She is very discreet but with something strong in her eyes, she looks fragile and sure. Always wearing little ballerina on the set, to be able to jump quickly on the white background to retouch the hair, the makeup if necessary, even the clothes.
She got instinctively what you want, giving you always the little plus that you were hoping but not expecting.
Delphine Courteille born in Normandy but has been raised in the suburb of Paris, she assisted hairdresser in studio or on show. Three women have been a key for her in different world: The well know hairdresser Charlie, the photographer Sarah Moon that gave her, her first solo job in editorial door The New York Times and Odile Gilber that opened for her the door of the fashion show backstage. She is part of the Atelier68, the hair & makeup agency of Odile Gilbert. Some of her clients are Sonia Rykiel, Hermès, Christian Lacroix, Lanvin, Jean-Paul Gautltier, she is working as well for some celebrities like the Sonia Rykiel family, Maggie Cheung or Polnareff.
She worked with the Yohji Yamamoto House for the first time on anY’s catalogue with Max Vadukul, it was in 2006 for our Spring-Summer 2007 collection, shooted a new generation of the musicians in Paris. We worked as well on few Yohji Yamamoto + Noir look book and, this seasonon Coming Soon for the Spring-Summer 2010 look book.
The brief was Jesus & Marie and she did it avoiding the « cliché ». She loves the idea of the accessibility of Coming Soon that make possible to wear Yohji Yamamoto DNA for everyone.
Delphine Courteille had now her own space named Studio 34. She organized around her a team of fashion talent including colorist, makeup artist and manucure. It’s just next to the Yohji Yamamoto rue Cambon shop. Again a connexion…
Studio 34 – Delphine Courteille
34, rue du Mont-Thabor 75001 Paris
T :+33 1 47 03 35 35
on appointments
www.delphinecourteille.com
In choosing Victor Hugo for his first major theatre direction project, Christophe Honoré amazes, intrigues.Angelo, the Tyrant of Padua is even more surprising: rarely staged, this play is almost incongruous. For him, it is a text whose clarity obviously hides secret doors and obscure and ambiguous underground passages. In it he looked for, and found, two female roles for Clotilde Hesme (Tisbe) and Emmanuelle Devos (Catarina).The first is Angelo’s mistress, the second his wife, but both of them secretly love the same man, Rodolfo. Powerless to make himself loved, jealous, suspicious, authoritarian and violent, the tyrant does not succeed in changing the course of his inclinations.
Victor Hugo thus wrote a drama of hearts in which the harshest power plays with the purest feelings. This domestic tyranny, which turns into a romantic melodrama, allows Christophe Honoré and his actors to explore the territory of the intimate. For the issue of tyranny is not so much power as desire. It is its forms, as they manifest themselves and break out that the show tries to capture, if only for a moment. On the stage, here is then the amorous language, the bodies of desires, the eternal vows, a proof or two of love, but above all the strategies, hopes and nightmares that they engender. Why, in this cold universe, must desire infiltrate despite everything and turn things upside-down, throw everything to the ground, revolt? This question is at the core of Christophe Honoré’s work. Here, he tackles the text with the freedom of the cinema, a formal freedom that permits him to “reframe” the bodies, to go closer, to have the seething of hearts be seen and felt on the women’s skin. But he nonetheless resorts to the theatre, to actors and actresses, unfolding a lyricism that comes from the acting, that is not afraid to be visible, to impose bursts and flights of feeling as well as despondencies and agonies.
Christophe Honoré measure himself against a vision, that of Victor Hugo, against a theatre of manifesto and epic ambition. “The equivalent of the cinemascope on stage?” Christophe Honoré asks himself. A romantic drama in prose, Angelo, the Tyrant of Padua is a little-known play from the repertory of Victor Hugo (1802-1885). He was 30 years old but had already acquired maturity when he wrote this story of tyranny and feelings for the stage of the Théâtre-Français. A tragedy infused with power and fragility in which the destiny of four passionate beings is played out in the space of three days.
