

That’s what I’m trying to achieve.

I asked her this question, if you were one brand, what brand would you be? We were talking about it for half an hour, she eventually said Dolce Gabbana. Then I asked her okay, what would you say if I asked you this question, and she said Etro and Ralph Lauren nice.

Y: I love this combination, because one is all about patterns, which is what you’re wearing, but there’s this classic RL touch you have too.

V: For you, I think you would be like Tom Ford or YSL.

ART THAT MAKES YOU CRY

V: I get so inspired by fashion, and art.

Y: I’m interested in the first thing you ever look at that made you go like, “wow, I’m feeling something”.

V: This Kandinsky piece, when I was I think 12 years old.

I remember just standing there, I started crying.

I discovered later in life that Kandinsky was really into philosophy, and he really cared about how viewers reacted to his paintings. He wanted people to react the same way you would cry to an opera or a piece from Beethoven, or whatever, so I just started hysterically crying and, that was the moment where I was like I need to make this part of my life what.

What’s yours?

Y: I cried when I saw this James Ensor painting I was obsessed with as a teenager, it was the cover of my French copy of Animal Farm. I lived Brussels for nine months and you know he’s Flemish they were doing an exhibition at Bozar. Same thing when I discovered Leonora Carrington at a tiny exhibit at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.

RAPID FIRE

Y: This is me asking you questions where you give me a straight answer.

V: Yeah.

Y: What’s something slightly embarrassing that you find chic?

V: Having I think baby rash cream as a part of my skincare routine.

Y: I actually use baby shampoo. I don’t know if it’s like cleansing my hair properly but I wash it everyday so yeah.

V: Me too.

Y: Would you rather read someone’s diary or their entire search history?

V: I think the search history is crazy.

Y: What fictional woman would be a nightmare to have as a roommate?

V: Rory Gilmour. Or maybe Carrie Bradshaw. She’s so toxic. Imagine you come home, and you’re like my boyfriend of four years just broke up with me yeah and then Carrie Bradshaw is like BIG IS MOVING TO PARIS.

Y: A song that makes you feel attractive?

V: Pearls by Sade.

Y: What’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever done to impress someone?

V: I think I try to stick true to myself.

Y: A piece of clothing that should be illegal? Lol.

V: I think maybe, ugly socks!

Y: If your life was a movie, what would its title be?

V: Lost in translation. I love the movie.

Y: Let’s move to your address book.

V: Okay.

Y: A café where you could spend three hours doing absolutely nothing?

THE ADDRESS BOOK

V: Bistro St Dominique!

Y: Your best friend just broke up and she’s depressed, where are you taking her?

V: It has to be a place where she forgets, but at the same time, I don’t know if I would want her to completely lose herself in her breakup. I’ve done that. It’s not ideal.

In New York, I think I’d take her for a drink and talk at Bar Pisellino.

Y: A restaurant for a date you’re not entirely sure is a date?

V: That’s a crazy question.

I feel like the obvious answer would be like Balto, Mazarin but I feel like. Good for ambiguity.

Y: A museum or gallery that feels like it was made for you?

V: It would have to be a museum and it would have to be the Louvre because there’s everything; you can walk around for ten hours.

Y: Any weird thing you do that you’d like to share?

V: Um, I drink the water from pickles.

Y: What?

V: Yes, sometimes I don’t know what to eat and I love salty foods so I kind of like drink the water from the pickle jar. And I love making martinis so I make pickle-tinis, instead of the olive I do pickle.

I love pickles.

THEORY, BOOKS, AND WHAT WE DO NOT KNOW

V: I’m also obsessed with like cultural theory. I studied it in uni the first year in Amsterdam. And also architectural theory and I love how it’s based on human needs; and philosophy, of course.

There’s so much to learn, I think the one thing that people need to be doing more is realizing that they don’t know anything and they need to expand; they need to learn, they need to read.

I think art just does that and what you’re doing right now, I think does that a lot.

Y: Thank you!

ONE WORD FOR EVERYTHING

Y: One word for Vale?

V: Vale.

Y: One word for me.

V: For you, I would say... Vulnerable.

Y: That’s super nice.

Y: And last question, your favorite word in any language?

V: Ecstasy.

Palomita Office is an independent editorial project built around conversations with people whose brains I desperately want access to for an hour. Friends, strangers, artists, people behind places I love, and people I simply find fascinating. It’s a growing archive of people, places and all the little things we choose to keep.

episode 1

I met Armand during our university years, when we were studying similar things in different cities: him at Sciences Po in Paris, me in Rome.

My earliest memory of him is seeing him on a bus, completely absorbed in a huge Gabriel García Márquez book - I can’t remember if it was Love in The Time of Cholera or One Hundred Years of Solitude. I thought, “impressive”, partly because I get nauseous if I try to read in a moving vehicle, but mostly because for some reason something about Arrmand reading on the bus felt impossibly French.

Years later, when I came back to Paris in 2023, I stayed at his apartment. Through him and that house, I discovered a part of Paris I barely knew: the 11th arrondissement. Until then, my Paris had mostly been the Paris I knew through my family, around the 1st and the 6th. Armand’s Paris was different. Faster, younger, more lived-in. I remember being completely useless in the métro and him essentially telling me that if I wanted to live in Paris, I had to learn to move.

He grew up in Brittany but, somehow, I have always associated him with a certain kind of Parisian man. He reads philosophy, cares about clothes, thinks entrepreneurially, knows his city, and seems permanently interested in ideas and in what can be built from them. We took a class together on Business and Political Economy of the Middle East and remember thinking how smart he was.

So I wanted to return to the apartment where I rediscovered Paris and ask him about all of it.

We meet at Les Acolytes, in the 10th arrondissement. It’s where I had my first breakfast alone in Paris, back in October 2023, when I came for a little trip and was staying at Armand’s place.

Y: Okay, we’re recording.

