INTERVIEW | Carine Quit

After being editor in chief for ten years, Carine Roitfeld resigned from her accomplished position at French Vogue yesterday.
She said she decided that a decade in a job that ultimately might have limited her creativity was enough.

In an interview earlier this year by The New York Times she talks about censure and the restriuctions at Vogue:


How do you feel about the magazine at 90?

In 90 years, we haven’t changed the mood of the magazine. It’s still very audacious. It’s still about beauty. It’s still about excess. It’s still very avant-garde. When we started to do the research, we discovered the same mood in the past, so we are very happy to feel that we are still looking like the iconic Vogue of Newton and Guy Bourdin. We try to be sophisticated, while a little on the edge all the time. But what I can see is that now, the censoring is bigger than it was 20, 30 or 40 years ago. I think we have less freedom. Today some pictures would not even be publishable. It’s not just about the nudity, but when you talk about things politically, the military, kids, it would all be politically incorrect and not publishable today.

How does that make you feel as an editor?

That we have to fight to keep this un-politically correct attitude of French Vogue, but it’s more and more difficult to be able do that. You cannot smoke, you cannot show arms, you cannot show little girls, because everyone now is very anxious not to have problems with the law. Everything we do now is like walking in high heels on the ice, but we keep trying to do it.

How do you remain personally engaged with fashion when everyone else can see it online?

It’s still exciting to me, because when I am going to a fashion show, I’m not just looking at the clothes. I’m looking at the mood, I’m listening to the music, so sometimes, I can be a bit disappointed in one, two or three shows, and then I see a great one and my energy goes up again. There were some big fashion moments last week in Italy, like when you go to Prada, and wonder what’s she going to do this time, or at Dolce & Gabbana, and you are almost ready to cry. Maybe I still like the clothes. I don’t see them just to wear them, I see them as a piece of art sometimes.