The play is fully costumed by Yohji Yamamoto, Limi Feu and Coming Soon in the idea of Christophe Honoré to have timeless outfits for this timeless story.
The 4 “sbires” are wearing COMING SOON.
CAST
Direction Christophe Honoré
Direction assistance Florian Richaud
Scenography Samuel Deshors
Lighting Rémy Chevrin
Sound Valérie Deloof
Costumes Yohji Yamamoto, Limi Feu and Coming Soon
With Jean-Philippe Albizzati as Virgilio Tasca, Jean-Charles Clichet as Gaboardo, Anaïs Demoustier as Dafne, Emmanuelle Devos as Catarina, Marcial di Fonzo Bo as Angelo, Clotilde Hesme as La Tisbe, Julien Honoré as Homodei, Hervé Lassïnce as Rodolfo, Antoine Nembrini as Troilo, Sébastien Pouderoux as Orfeo
Model for the S/S 2010 COMING SOON lookbook
Barnabé Fillion was supposed to play the role of “model” when I interviewed him but I quickly learned that modeling and fashion are not the focal points of his life. This made our interview much more exciting - and poetic - than expected.
Barnabé is someone who has many surprising talents when he is “off-duty”.
Before the COMING SOON shoot, he was playing a small machine, which turned out to be a synthesizer; he is working on producing an album influenced by artists such as, Eno, Pole, Maurizio, Holger Czukai, and Jah Shaka (“I am such a big fan,” he says, laughing).
But his main occupation turns out to be much more unexpected. When not modeling for Yohji Yamamoto, Maison Martin Margiela, or Hedi Slimane, Barnabé is a “nose”, a perfume designer. After his photography studies, he decided to deviate to phytology, which led him to compose his own remedies and drinks, ultimately moving on to perfume formulas.
Talk to him about fragrances and his face immediately lights up: “I came in to the perfume world reading Le Miasme et la jonquille by Corbin. It is such a pleasure to work in this field. I am always working and testing; I begin with hard notes trying to match my ideas and thoughts then I confront them. I am currently launching my own laboratory in Morocco, in Tangier”. Barnabé’s conception has something very special: he is obsessed with organic materials. During his creation process he only uses organic substances (“[they are] more fragile and vibrating, and particularly more honest”), and then he studies the “awful synthetic game” while strictly repudiating it. His approach to fragrance seems to stand at the crossroads of romantic and concept: with his brand Diurne, he re-works classic fragrances of the antique perfumery to “keep only the inspiration, which makes the stamp of acquaintance disappear”, while his line Saja is dedicated to the poesy of travel, inviting you to visit “olfactoryly” various places around the world.
Why were we interviewing Barnabé? Oh, yes, because he is the model of the last COMING SOON lookbook. The day of shooting with Barnabé was delightful: he has something very peaceful, that may come from his passion for kundalini yoga. He is also very funny, capable of playing air guitar on the shoehorn! He liked modeling for the A/W 2009-10 Yohji Yamamoto show and was astonished to see how this collection looked like him, because “[he] also wears pajamas under [his] suits”. And this COMING SOON collection? “I like the military print which almost turns into a Hawaiian shirt print! I also love the hats and the wide leg pants.”
Where can one meet Barnabé? This is easy, his Parisian address book perfectly fits him: the delicious organic restaurant Rose Bakery, the best pancakes in Paris at Breizh Café, the nice tea addicts of Jugetsudo, the perfect taste of Caravane, and of course he strolls at Dyptique where he likes the oldest fragrances and the home perfumes. And how can one recognize him? This is easy too: he looks like a poet from another era, a poet who makes perfume…
She also worked closely with the cinematic world: she played a blind princess in Fellini’s E la nave va (1982), and Almodovar’s Hable con Ella (2002) featured long segments of her creations; in 1989, she explored a new role as director of her own film, La Plainte de l’impératrice.