A: I love it. Allez. Sorry - I still haven’t sent you the photos, but I needed to be at Margaux’s. There’s nothing at my place that I actually like.

Y: It’s okay, take your time.

A: But I already have loads of ideas. Tell me first, where did all of this come from? Honestly, it’s the most brilliant thing I’ve heard about in a long time.

I order a glass of red. He orders “a mineral, slightly dry white wine.”

Y: Where did it come from? I don’t know. It’s not going to become my job, at least not now. I’ve spoken to people who told me it was brilliant, but also told me not to quit my job just yet. I give a different answer to this question every single time.

A: And that’s very good.

I explain to him that I’ve always loved reading interviews.

Y: I spent so much time listening to interviews from this programme on France Culture, or maybe France Inter, I can never remember, called Remède à la mélancolie, by Eva Bester. It was basically about remedies for melancholy. People would talk about their routines, their cultural references, the things that helped them. Unfortunately, she doesn’t do it anymore.

He writes the name down. Meanwhile, I pull out my printed copy of the questions I prepared for him.

Y: Do you remember when we first met? We were on a bus with other people from university, and you were sitting behind me. I remember you were reading this book, this huge tome, and I was there thinking, fuck, if I try to read on this bus I’m going to throw up. And he was just sitting there like this, completely fine. Then I looked at the book and realised it was in French, and I thought, okay, well, that explains it.

A: It does explain it.

Paris just isn’t that

Y: It felt impossibly French to me. And it’s funny that we ended up seeing each other again in Paris a few years later. You know, I always say that I’ve known Paris in two different periods, almost two different seasons. First when I used to come here with my parents as a child, and then when I came back as an adult. And that second version really started in October 2023, when I was living in Brussels and staying at your apartment. I remember arriving in the 11th like that, and I didn’t know the neighbourhood at all. For me, Paris was Saint-Germain and the Marais…

A: Yes, I understand. Which is nice, but Paris isn’t just that.

Y: I wanted to ask you about that. You’re not originally from Paris, so what was your first encounter with the city like?

A: I used to come quite often with my parents, but we came to visit museums. The big museums. And it was an absolute nightmare for me. I remember this one day when we had just finished visiting the Louvre, and we stopped for coffee somewhere. I can’t remember exactly where, maybe Café Marly, anyway. My mother asked me if I’d enjoyed it and I said, “Mum, this is the worst day of my life.” I must have been six or seven, something like that. So no, I don’t think I liked Paris that much. But later I rediscovered it through my brother Gabin, who brought me here. Honestly, I think I adapt quite easily and quite quickly to whatever environment I find myself in, so moving here didn’t change that much for me.

Y: You came here for your studies…

A: Yes, straight to Sciences Po. And straight into that apartment! We bought it when I started school, and it became a flatshare with my brothers, which was pretty extraordinary. Especially because they’re very important to me. Gabin is the brother I’m going to start my company with, so he’s obviously a very important person in my life.

Y: To me, you feel very Parisian. Did you read my question on the métro?

A: Yes! I read your reflection about the métro and I found it extremely interesting, because I’d never really asked myself, okay, am I Parisian or not? And then I realised that actually, I have asked myself that question before, but more as a social question than a geographical one. First of all, I don’t really know what “being Parisian” means. I was with a subcontractor recently who, geographically speaking, is much more Parisian than I am. He grew up in Aubervilliers, but at the same time, he doesn’t necessarily have all the codes people usually associate with what they mean when they say “Parisian.” I’ve even eaten at Chinese restaurants in Belleville that are way more Parisian than I am!! More broadly, I think the question is whether I fit the codes of the image we have of a Parisian. Thinking about it, the image we have of a Parisian is basically that of a bourgeois person who perhaps dresses a little better than everyone else. Overall, I think I identify more with a kind of highly educated bourgeoisie that lives at a pretty fast pace. It’s more that than being Parisian.

Do you live fast?

Y: When you say “lives at a fast pace,” you mean in everyday life?

A: Yes, in terms of rhythm.

Y: That’s what I was thinking about. When we took the métro, you told me, “Yasmina, you have to move,” and you grabbed me by my coat! You were like, you have to move, you have to weave through people, you have to go, you have to push. If you don’t push, they’ll push you. But now, I have to admit, I’m completely there. I bike, I run, I have lunch while rushing somewhere, quick pee break for Paloma, and then straight back to the office!

A: There you go.

Y: Do you live fast?

A: My life is basically a permanent race against the clock. Right now, technically, I’m unemployed. I’m supposed to have empty days, but in reality I’m already putting pressure on myself over what I’m building, my entrepreneurial project, before it’s even started, and I fill up my days. My life is about fitting as much work as possible into the hours I have, and whenever I have free time, I spend it socialising. And I squeeze in as much sport as I can.

Y: Off topic, but I think you need to give me an AI course. Although I’m completely avoiding it here for Palomita Office.

A: I think it’s extraordinary for structuring things. For structuring your thoughts first, and then developing them, it’s incredibly powerful.

Y: Can you tell me again about your entrepreneurial project?

A: I have two projects. I’m going to launch a plumbing business, and secondly I’m looking to acquire a company in the construction industry. Basically, all the guys who come to your house to fix something technical… that kind of thing. I’m doing it with my brother.

La Bretagne

Y: How many brothers do you have again?

A: I have four brothers. We all grew up together in Brittany. And actually, I find that fascinating too, because I grew up in a very close-knit family, but we lived in this absolutely hideous peri-urban suburb, basically the worst thing urban planning can produce. The questions you asked me about Brittany made me realise that my relationship with Brittany was mostly connected to holidays. We had a family house in Cancale, on the northern coast, which is absolutely extraordinary, and that’s where I spent my holidays. That’s really Brittany in my experience. Sure, there were galettes, okay, but in reality, where I actually grew up was just a peri-urban suburb. It could have been outside Montpellier and, apart from the difference between heat and rain, it would basically have been exactly the same. And that’s also where there’s a connection, or maybe a tension, with Paris. When I talk about my Parisian friends, it’s more about a kind of social experience than a geographical one. For me, “Parisians” are really people from a very privileged bourgeois background, whether they’re from London, Brussels, Beirut, wherever. Whereas what I associate with being Breton is having grown up in a middle-class environment where there was a bit of money.

