“This book was born from the desire to capture the attention and love of a man”
In the last book, the author sifts through photographs of stars, from Patti Smith to Marcel Proust, intertwining fashion and culture. Precise style more than precise.
It is an ideal pantheon of artists who maintain a very personal relationship with clothing. WITH A detail that kills, a slightly precise style from Marcel Proust to RihannaFrançois Armanet and Élisabeth Quin tell us about Marilyn’s salons, Romy Schneider’s tights or Cary Grant’s costume… With pictures by Marvin Gaye, Foujita, Louise Bourgeois or Yayoi Kusama respond to lively, sharp texts, which crunch the stars through “killing detail”, an occasion for analysis, daydreaming, fictionalizing.
Lady Figaro. – How did you come up with the idea for this “precise style”?
Elizabeth Quin. – At the beginning of our relationship, François Armanet told me about his desire to write a book dedicated to the way artists took on a piece of clothing or dressed themselves to create a style that was then imitated by the general public. Then take out this photo for me Dolly Parton in gasoline, posing in his car with a pleated sock, completely victoriously taking on the flaw, the fragility, because the skin that wrinkles, for a woman, is to say that it is mortal… Fascinated by the idea, but also wanting to flatter François, if I may say so, I say: “Never mind, we’ll make a book!”
And the book was born?
Yes, we started sending each other photos of artists, from Proust with his cattleya to Mick Jagger marrying Bianca in his gandour. This book was born from a discussion, a bet and a desire to capture the attention and love of a man.
Could he be your trophy child, like the little boy Liz Taylor featured on the cover?
This photo makes our friends laugh, who pretend to see it as a transposition of our couple dynamic, which is a lie. I am clearly not a statuesque naiad, eager to prove that she has a flat stomach, who unwittingly invented the concept of a trophy child!
What is the killer detail?
It’s the diaper that sticks out. This picture shows our business well: retelling cultural facts in an unusual and humorous way, in this case the matrix Brangelinaor alas, parents who show off their offspring on YouTube.
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Can a detail therefore be emblematic of personality?
Yes, it is metonymic: the part is worth the whole. In these photos, the eye is drawn to the detail, and we, starting from that detail, have, without punning, embroidered. François based on his encyclopedic knowledge of clothing, me focusing on the artist’s personality. If we take Malaparte, who buries his dog in his coat and spontaneously creates a coat-puppy, there is an intellectual trick, a game, and at the same time this pose says that the dog is integral to its being. He takes it, surrounds it, makes it his own. This detail says everything about Malaparte, who was terrible with people, but never with animals. Its most beautiful pages are dedicated to them, like those horses that turn into crystal when they freeze in the lake.