She collaborated with Yohji Yamamoto in 1998, for the 25th anniversary of the Pina Bausch dance company in Wuppertal; to accompany her choreography, all the dancers wore Yohji Yamamoto clothing. For this performance, Yohji Yamamoto joined the dancers on stage performing karate. Yohji considered Pina as an inspiration, a muse: to him, she represented the perfect silhouette and movement reduced to the very essence of body and clothes. A whole Yohji Yamamoto collection was dedicated to her in 1990. They shared a very strong opinion and desire for “what cannot be seen”.
Wim Wenders, who worked closely with Yohji Yamamoto on the film “Notebook on Cities and Clothes”, was currently working on a dance film project with her. All of them, also including Bartabas, composed a kind of an artistic family, which has definitely lost one of its closest members.
Photos by Bernd Hartung
Milo Keller has been the photographer of the COMING SOON lookbooks for the past four seasons. Milo, always accompanied by artistic director, Julien Gallico -more information there- has collaborated with Wallpaper*, Vogue Homme International, and Vogue Paris among others.
Milo, where are you from? Where did you grow up? What is your background?
I was born in Lugano, an Italian-speaking district, in the south of Switzerland. I am a perfect mix of Tessin (Italian Switzerland), German Switzerland, and Czech.
I had a comfortable childhood in Tessin, a region with a soft climate and lush vegetation.
When I was young, I wanted to be a sailor: go on a boat and sail around the world. When I was five, I took sailing classes, and then I got my skipper license.
When I finished high school, I passed the recruit school, which is unfortunately compulsory in Switzerland. I was afraid of going back to a very strict hierarchical system and to lose my friends, so I gave up the idea of setting sail.
My father is an architect, and I have always liked to visit a lot of buildings. I developed a sensitivity to architecture while making images. My father hates fashion whereas I am very attracted to this world that represents dreams and diversity.
I received my first camera for my baptism, it was a Japanese, a Yashica.
Convinced that I wanted to be involved in a creative job, I enrolled in ECAL (Art School of Lausanne) for photography.
While studying, I worked as a photographer and I tried everything…I even covered a wedding, and that was a catastrophe…
I have never photographed animals or children, even though I love cats.
At art school, I met a Basque boy, Julien [Gallico], and we began collaborating on several projects. He hated me at first (he acknowledged that later), and now he can tolerate me…Our collaboration has gone beyond the academic frame, and we still work together, on photography and artistic direction. Our images are minimal, “less is more”.
After I graduated in Lausanne, I moved to Paris. But I still travel to Switzerland to teach at ECAL and to see my girlfriend.
How did you begin your collaboration with Yohji Yamamoto?
I first met Coralie [Coralie Gauthier, communication director] through Julien, who had already worked for Yohji on several projects. My first job was shooting the F/W 2008-09 Yohji Yamamoto +Noir lookbook. The most interesting lookbook shot was the Y’s S/S 2009 catalogue, featuring curators wearing Y’s clothes.
And the last COMING SOON lookbook?
In the COMING SOON lookbooks, there is a way of showing clothes in a very clear, almost scientific way. Therefore I chose a strong and direct light.
The two models, Barnabé and Bojana were very professional and nice. Moreover, Barnabé knew my district of Tessin in Switzerland very well! Bojana was very tired because of jetlag but she heroically survived this long day of shooting.
What is your view of Yohji Yamamoto and COMING SOON clothing?
I like Yohji Yamamoto very much, since I think he is continuing his “clothing language” in a very coherent way. This is intelligent clothing.
I was once at a Yohji show backstage and it was very quiet, like before a concert of classical music. Yohji was on a chair, making signs like a conductor.
One of my favorite shirts is COMING SOON. I feel very comfortable in it and I think it looks like me…
What are your other collaborations? Who else do you work for?
With Julien, we have worked for Wallpaper*, Vogue Homme International, Vogue Paris, D la Repubblica delle Donne, Under the Influence, Icon, Air France Madame, Useless, and Frog.