Y: Let’s get less serious. A food, a smell, a place for Brittany?

A: Food, obviously, galettes. The smell of butter cooking. And if I think of Brittany as a place, I think more about Breton villages. I was there last week, in northern Brittany, and I love it. There are towns that are absolutely magical. Incredibly beautiful.

Y: I’ve never been to Brittany.

A: That’s okay, you have other qualities.

Armand’s Paris address book

Y: A café?

A: Off the top of my head, I’d say the café at the Maison de Victor Hugo, in the 4th. And Café Détours, which just opened in the 11th!

Y: For drinks?

A: Chez Jeannette.

Y: A bookshop?

A: Every few months, maybe every three or four, I go into a bookshop and buy ten books completely at random. I’d say the bookshop just downstairs from me, because I can go there so easily. Otherwise, I really like Librairie Gallimard on Boulevard Raspail, and L’Écume des Pages in the 6th!

Y: I do that too. I feel like I come back to life when I get home with ten books. Another thing I did recently was join the American Library in Paris, in the 7th, and you can get a membership. It’s near my place.

A: Amazing. But I love buying books. I just can’t… The idea of having to return them would feel like giving away a piece of my heart.

Y: I have loads of books and I need to get rid of some of them, so I’ve started giving them to my Palomita Office guests. For you, I thought of this one. I hope you haven’t read it!

I pull out a very well-worn copy of Les Enchanteurs by Romain Gary.

A: I love it!

Y: This book reminds me a little of Gabriel García Márquez.

A: I love Romain Gary. He’s a man who lived a thousand lives, he’s extraordinary.

Y: Last question about Paris… your ideal Sunday in Paris?

A: Waking up after a night out, ideally make love first thing in the morning, except my girlfriend is currently in Cambodia, then complaining because she’s moving around, then actually getting ourselves moving, going out for lunch, and definitely not brunch. I’m not anti-brunch, but it kind of annoys me. What’s the point? Ideally, I’d have lunch in the sun at Chez Jeannette. That would be amazing. Then in the afternoon I’d do a bit of sport, either go for a run or play tennis with a friend in the 18th. With Loup-Neal. Then finish with a long, lingering coffee on a terrace, feeling just a little low on energy, the kind of tiredness you’ve earned. Or go to mass with my friend.

Y: What have your Sundays looked like lately?

A: I’m away every weekend and I’m not working, so I have absolutely no idea what day it is. For all I know, today could be Sunday! As it happens, last Sunday I was out running in Brittany with a friend. It rained like crazy and it was brilliant.

If youl like reading this you can tell Armand he’s so cool by texting him on Instagram it’s armand.beaudor !

Episode 2 coming soooooooon :)

file 6

episode 1

Sparkly socks

Meanwhile, I compliment her outfit. She’s wearing loafers with sparkly socks. She tells me that the socks are kind of her thing, and that she owns around ten pairs of the same ones, bought somewhere random in Spain.

D: I think socks are important. And sparkling socks are my thing. I don’t have many but I feel I have like 10 of them. I don’t even know where I get them, some shop in Spain. I don’t know, we have them a lot.

I wouldn’t spend a lot on fancy socks, but I think they’re super important. I have some striped socks that I like. I’ll wear an all-black outfit and then fun socks, and that’s cool to me. In winter, that’s my shit. Fun socks.

Y: Do you prefer winter or summer outfits?

D: That’s hard. I like the simplicity of a summer outfit. Cause I’m very basic. You can just throw on a dress and look cool.

I don’t want to say “chic”

Y: Okay, let’s talk about what you’re wearing. And Madrid. You’re from Madrid. I lived in Madrid three summers ago with one of my closest friends and I remember we always had conversations about the “Madrid-girl style”. And I feel like I have a strong opinion about that. I want to know yours.

D: Yes.

Y: Another close friend of mine, from Madrid, once told me something like “girls from Madrid are super elegant but sometimes they dress like clowns”. I think he meant that about the mixing of the patterns and the colours. How do you feel about this affirmation?

Also because, I never saw you very, very colorful and stuff and, like, mix-matching patterns a bit.

D: It just really doesn’t suit me.

Y: I think the same for me, every time I try to rock that, I look like I’m a child. Like I love also Vic Montanari, but I couldn’t dress like her, it’s just not my thing.

D: Yeah. Madrid girl can look a bit like Portuguese girl!

Y: I love Portuguese people so much.

D: I know that.

Anyway, your question.

I have a strong opinion on this.

This is one of the biggest Roman Empires in my brain. In Spain, and I don’t know if you picked up on it when you were there, there’s this specific style, which is called Cayetanita. I don’t even really know if there’s a French equivalent. A little bit posh but very specific. And it’s a bit wannabe.

And it’s crazy because to me they all look the same. But like, in extreme ways.

I see it in my sisters. I feel like a person who’s in Madrid and in the university life just, like, gravitates towards that. And I get some parts. Like, if you take specific pieces, I would wear. But I find the styling boring to me.

But I have a lot of friends who rock this style and I love them!

Y: Yes, when I was living with my friend all her wardrobe was like this. It was fascinating, checkered dresses, long skirts.

D: But anyways! I think it’s not that deep!

Vinted knows me pretty well

Y: What’s your Vinted algorithm right now? Mine is a lot of vintage La Perla, Agent Provocateur. I love lace and silk for some reason. I love what you’re wearing, it’s like one of those silk camisoles with lace details. And I love how sometimes at work you’re wearing basics, but you just know how to rock them and look so classy in them.

