“I noticed that if clients were confused by my style, I wouldn’t be able to work with them”
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“What jumps out in this picture are obviously my fire-colored extensions that I had done in London, from the 1980s until the early 2000s. It was taken in Brittany in 1996, when I was 40 years, in the house of the architect Claude Parent, to whom I went regularly. This photo tells who I am through my story with Brittany, then my link with Claude Parent and, finally, my relationship to London and the punk and gothic world.
Brittany is my origins, I am someone from the seaside and I have a very strong relationship with the horizon which symbolizes adventure, departure, negotiation. Crafting projects is like navigating by taking stock of the horizon line and trying to reach something unattainable. The horizon is a perfect metaphor for my way of functioning, of going on an adventure and, at the same time, of considering that when I have arrived at the point that I had set myself, I realize that it is always in front of me. and that we must then continue to experiment.
“We rushed by car to Calais where we took the boat, then we rushed back to London to do all the concerts of gothic and punk groups. »
It’s a lesson I learned from Claude Parent, whom I met in the mid-1980s and with whom I remained friends until his death in 2016. I first discovered his work during my architecture studies in Rennes, when he had just created the Maison de la culture de Bretagne. It was also at this time that I became familiar with his theory of the oblique function, discovered on the occasion of an exhibition and which had a very strong effect on me, before we met, some time later. late. We discussed a lot, we had long debates on the Parisian world of architecture, so particular. We were both rebels. He has always been on the fringe, following his own path, and I operate the same way because I have an intense need for freedom.
I experienced this freedom in London, a city with which I was very connected between the beginning of the 1980s, when I was 25, and 1995. I went there almost every weekend. We rushed by car to Calais where we took the boat, then we rushed back to London to do all the concerts of gothic and punk groups. I became friends with Stiv Bators, the singer of The Lords of the New Church, I met all the music people – the Ramones, Iggy Pop…
Then, on Sunday, I set off to explore the Isle of Dogs district, in the throes of upheaval, which inspired my first projects and in particular the Banque Populaire de Bretagne. I started wearing black make-up and having hair extensions applied during these first trips to England. I had this fiery color for a very long time and I went on stage with this hair when I won the Golden Lion in Venice in 1996.
This appearance is not a calculated attitude on my part, but it symbolizes my absolute taste for freedom. I noticed that if clients were disturbed by my style, I wouldn’t be able to work with them because they wouldn’t give me the confidence to see the project through. Those who cross this barrier of my appearance discover that I am in fact a totally normal person. »
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