And also for others clients: Balenciaga, PPR, Vitra, Esatablished & Sons, Wogg, Roger Vivier, Jaeger-Le-Coultre, Jean Louis Scherrer, and Afflelou.
Who are your favorite photographers?
I deeply respect the classics’ work: Avedon, Newton, Penn, Bourdin. I also like Inez & Vinoodh, Philip Lorca di Corcia, and Mikael Jansson.
Which cities do you like most?
Berlin is the best city in the world, young and creative. I also like the clash between tradition and modernity in London, Bombay, and Hong Kong. I like wandering at night in Madrid, strolling in autumn in Lisbon. When you know Milan and its secrets, you love it, and the same goes for Zurich.
Soan
28 years old
Paris
Soan is the new star of French musical Tv show “La Nouvelle Star”. He has seduced both the jury and the public with his rock look, his assessed musical choices –he is a big fan of Prince, Jeff Buckley and of French singers such as Alain Baschung and Jacques Brel.
He is already well known for his originality and his talent in interpreting famous songs in his very own way.
Yesterday night at Pavillon Baltard, he has won his place for the Nouvelle Star final singing the famous French Edith Piaf song “L’Accordéoniste” wearing a Coming Soon total look –jacket, vest, and pants.
After entering the store Le Printemps to visit our COMING SOON mens corner, we have continued our journey by going to the two other Parisian department stores that display COMING SOON.
At Franck et Fils, the famous long established department store of rue de Passy in the sixteenth district of Paris they combine the luxury and a contemporary. We found COMING SOON on the first floor, among contemporary brands such as K Karl Lagerfeld, 0039, and Stella McCartney. A nice selection of casual womens pieces were displayed: tank tops with silk coral ties, soft white or navy wide-leg pants, and classical masculine vests.
Then we went for a walk along the “Rive Gauche” and stopped at the department storeLe Bon Marché.
There, we also met COMING SOON on first floor, in a very exclusive area that includes Ann Demeulemeester, Stella McCartney, and Junya Watanabe. This womens corner had a selection which included of the brand navy pants and shorts, printed t-shirts, and navy jersey jackets; a very chic matching of colors which perfectly fits the store and the spirit of the area.
Franck et Fils Le Bon Marché
80, rue de Passy 5, rue de Babylone
75016 Paris 75007 Paris
For more information on our sales points, visit www.coming-soon.com
Le Printemps de l’Homme
64, bd Haussmann
75009 Paris
France
Covered in white cloth, casted molds of palm tree’s trunks lie across metal supports, while some molded soil hangs on the walls as if they are paintings. The viewer feels troubled by what they are seeing: the “palm tree” has a realistic shape but is white and horizontal; soil looks like soil but is not on the floor but on the walls. Everything is turned upside down. You are at La Force de l’Art, in front of a work of Didier Marcel -“Phoenix Canariensis”- who is present at this major French exhibition of contemporary art for his second year.
Are you upset in front of his work? Do you feel as though you are loosing your wits? This is precisely the goal of Didier Marcel’s work, which leads to the viewer’s a reflection on their perception of his/her environment and also on the construction and regulation of nature. Didier Marcel leads people to build a new relationship with what surrounds them. He has an original interpretation of space: the public no longer just walks around the sculpture, the sculpture occupies the space and takes over the viewer. The audience has a new experience with art, where one’s perception is disturbed, and the world, as one knows, it is overthrown.
Didier Marcel plays with real and unreal, making the two contradicting themes combine into the same object, building a new landscape, which rocks from nature to art.
La Force de l’Art 02
From April 24th to June 1st
Grand Palais
Avenue Winston Churchill 75008 Paris
The room -called “Géologie Blanche”- was conceived in relation to this idea: the architect-scenographer, Philippe Rahm, designed a space that allows the visitor to enjoy total freedom: you can wander around the space, allowing one to build his/her own way to emerge from the mercy of the coincidences and have a very personal relation to each work. This is a natural landscape, completely white, bathed in the light coming from the nave; it aims to provide objective landscape that adapts to the specific eccentricities of each work, as an “inverted museographic display” says Philippe Rahm.