D: Basically what I have on my Vinted is like vintage 501 Levi’s specifically in white and in black. Both women and men’s. Waist size 30 for me or length whatever, I don’t care. And for my boyfriend waist size 34 I think and length 33.

Cause I’m obsessed obsessed obsessed with vintage Levi’s so much. Like they’re just so perfect and so comfortable and I love them so much.

My Vinted always has kind of basic tops! That I’m not super proud of…

I love basics so much. Not the best answer, cause you know, fast fashion, but I swear by Uniqlo. White black tops. What else? Some Brandy Melville basics pretty good. Brandy Melville long sleeve tops are always a good idea and they’re on my Vinted feed for like 5 euros.

Also! Ballet flats! No shocker. Like I’m always looking for different ballet flats, either some sort of print, or I don’t know, pony hair ballet flats, or classic black, because I always need a classic black.

Then you have the occasional random bag. And then when it starts getting cold I will have leather jackets on there. Because I still don’t own a perfect leather bomber jacket or a suede big oversized jacket, can you believe this? Every winter I try to look for the perfect one and I don’t have one!

That’s basically my Vinted and I love it. It’s an obsession and it knows me so wellll. Like I said I click on that app and I’m spending twenty minutes on there which is bad but I just love it so so so much.

I don’t think I’m ever gonna go back to retail shopping in person…. Girl I’m not stepping foot in a store I think ever again.

Y: Same, I hate to say this because of the hate of the whole Brandy Melville scandal but they have so good cotton… Any vintage stores you like in Paris?

D: I love to look at vintage stores as galleries. It’s archival. I don’t know exactly the name but there’s one near The Frankie Shop, super small and I love it.

It’s very chic. Actually I don’t want to say chic because I hate this trend going on like kinda chic… so I’m gonna say elegant.

The cow-print bag

Y: I’m also obsessed with my phone. And your bag.

I’ve seen her carry this cow print medium size a few times at the office now. I’m intrigued.

What’s in it?

D: My phone. Wired headphones. Navigo. My wallet pouch. Keys. And then I have an umbrella. And I have the work phone that I didn’t take out. I always need this bag.

This is vintage from my mom. She wanted to throw it away, and I was like, “Fuck no.” I’m taking it. And then it’s just comfortable and it fits everything and it’s cute. Like, yeah, I feel like since I’m always wearing black or white or, like, jeans...

Y: Yeah.

D: I need some sort of color and this does that. And overall it’s just comfy!

Clothes I’m always looking at, but not in a judgmental way

Y: What’s something you’re very good at noticing? Apart from this. Like people, clothes, spaces?

D: Clothes I’m always looking at. Spaces, I love. Not in a judgmental way.

Y: No, never.

D: Before, in the metro, I’m just looking around, seeing what people wear, with what. It’s so interesting for me. Just looking how people match certain clothes that I wouldn’t necessarily put together. How people walk. How they carry themselves. I think that’s super interesting.

Y: Do you look at people’s shoes?

D: A lot.

Y: Did I tell you this? You sent me a photo of your shoes and I was like, “Why shoes?” Also this is super interesting for me because I’m going to go work for a literal shoe brand.

D: Shoes are my favorite thing, category. My mom says that when I was a baby, I would look at people’s shoes in the streets. And I’ve always been obsessed with them.

Y: Do you think you’re different versions of yourself when you wear a different pair of shoes? Because I really do.

D: Yes!!

Y: The me in a ballerina is not me in my Saint Laurent ankle booties. I’m like, you know, this kind of innocent intellectual girl with my ballerinas, and then I’m like this rocker that goes to very late parties.

D: I love this. Each one is a different vibe.

episode 1

Diana and I are actually quite similar in a lot of ways. We both like people, places, plans, going out, discovering things, having something to look forward to. I think we just express it a little differently.

She has this very natural enthusiasm for things. For people, for places, for dinners, for plans. She can make something very simple feel like an event, even when it’s just lunch at home on a gloomy Sunday. I think I’m more likely to overthink things, dissect them, turn them into questions. Diana has a way of just living them.

We also share this slightly complicated relationship with Paris. We both love it, but not in a blind way. We have our favourite streets, our comfort zones, our places we keep going back to. We both talk about neighbourhoods as if they have personalities, and probably attach far too much meaning to where we have coffee (Diana has chai).

What I love about her is that she makes things feel easy. Conversation with her moves quickly. One minute we’re talking about cities and growing up, then clothes, then relationships, then where to get a chai, then suddenly I’m upstairs photographing her wardrobe.

There’s something very generous about the way she lets people into her world. Her home, her table, her routines, her recommendations, her stories. I think that’s why interviewing her never really felt like interviewing her.

It just felt like spending an afternoon with Didi, except this time I happened to bring a recorder.

Diana is the first at-home interview I do, which already makes it feel slightly different. I go to her place for lunch on a Sunday afternoon. It’s gloomy outside, very Paris-doesn’t-really-know-what-season-it-is. I take my bike and cycle to the 8th, only to discover that the Champs are blocked. Extremely irritating. Minor logistical drama before lunch.

The first part of the interview happens while Diana is preparing food, which I immediately like. Nothing ceremonial, nothing staged. She makes a salad with salmon and feta, which, weirdly enough, is exactly what I had been craving for lunch. Good start.

We talk while she moves around the kitchen, and from the beginning she’s incredibly enthusiastic. About the questions, about the conversation, about showing me things. There’s something very easy about it. It feels less like sitting someone down for an interview and more like I’ve accidentally brought a recorder into a Sunday lunch.

Y: Pretend the recorder is not here.

D: Sure.

Y: When I was preparing the interview, I had to remind myself of all the cities you’ve lived in over the past four years.

