Roger Vivier brand ambassador is all about French chic

SINGAPORE - When the late shoe designer Roger Vivier asked to meet former model Ines de la Fressange in the mid-1990s, she was so taken aback she thought it was a friend playing a joke on her at first.

The Gallic beauty says she changed her outfit multiple times, arrived early for the meeting and felt immensely shy meeting the renowned designer.

"He was a very beautiful old man with white hair," recalls the 56-year-old in an interview with Urban. Ms de la Fressange was in town last week for the official opening of the Roger Vivier boutique here.

"He was saying how happy he was to meet me and that I was the typical Parisian woman," she says of the man whose name was famous in fashion circles for designing beautiful shoes.

"I wanted to say, 'Stop. You're the master'."

Mr Vivier was interested in getting her help in relaunching his brand, but Msde la Fressange declined as she was not convinced of his plan for growing the brand.

It was serendipitous then, that when the brand was acquired by Tod's chairman Diego Della Valle in 2000 after Mr Vivier's death and re-started in 2003 with creative director Bruno Frisoni at the helm, Mr Della Valle called on her to become the brand ambassador. The businessman did not know that she had previously met with Mr Vivier.

As brand ambassador, she promotes the brand in a variety of roles, from meeting the press and wearing the brand's items at public events, to appearing in videos for the brand's YouTube channel.

UNFUSSY AND ELEGANT

Impossibly tall at 1.8m and all long limbs and grace, Ms de la Fressange tells Urban in fluent English: "I like the brand's philosophy that you can do something very elegant but not boring."

The allure and history of the brand, combined with Mr Della Valle's business savvy, was what made her take on the brand ambassador role.

"The buckle shoes were mythical, like Hermes' Kelly bag. There are few objects in fashion like that," she says, referring to the brand's iconic pilgrim buckle.

She would know. As a top model in the 1980s, Ms de la Fressange walked the runways for designers such as the late Yves Saint Laurent, Jean-Paul Gaultier and Karl Lagerfeld. She became a muse for Lagerfeld at Chanel.

The Paris-based mother of two reflects on her time working with these industry greats and says she learnt that the best "never wanted to change me, but wanted to bring out the best in me".

That kind of thinking can also be applied to people and companies alike, she notes. "Everybody can learn things and improve, but it shouldn't be a total transformation. I tell companies, 'Don't be ashamed of who you are'. If you are a plastic boot company, don't try to look like Louboutin."

Staying true to herself and her style - unfussy and elegant in a navy sweater over a white shirt, navy pants and flat smoking slippers - has certainly worked for Ms de la Fressange.

"Fashion should be a solution for women," says the author of the best-selling style tome Parisian Chic in 2011, in which she broke down the elements of her French approach to fashion and beauty.

"It should be bought because it is a dream, pleasure and joy, of course, but it should also be a solution that makes you look and feel better," she adds.

Her daughters are aged 19 and 14. Her late husband, Italian businessman and art historian Luigi d'Urso, died in 2006 of a heart attack.

HIGH-LOW MIX

This year, Miss de la Fressange returned as creative director at large to her eponymous label, which she left in 1999 due to a disagreement with her partners. The ready-to-wear, shoes and accessories brand, which she launched in 1991, has since been bought by a new group of investors. The brand has not been relaunched yet.

She also recently ventured into unfamiliar territory - that of fast fashion. She is collaborating with Japanese giant Uniqlo on a one-off line of Parisian- inspired womenswear which will debut globally in March next year.

The Uniqlo team approached her after its founder Tadashi Yanai read that she mentioned Uniqlo jeans in her Parisian Chic book as an example of an item which could be worn as part of a high-low mix.

"Before, there were two worlds - one of selectivity and quality and the world of big distribution," she says, excitedly, of working with Uniqlo.

"But now with big distribution, they have so many shops worldwide that they can afford to have very good fabrics."

The global reach of working with Uniqlo is something she looks forward to.

"In Asia, shopping is a much bigger part of life. There's a lot of enthusiasm for brands and new things compared with France. I have a feeling there's more joy and less guilt."

Get a copy of Urban, The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.