In the “Géologie Blanche” location, some works are selected for their role in the artist’s history and their relevance to current topics. You will encounter among others works, the work of Boris Achour, Wang Du, Frédérique Loutz, Dominique Blais, Anita Molinero, Mircea Cantor, etc.
Apart from the “Géologie Blanche”, outside the Grand Palais, La Force de L’Art is presenting a selection of work by established artists in another innovative way. Thus, Paris’ historical venues welcome the dreams of internationally renown artists: Daniel Buren besieges the Grand Palais, Gérard Collin Thiébaut the Musée du Louvre, Bertrand Lavier the Eiffel Tower, Annette Messager the Palais de la Découverte, ORLAN the Musée Grévin, and Pierre et Gilles the Saint Eustache Church. There is an encounter of myth, symbol, and aesthetics, with Paris’ mainstays; La Force de l’Art successfully sheds new light on Paris’ public places.
And to complete this original vision of art, the event has an “Invités” part, which is based on “live art”: performances of music, dance, dialogues, and theatre that question the traditional idea of art, assert its diversity, and definitely astonish and entertain the audience.
La Force de l’Art 02
From April 24th to June 1st
Grand Palais
Avenue Winston Churchill 75008 Paris
“The first time they asked me, I said NO, NO, NO!” Paul Boudens says, laughing, referring to his role in the COMING SOON film “The Man with the Suitcase”. Indeed, he was supposed to participate only as the graphic designer for the poster and the top and tails, “and then, suddenly, I was the butler…No, no!”. Paul is shy. However…He had this idea of a Bob Dylan inspired top and tails, and accepted the role to be the one who turns the pages at the end of the video; then, he became the butler in the film, to announce his presence on the tails. He took the role very serious, and at the end of the shooting, he eventually thought it was “quite a good experience”.
His story with Yohji Yamamoto began in 2003. That year he had designed the catalogue for an exhibition at the Fashion Museum of Antwerp which drew the attention at Yohji: he was asked to design a Yohji Yamamoto postcard, the first step in a collaboration that has continued. Maybe because it began with a sign: the same year, 2003, he was publishing a monographic book of his work with a linen cover absorbing the red ink of the text, reminiscent of the Winter 2003 Y’s fashion show that Yohji Yamamoto was doing at the same time in Paris.
Five years later, apart from several graphic projects that he is still doing for Yohji, he has created the COMING SOON poster for “The Man with the Suitcase”, that he wanted to embody “Antwerp”: the inspiration for the black aged letters were the worn signage painted on harbor buildings in Antwerp; for the top and tails, he chose handwriting because he is “sort of in transition; since the New Year Eve, I am back to craftsmanship, the hand-made, and using less of the computer”, he says laughing.
Paul has been a graphic designer for 17 years now. He studied in a graphic academy in Antwerp before working for Walter Van Beirendonck, Dries Van Noten, Haider Ackerman and many others. Paul Boudens is definitely part of the Antwerp fashion world: he works for the most important Belgian fashion designers and he talks about fashion with passion, saying for example that he does not like logos, “except these four small seams on the back of sweaters, so Antwerp !”. He loved wearing COMING SOON as the butler in the film, a brand that he describes as “apparently classic but always with a little twist”. But he does not want to be contained by the boundaries of the fashion world. He explains smartly that he needs diversity –fashion, culture, dance: apart from fashion shows invitations etc, he designs programs and graphic work for a theater in Brussels, the Museum of Photography of Antwerp, and he also designs children books!
Paul’s description of COMING SOON could perfectly suit him as well: classical at first sight, but definitely with a little twist.
Kore-Eda Hirokazu returns to his favorite theme, family. After Nobody Knows, his previous film where he followed a fatherless family of children abandoned by their mother, he explores, with his new film Still Walking, another kind of family drama.