D: There have definitely been quite a few! Through university, I had the opportunity to live in Milan, Turin, Madrid, London and Paris. I could have done another semester in Berlin too, I think, but I said no. At some point I just thought, enough. Now I’ve been more or less settled in Paris for three years.

Y: I travelled a lot as a child and while growing up, and people often ask me whether living in so many different places changed me. I always say no. What changed me were the people I met and my interpersonal relationships.

D: That’s true, but I also think that depending on where you live, you meet very different kinds of people, and those people can make you grow more or less. I would say that, fundamentally, I’ve always been more or less the same person. I’ve always been very euphoric, someone who likes going out and having fun.

In Milan, I was that person to the extreme. There was no such thing as staying home on a Saturday night. Sometimes I would go out simply because staying home felt strange to me. I think I stayed like that in Turin, and during my first semester in Madrid too. Madrid is such a lively city, everyone is always outside, and I naturally followed that mood.

London was probably the moment when La Didi calmed down a little. I still go out, have fun, organise dinners, but I can also say no now. I can spend a weekend at home and be perfectly happy being quieter.

Y: Did you have FOMO?

D: When I was in Madrid, Turin or Milan, it wasn’t FOMO in the sense of, “Oh my God, I absolutely need to do this thing.” It was more like, “It’s the weekend, I have to go out. Staying home simply isn’t an option.”

I would genuinely get anxious at the idea of staying home and watching a film. Completely out of the question! I had to go out, or at least have people over and do something at home.

Y: You host a lot of dinners at home.

D: I love having people over.

Y: And you have an amazing apartment.

D: I try to use it as much as possible, including the terrace. And in general I really, really love inviting people over. I think it’s such a nice thing to do.

Y: Where does Paris sit compared to all the other cities?

D: I think Paris was another step entirely. When I started university, I started it with the goal of eventually coming to Paris. Paris had always been my final destination. I had always had this love for the city, and I knew I wanted to live here.

So when I finally arrived, I was incredibly excited, like a child in a sweet shop. And because my sister was already living here, I had always found excuses to come and visit her. Sometimes she would be at university during the day and I would just wander around Paris on my own. I loved it.

When I actually moved here, it was beautiful. I remember thinking, okay, I have to experience everything fully. But it felt different from before. It wasn’t, “I need to be outside all the time because otherwise I feel bad.” I could absolutely spend a whole weekend at home.

I wanted to go out because I was curious. There was so much curiosity.

Y: And does that curiosity stay, even after three years? I’m always slightly afraid of falling into a comfort zone. Then I remember that Paris is full of completely different places and arrondissements.

D: Absolutely. Obviously, because it’s convenient, I also started going back to the same places all the time: Saint-Germain, the 7th… the places inside my comfort zone. Like a lot of people, I would say Mazarin and Balto are definitely part of mine. I love them.

There was also a period when my comfort zone, and actually it still is, especially on Sundays, was the Marais and Café Hugo, sitting under the arcade. If I’m with one particular friend and I just want to see her, feel comfortable and sit somewhere familiar without necessarily running into loads of other people, that’s where I go.

And then I remember that at the time so many of my friends lived in the Marais too. I think I might even have suggested we meet there once!

Y: Any places you’ve discovered recently?

D: I’d really like to get to know the 11th better. The problem is that I’m very, very lazy, and for me the 11th is genuinely inconvenient. If someone tells me we’re having dinner there, or if it’s already planned, fine… but otherwise I’ll always choose somewhere closer.

I’m also becoming really curious about the 9th. It feels very young, and I went to this place there once with my boyfriend and we ate incredibly well. It’s called La Boule Rouge. It’s really nice for a girls’ night, but also a little romantic if you’re going on a date.

Y: Can we have Didi’s Paris address book?

D: Go.

Y: A place to have a coffee when you actually have time?

First of all, I’m not really a coffee person, I’m a chai person. I barely drink coffee anymore since I discovered chai last year. Before that, I didn’t even know what it was.

Otherwise, tea with milk, always. Every time I see a coffee shop with chai latte, I go in, so I’m slowly trying all of them. The Marais has loads, and so does the area around my office in the 1st and 2nd.

I like getting one and drinking it at Palais Royal.

Another place where I used to meet my friends all the time last year is Le Fumoir, near Louvre-Rivoli, right on the corner. I had lunch there once too. The food isn’t amazing, but the location is really strategic because you’re close to the Marais, and you’re also not far from Saint-Germain.

Y: A place for my next date? Which won’t be happening anytime soon because I’ve officially declared a break from men.

D: In the 9th, like I was saying, La Boule Rouge. Otherwise, Sugaar on Rue Gozlin. They also make really good cocktails. The raw dishes are great too, and I’m a huge fan of prawns.

Y: A place for girls’ night?

D: I love girls’ nights, and I love organising dinners. I actually have places saved specifically for girls’ nights that are different from the places I suggest when I’m organising mixed dinners.

One I really love because I adore the vibe opened a few years ago. It’s called Anahi, in the Marais. They serve meat and it’s really, really good.

But there are a thousand others. Tekès, and Safado in the 2nd, where they have live singing.

Y: A place for shopping?

I’m obsessed with this French brand, but fun fact, I actually discovered it in Italy, in the mountains. It’s called Maison Hotel.

There’s this tiny, tiny multi-brand boutique in the Marais that carries a lot of Maison Hotel pieces. And I love their little necklaces.

I’m not actually that much of an accessories person. I don’t really wear anything too bold. But this summer, for example, I bought some bangles and those became a must for the entire summer.

When it comes to jewellery, though, I don’t really follow trends. I also don’t really follow that whole idea that gold suits some people better and silver suits others better.

Y: I always mix them.

D: I have to say, I own much more gold than silver.

Y: Can we see your wardrobe?

D: Sure, let’s go up, follow me.

Wardrobe tour will be revealed in episode 2 :-)

episode 1

Apologies to everyone but the person I love the most on this Earth is my sister. She’s not my twin but to me she is. Okay.