Still Walking begins on a bright summer day in Yokohama, Japan. An apparently common family is brought together at the parent’s house to commemorate the fifteenth anniversary of the eldest son’s death. Like a documentary, you follow the different members of the family and the powerful links that bind them together: the sister cooks with her mother, the brother has a dead-end discussion with his father, the children try to break a watermelon, and the short moment of the meal where everybody comes together around the table.
There is also this relevant boy, son of the widow who married the younger brother, Ryoto, who observes everything carefully; his interpretation draws the metaphor of the film, a delicate mix of melancholy, humour and poesy. Through the eyes of this young boy, Hirokazu looks at each character in a subtle way. Thus, you feel as though you are strolling round the house and meeting the rough father, a former respected doctor, who makes you smile when he tries to find someone to inherit the family practice; his wife, who hints at her true feelings while always remaining in the boundaries of courtesy. Hirokazu captures the intimate exchanges between these two mainstays of the family and their children. Ryoto does not look forward to visiting his parents and you easily understand why when the mother is angry with him marrying a widow, a “second-hand” woman. His father criticizes his art restoration job, whereas his sister Chinami appears beyond reach of the family conflicts and does not receive any criticism. The deceased brother, Junpei, is always among them through the sadness of the mother who refreshes his grave with water, the regrets of the father who wanted him inherit the family business, the sister who speaks of him with detachment, and the visit of the child which he saved from drowning, the cause of his death -the child as a lightness to the sad story by making everybody laugh because of his corpulence and dirty socks…
Hirokazu began this film right after his mother’s death, and the main themes of Still Walking -death, memory, time, family, and conflicts- are definitely melancholic. He handles the tough subject matter with simplicity and lightness, cleverly blending deeply serious considerations with light and frivolous images. Still Walking is a beautiful film, a simple and subtle poem.
Inge Grognard, Make-up Artist on “The Man with the Suitcase”
Inge Grognard is a real character. She talks a lot, not only with words but with her whole body. The movement of her arms and hands support the ideas in her sentences.
Inge is a make-up artist, one of the few in this job who deserve to be called an “artist”. She researches extensively and specifically for each project and the truly thrives when she is given artistic freedom, so that she can fully release her creativity.
For instance, on the Coming Soon film “The Man with the Suitcase”, she imagined the make-up while hearing the story of the film of dolls coming out of a suitcase. She wanted to dirty the “dolls’” faces as though they had been stored for some time in the suitcase.
She also works on non-fashion projects, especially on an upcoming “big thing”, as she says, which she is preparing with her husband Ronald Stoops who is a photographer.
Inge has been a makeup artist for 23 years now. She is a link in the chain of the Antwerp fashion scene. She comes from the same village of the respected fashion designer, Martin Margiela, who she met at 14, when she already knew she wanted to be a make-up artist. Then she studied make-up in Antwerp and make her first steps along side Margiela.
When you ask her about her fashion preferences, she quotes Margiela, Rick Owens, Ann Demeulemeester, AF Vandervoorst, Haider Ackermann, “they are friends of mine, so I cannot be very objective.” She also cites H&M and Cos, her lovely Stan Smith, and of course, Coming Soon, “I love this Coming Soon collection, even if I could not wear it as a full look, I like the comfortable and affordable aspect of the clothes, as well as the timeless concept.”
Bert, co-owner of Boulevard Leopold, the Bed and Breakfast where some scenes from « The Man with the Suitcase » were filmed.
As soon as you cross the doorstep of this nineteenth century house in the Jewish district of Antwerp, you feel as if you have entered a unique place, a place out of the past that two talented people wanted to preserve while bringing their own touch of fantasy.
“This was a gift of love from a Jew to his wife”, these are the first words from the owner, Bert. He turned the house into a Bed & Breakfast three years ago with his friend Vincent. Bert and Vincent immediately became fascinated with the typical Flemish house. After visiting it, they went back home, immediately decided to sell everything they possessed, and went back to Boulevard Leopold to buy the place. As a guarantee, Bert only had their love and commitment to the space and a fifty euros bill; he gave it to the owner and the deal was done! The house was too big for only two people so they began to wonder what they could do with the large space. Bert, a former cook, was dreaming as a young boy of building his own Bed and Breakfast. Bert and Vincent simply materialized this child dream.
This house had been a home to the same family of eight for more than 60 years and had not been renovated since the 1950s.The house had aged, but key details had been preserved such as floors, glass doors, door handles, etc. “We did not want to break the feeling of the house”, says Bert, and they definitely did not. They started from an idea of natural renovation: they wanted to keep the antique luxury feeling, but adapting it to contemporary comfort. They have kept the original plans and configuration, and have painted all the walls and cellars in a green-grey very close to the original colour. And, because both of them immediately thought of their grandparents when they first saw the house, they decided to rebuild with “grandma’s home” in mind. They plunged into their existing passion, antiques and flea markets, and entirely furnished the house with second-hand treasures bought all around the world, including a vintage velvet Chesterfield, a collection of crucifixes, a wall of hunting trophies, a table made of antique books, altar pieces turned into bathroom mirrors, etc. This eclectic blend gives the space a unique, poetic, and deeply magical atmosphere.
When you ask Bert about what he prefers in his house, he answers with a smile: “I like the whole house… I like the hall, the kitchen, the Belgian proportions of rooms…” And one cannot forget the lovely veranda and little savage garden where guests can enjoy fresh orange juice and homemade bread as a wonderful breakfast. Those guests, initially only from Belgium and Netherlands, now come from around the world thanks to the international press who reveal the precious secret of this lovely place.
After a second Bed & Breakfast venture in the Antwerp centre, Bert and Vincent have just bought a house in the south of France which they will renovate. They will have much deserved holidays there, and then, they might be rent it. This would be another “gift of love”, but this time from them to their future guests.
Nicoletta Santoro talks quietly and cleverly. She carefully observes everything. She might be petite, but her aura is large.
She belongs to a very small niche in the high fashion world, and she almost always has. She currently lives in New York, but she was born in Milan, where her family was very close to the owner of the Italian Condé Nast. When the editor of Italian Vogue, Manuela Pavesi, who is now a major part of Prada, went on maternity leave, Nicoletta was offered an internship. That is how she made her first steps in fashion as an assistant, before becoming a major senior editor at the young age of 27.
At the same time, she was studying antique languages at Università Cattolica in Milan. Since she promised her parents she would get her degree, despite her growing interest in fashion, she continued to study, attending evening classes to become a journalist.
When you observe Nicoletta working, you immediately notice that she is deeply in love with her job. She takes it seriously, and speaks of it with passion. She says, with a smile, in perfect English, but enhanced by a lovely Italian accent: “Being a stylist is like being a director: you choose your models, your team, your hair and make-up stylists, your photographer. You are the coordinator. I love being on set. You are always surprised because there will always be a difference between what is in your mind and what the reality actually is”.
Working on a film was a very interesting experience for her. This was Nicoletta’s second time to work as the stylist on the Coming Soon films. “I am not a director anymore. In that case, I obey!”, she said laughing. In that case precisely, she obeys her husband, Max Vadukul, the director of the first three Coming Soon films. When you see the two work together, advising and supporting each other with their own competences, you immediately agree with her when she says that it is a “wonderful collaboration”, adding that “the story is a complement of choreography, movements, clothes. The Coming Soon clothes are amazing in action. This is a wonderful marriage, everything is working in perfect harmony.”
Harmony. This word suits Nicoletta very well, and seems to be consistent with other aspects of her life, and particularly fashion. Her favorite designers are Prada and Lanvin because, “I like to be myself and I like those designers because they enhance my personality, my spirit, my style. You do not become what you wear”. This is fashion wisdom.