I recorded the first episode of her interview in the most spontaneous way: we were waiting to be seated at this restaurant called Our House in the 1st, and as we say here, on se faisait chier, the wait was supposed to be 30 minutes max, yeah well we waited like 1 hour and a half. I’m a very quick eater but you can imagine after that wait how quickly I finished my food.

The first block of Yara’s interview was actually a rapid fire and I usually think of the questions for my rapid fires. This time, for the first time, I didn’t. I mean I did, but like on the spot.

Y1: Best neighbourhood in Paris?

Y2: 11th.

Wait, you mean neighbourhood or arrondissement?

Y1: Neighbourhood.

Y2: I’m gonna say the Marais.

Y1: Best sushi?

Y2: I really like it at Bar des Prés, Rue du Dragon, in the 6th.

Y1: Best pizza?

Y2: In Paris? I mean you’re asking the wrong city. I’d say Rori if you want it American-style.

Y1: Best pizza you’ve ever eaten in your life?

Y2: Concettina ai Tre Santi!!! In Naples.

Y1: A record when you’re heartbroken?

Y2: Sour by Olivia Rodrigo, 2021. Her first album. Listen to “traitor”, “happier”, and have a good crying sesh.

Y1: Best record when you’re stressed and you need to focus?

Y2: Good Riddance by Gracie Abrams!

Y1: Omg! Same, whenever I’m at the office and I need to lock in I just play it from start to finish.

Y2: Right? It’s perfect cause she’s just so depressed :-)

Y1: I swear, I’m not saying this because I’m recording, but it’s really THE record I’ll listen to when I can’t work and I need to focus. Ok, is it our turn yet or what? Anyways, books. The book you’re reading right now?

Y2: A book called Watermelon by Marian Keyes.

Y1: Do you track your reads?

Y2: No I couldn’t care less.

Y1: You don’t have Goodreads?

Y2: Couldn’t care less.

Y1: A book you bought but you genuinely could not read because, flemme?

Y2: Not flemme, because I really loved it, but just couldn’t finish because of time constraints: The Secret History by Donna Tartt.

Y1: I was sure you were going to say that. C’est archi long et c’est archi chiant.

Y2: No! Not at all, it’s super interesting but you really need time to read and read it in a consistent way because it’s just massive.

Y1: Question about Beirut. A neighbourhood in this city where you could spend all day?

Y2: Gemmayzeh!

Y1: And in Rome?

Y2: Maybe Monti?

Y1: Would you ever go back and live in Italy?

Y2: No, not to live there.

Y1: Where would you like to live?
Y2: London.

Y1: And apart from London?

Y2: London.

Y1: Give me another option girl.

Y2: Beirut.

Y1: What’s something people can’t tell about you - because you never share?

Y2: My whole life.

She then proceeds to share something I’m not going to share.

Y1: What’s the longest you can agree to waiting in line for a restaurant?
Y2: My boyfriend and I waited for an hour and thirty minutes for a frozen yogurt at a place in London. But we were also ridiculous. I forgot the name of the place and it just opened. It was so good though! It’s Australian.

Y1: I’ll google it.

Y2: No - found the name, it’s Yo-Chi, it’s so good but it’s the decadent version of the frozen yogurt, with all the snacks and all.

Y1: Yeah not for me.

Y2: Yeah but you can make it healthy.

Y1: Omg I just remembered Pinkberry. Remember Pinkberry????

Y2: Of course. They have one in London.

Y1: I want açaí. Best one in Paris?

Y2: Açaí and You in the 6th.

Y1: The one in the hood?

Y2: Yeah.

Y1: But the place is so ugly.

Y2: Yeah but you shouldn’t care, the açaí is really good.

Y1: Ok. The film you watch when you want to laugh?

Y2: 21 Jump Street. Very funny. Another one is The Dictator. I went through a Sacha Baron Cohen rabbit hole recently so anything with him.

Y1: Your go-to nail colour?

Y2: Recently I’ve been loving nudes, almost transparent. But usually black.

Y1: What’s a fashion trend you just cannot f. with?

Y2: Paloma Wool.

Y1: Scuse me. Why?

I love Paloma Wool so f. much so I unilaterally decided to censor her answer.

Y1: Yeah I’ll cut this. A trend that’s a trend that you’re obsessed with?

Y2: I love putting glitter stickers on cups.

Y1: On cups??

Y2: Yes! Coffee cups, matcha cups. There’s this café in the Marais that does a figue bedazzled matcha and it’s so good.

Y1: Bedazzled you mean with stickers?

Y2: Yes.

Y1: How the heck do you find these places?

Y2: Hehe.

Y1: Do you ever experience FOMO?

Y2: Only in regards to 2 friends. They know who they are.

Y1: What do you do when you’re going through FOMO?

Y2: I listen to Olivia Rodrigo and specifically “maggots for brains”.

Y1: If you could talk to her, what are three questions you would ask her?

Y2: Why do men treat you so badly when you’re so precious and loving?

Y1: Taking this one personally.

Y2: Of course you do. Question 2, how was experiencing London as a lover girl? And finally, why did you break up? What did he do?

Y1: Do you believe in souls that are “interconnected”? Lol.

Y2: You mean red string theory? Yes.

Y1: Three questions to Gracie Abrams?

Y2: Why are you a dick to your mother?

Y1: What’s a song from Daughter from Hell that you didn’t particularly like when you first listened to it but then enjoyed it more when you gave it a second listen?

Y2: I think I didn’t really like “Broke My Heart” because it reminded me of Taylor Swift and I hate Taylor Swift. The beginning is very similar to Taylor Swift’s songs. But the song is actually so cool! And hearing the live version just made it better.

She proceeds to remind me that we’re going to her concert sometime next April. I had forgotten.

Y1: The song I used to skip from that album was “Imaginary Friend”. Now I love it so much. When she says - don’t be a figment of my imagination, but you are and I fucking hate it! Off topic can you do my eyebrows sometime?

Y2: Why can’t you just go to the lady that threads them?

Y1: Cause I’m broke. Ok we’re gonna stop and hopefully eat soon.

Episode 2 💋 coming soon if she will let me

I’m very afraid of hypocrisy. It’s one of the things that scares me the most. I realise there’s so much of it around and, unfortunately, sometimes it’s almost ingrained in our society. Sometimes you have to be hypocritical to get things in life. It’s very sad, but it’s the way things are done.

I remember once I did this exercise about figuring out what my values were, and I remember that I had to list and possibly rank all the things that, in my opinion, were my values. And we never did this counter-exercise about the things that were the most distant from my values!

I think hypocrisy was, like, number one. Top of the list. I don’t want to say I hate hypocritical people, because unfortunately there are so many, and I don’t want to hate so much. Hate is already bad. I hate that I hate things.

But I’m trying to minimise the things and people I hate.

I understand why we sometimes need to be hypocritical, but it makes me so sad and mad, so I really try not to be mad.

You know me. I will disappear if I think you’ve wronged me or if I think we don’t vibe anymore. I will unfollow. I will be a bitch. And then I’ll come back and say I’m sorry, and try to make up for the shit that I’ve done.

But I’ll never be a hypocrite.

And I think this is what makes me, possibly, crazy about this project. I’m really into pure, sincere friendships. Like yes, maybe Didi, I got offended by something you did or said. Or yes, Didi, maybe I acted like a bitch and hurt your feelings.

I unfollowed so many people back in May, and then I felt so bad for unfollowing so many people. But I wasn’t seeing them! I wasn’t talking to them! Why do we have to be connected? We’re not friends if we’re not hanging out. We’re not friends if I’m not reaching out to you. We’re not friends if you’re not asking me how I am.

Regardless of this, now I’m actively following most of them back and saying, sorry, “I did that because I was a bitch.”

I think this is real friendship. When you’re not a hypocrite. When you’re honest. When you’re genuine, even if we’re fighting.

1. When I arrange my Google Drive Documents - habit, interface, IT WORKS (have some complaints to Google over recent updates though)

2. Farfetch - good quality clothes, trusted selection, FIDELITY SECTION

3. Justine Lévy - saved me through two breakups, met her, RIEN DE GRAVE (life motto)

4. Tracey Emin - I know Everyone She Ever Slept With, raw, fuck it energy, INSPIRED PALOMITA

5. Labyrinths and the concept of labyrinths - HARRY POTTER those who know know

6. The concept of spirals - the messy ones NOT bernouilli perfect spiral

7. Black nail polish on short nails, feet and hands - NOT chipped, rigorously manicured (sorry old school rockers)

8. The song Striptease by FKA Twigs - musical production, lyrics, RAW

9. Places where my phone does not work - Phone is work, phone is connection, phone does not work in massage parlour AMAZING

10. Recieving Palomita Office emails - DUH, people enjoy my project and SEND ME EMAILS

11. The Notes App omfg - messy, unclassified, everyone needs to just WRITE IT DOWN sometimes

12. Quirky tattoos! Silly tattoos! This man I adore has a coffee cup tattooed, one of my best friends has like “lobby boy lover boy”, I also love finger tattoos, I think of Camille Rowe’s Bowie in space and I love it so much. A friend has a tattoo about her boyfriend being a rockstar or something like that, another guy I find super cool has a tattoo of a song! - MOM I HAVE A TATTOO! Sorry. I’ll never tell yu where it is.

13. Lace and silk together - Sexy, feminine, LET’S BE SEXY AND FEMININE (more? sometimes?)

14. The concept of vintage archival pieces - clothes you like, they mean something, SINGULAR and unique

15. Olivetti shop in Venice (and Carlo Scarpa) - memories of a guy I loved, the architect is actually good (hey!), MY DESKTOP BACKGROUND

16. Fantasia (A) and Sleeping Beauty (B) - released on MY BIRTHDAY (A), connected with classical music (A), would LOVE to live in that world (B), they don’t make animation movies like they used to

17. Jewellery that is timeless - BUT NOT PEARLS, I mean the rings that I have had on for 15 years

18. The perfumes that I love! There are plenty but I love Sunny Side Up by Juliette Has a Gun, Super Cedar by Byredo, and the timeless Casmir by Chopard - I like when people can’t see me but can SMELL ME, also never leave the house without perfumes, I have got a long list of likes

19. I love very sad music, like this song by Daughter that wrecks me, it’s called Landfill. The lyrics break my heart and heal it at the same time. Counterproductive for most, WORKS FOR ME! It grounds me what can I say

20. Urbanism and urban planning - Shoutout to you, you know who you are! Faked it at first then it became a love of mine. LOOK IT UP, SOME CITIES SUCK! (Give a listen to Città podcast from Will Media, if you got time)

21. Hunters! I love them so much, not the most comfy shoes but I want some glossy ones. PALOMA ATE MINE! Bon appetit I guess, next time they’ll have glitter

22. Names ending in -el / -elle. Gabriel, Raphaël, Joelle, Yaël. J’aime trop and I don’t really know why - JUST YES! Reminds me of my favourite word: miel, just sweet

23. Biking through Paris at night - FREEEEEEEEEDOOOOM, especially great on my (ex) road bike and when you are going somewhere (or to someone) special

24. Thailand so much! Such a special place for me. My parents have a great life and lovely friends (happy rents happy life), I WOULD move to Bangkok, for the people for everything!