Her thoughts on travel? “Before my marriage, I traveled a lot. I love India, Nepal, Kashmir, Kenya, Bhurma, Tibet. Now, I accommodate with the Caribbean. I buy at markets, I am an explorer”. She laughs, almost like a child, and her whole body follows her mouth, again in harmony.
Rain Li was not destined to work in cinema. This strong girl born in Beijing, who left home at 13, as she says, “floating in the city by [herself] with anger”, did not grow up in a theatrical or artistic family. She dreamt of being a basketball player or a mathematician; she was 14 when she saw her first film, and “[she] was too busy to be in the dark underground as a kid to be interested in cinema”.
She discovered she was obsessed with light -how light can change our perception of objects, while modeling to pay for college in England, and she decided to turn this obsession into a career by expressing this fascination through photography and film: she managed to be a trainee electrician on a short film, then she became a gaffer, and that is how she gradually discovered her love for cinematography.
She would not be where she is now without this iron will. When you see her working and moving on the set, you immediately feel her strength combined with an extreme sensitivity. Rain is a self-taught artist par excellence, who has been able to find her own place as a young girl in an extremely male dominated industry, and who has learned to give herself a chance.
Rain Li on the shooting of "The Man with the Suitcase" photographed by Max Vadukul
How did she become a Director of Photography? “My very first film as a DP was a film I wrote, directed and edited because this was the only way that I could be a DP, no one else would have given me a chance.” Then, this big fan of David Lynch, Wong Kar-Wai, and Ang Li worked on “a terrible Bollywood film that no one has seen”, made a number of commercials and music videos, a fashion film for Dries Van Noten, before working in collaboration with talented directors such as Christopher Doyle, Gus Van Sant, and Jim Jarmush. The encounter with Christopher Doyle was a turning point in her career: “He has had a big influence in my work and my life as an artist. Having only met him once briefly, without him having known my work at all, he was somehow confident enough to ask me to take over his project. From there, we have collaborated on over ten projects during the past four years.”
When you ask her about “The Man with the Suitcase” on which she worked with film director Max Vadukul, you realize that her representation of the film exactly corresponds to a description you could make of her: “powerful, fluid, beautiful, and also incredibly intimate. Strong, but also soft and dreamy. A dark but beautiful fairytale.” The story of Rain Li…
Company Thor – Thierry Smits, choreographer on the last COMING SOON film “The Man with the Suitcase”
Born in Koersel (Belgium), Thierry Smits studied ballet and modern dance in Brussels and Paris. After a short career as a dancer, he soon began choreographing. He founded “Thor” company in 1990 and explores, often in an eclectic manner, the bonds between the mystic and erotic, the ambiguity between the sacred and corporeal, and questions the metaphysical problems of individual’s state of mind and emotion. With his first choreography, La Grâce du tombeur, presented in 1990 at the Halles de Schaerbeek in Brussels, he quickly gained international acclaim in the world of contemporary dance. Since then, he has been a tireless choreographer for his own company and others, and produced more than twenty dance productions, among these: Eros délétère (1991), Cyberchrist (1995), Soirée dansante (1995), Corps(e) (1998), Red Rubber Balls (1999), L’Ame au diable (1994/2002), Dionysos’ Last Day/Stigma (2003), Reliefs d’un banquet (2004), D’Orient (2005), and V.-Nightmares (2007). Gathering excellent performing artists from around the world, the company has established its reputation touring extensively throughout Belgium and abroad, notably in Europe, USA, Middle East and Northern Africa.
Thierry Smits by Max Vadukul.
“In coherence with my oniric world, I choreographed in a particular way for the magician, who is the key character of the short film “The Man with the Suitcase”. I chose to create some fragmented pieces that could be manipulated to suit the director’s ideas and the COMING SOON clothing.
For instance, in the scene which takes place in the Antwerp station stairs, the choreographic material was not initially meant for the station but for a house; because I created fragmented material, it could easily adapt to a different atmosphere, just as the dancer’s bodies and movements adapt to the COMING SOON clothes.”
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