25. Design, and especially chairs and beds - Expos, fancy furniture, QUIRKY BEDS

26. Vernissages - free drinks (!!!!!!), new people, TALKS AND CONNECTIONS

27. The Louvre. Period. And also the song called The Louvre by Lorde! - MY sad walk spot, and my writing one

28. I love gems and minerals and amethyst and all the things - NOT a crystal girl, I wear them, also they’re STONES

For good measure, THINGS YAS HATES, also in no particular order but with VERY SPECIFIC reason

1. Apple stores - Ugh design all white and stressing, MY F BROKEN PHONE, cost of repairs (hello?????????)

2. Comparison and the weird desires it creates - especially towards ex-boyfriends’ exes. I hate IT hate IT. So stupid.

3. People who talk behind my back!! Do NOT ghost me (especially in a professional setting) and YES you can be blacklisted :-)

4. Technology that works against you! WORK YOU DAMN EXPENSIVE PHONE

5. Narcissists…….I hate to love them - to be clear I CAN spot them, still…

6. The concept of calorie counting and how much it can get into my brain - I do that. DO NOT DO THAT NOT INSPO

7. Uniqlo…. I’m sorry - unsexy, too basic. Only one person I know can rock Uniqlo pants ;)

8. People who either walk too close to me behind or in front of me when it’s too crowded and non li puoi superare - Obvious, hate you, just pass me

9. Plans that disappear - Just rude, I have to get organised, I HAVE STUFF TO DOOOOO. Also the excuses that come with it just ew,

10. When I’m badly dressed for the weather and I knew I was going to be badly dressed for the weather - Why did I ignore my instinct, WHY!!!!

11. Assholes and spiritually chopped people and unfortunately there are so many - Please FEEL things and be curious.

12. Any Ed Sheeran song – Perfect...... just no.

13. Having dry feet and cracked feet and going too long without a pedicure – not an obsession that originates from my subconscious, now is in my subconscious :|

14. When people take forever to answer me, whether it’s a situationship or a friend – WHO ARE YOU THE POPE? Also save me the useless late replies, I do not care now were you where two days ago.

15. People who call me too much. Please, it stresses me out. - TXT, or come over (unless you are half a world away).

16. A very heavy bag - I just think I need stuff. I do not. Repeat I DO NOT.

17. When I’m going somewhere and I think I know where I’m going but turns out I’ve been walking in the wrong direction, so I blame myself because I think I’m too smart to like outsmart Google Maps - Especially when I am with someone, the awkward U turn!

18. When ppl get too close to my dog or try to touch her in the street without asking and I think she hates that too. - Do not touch Paloma, she has a concept of personal space and she WILL bite you (she is a hunting dog DUH)

19. When I have so many ideas and my brain feels like it’s going to explode but I also love it, it’s part of what makes me me! – LOVE IT buttt, do not?

20. I hate having a splinter in my foot! I have one now and now it’s just there - Update: the splinter is now an integral part of my foot.

21. I hate Le Carrousel du Louvre, and maybe also Châtelet - Why do they exist, horrible, also why does Amazon deliver there ????,

22. Boys who are only interested in me for sex. I hate them. I have a brain u know? - Has happened a lot since going blonde (blondes do not NECESSARILY want to have more fun). Also, do NOT DM me for sex, ever (maybe).

23. Fashion Week FOMO - I am in Fashion and I do not keep up with all the shows, sorry, too many

24. Food courts, they give me a lot of stress... - leftover childhood trauma from Abu Dhabi

25. When I have to leave for work... the look in Paloma’s eyes – I WILL BE BACK

26. When someone I am in love with ghosts me!!! - Ghosting someone who you know has feelings for you is CRUEL, pick any other option please and thanks.

I think what I’ve slowly overcome is the fear that someone else’s distance says something definitive about my value.

I think one of my biggest fears has always been caring more than the other person. Not even necessarily being left, because sometimes people don’t really leave. Sometimes they stay half there: they come close, disappear, come back, make you feel wanted, then distant again. And I used to find that uncertainty incredibly destabilising because I would immediately wonder what I had done wrong, whether I had been too much, too available, too honest.

I’m also less afraid of saying what I want. I used to think there was something humiliating about asking someone, “Do you actually want to see me?” or “What is this?” because I thought needing clarity automatically put you in the weaker position. Now I think the opposite. I’d rather ask and risk hearing something I don’t like than spend weeks translating silence into ten different possible meanings.

I still get hurt, I still overthink, and I still want certain people to choose me. But I’m less afraid of not being chosen now, because I know I don’t have to lose myself just because someone else is unsure about me.

Pendant très longtemps j’ai eu très peur du rejet. Sous toutes ses formes.

Je pense que ce que j’ai lentement réussi à dépasser, c’est la peur que la distance de quelqu’un dise quelque chose de définitif sur ma valeur.

L’une de mes plus grandes peurs a toujours été de tenir plus à l’autre personne qu’elle ne tenait à moi. Pas forcément d’être quittée, parce que parfois, les gens ne partent pas vraiment. Parfois, ils restent à moitié là : ils se rapprochent, disparaissent, reviennent, te donnent l’impression d’être désirée, puis redeviennent distants. Et avant, cette incertitude me déstabilisait énormément, parce que je me demandais tout de suite ce que j’avais fait de mal, si j’avais été trop présente, trop disponible, trop honnête.

J’ai aussi moins peur de dire ce que je veux. Avant, je pensais qu’il y avait quelque chose d’humiliant à demander à quelqu’un : « Est-ce que tu as vraiment envie de me voir ? » ou « C’est quoi, nous ? », parce que je pensais que demander de la clarté te mettait automatiquement dans une position de faiblesse. Maintenant, je pense l’inverse. Je préfère demander et risquer d’entendre quelque chose qui ne me plaît pas plutôt que de passer des semaines à traduire un silence en dix significations possibles.

Je suis toujours blessée parfois, je réfléchis toujours trop, et j’ai toujours envie que certaines personnes me choisissent. Mais j’ai moins peur de ne pas être choisie maintenant, parce que je sais que je n’ai pas besoin de me perdre simplement parce que quelqu’un d’autre n’est pas sûr de moi.