Carine Roitfeld: “There is a lack of diversity everywhere”

Has Carine Roitfeld watched Emily in Paris, the Netflix series that apparently  modelled its main character Sylvie on the former editor-in-chief of Vogue Paris?

“Ah, no!” she exclaims excitedly over Zoom. “But I am so obsessed with Netflix, I watch it every night! I will watch it tonight! The new normal is Netflix, now there are no restaurants to go to.”

Roitfeld, 66, bursts on to my screen, the epitome of an editrix, decked out in a camel cashmere jumper courtesy of Phoebe Philo’s Old Celine and a pair of statement tortoiseshell glasses (she owns three of the same pair). Even via video call, it is clear that Roitfeld isn’t in short supply of what her countrymen and women would call bon chic, bon genre.

The editor-turned-entrepreneur, who has previously credited cigarettes and vodka as the key to her ageless appearance,  tells me that sleep is in fact the backbone of her self-care routine.  

“Sleep is important. We’re all very tired,” she laughs. “A routine is very important, but I don’t think you need to be obsessive about it. There are more important things in life than your beauty routine.”

Since leaving French Vogue in 2011, after a decade at the helm, beauty has become a core tenet of Roitfeld’s re-brand. Her first range of seven perfumes, ‘7 Lovers’, took nine years to develop and launched last year under her brand, Carine Roitfeld Parfums. They’re now available to buy in Harrods. The scent septet (seven is her lucky number) are each named after a man or a “fantasy lover”, and the city he lives in.  Among them, there’s British lover George, a molten buffet of cannabis, espresso and violet, there’s sandalwood-based Sebastian, who hails from Buenos Aires and smells energetic and intense; and then there’s my favourite, Hong Konger Kar-Wai, a musky, bergamot and rose-scented gent. 

“It was not easy and it’s a new project, we have no one to sponsor us and so it’s really the most personal project I’ve ever done,” she says. “I don’t want to sound pretentious in saying it’s all about me, but it is my scent, my idea of perfume, the bottle. It’s like seeing me naked!”

Which is her favourite? “They are my seven lovers, so I am not very faithful to any of them,” she quips, exhibiting the wicked humour which pulses through our conversation and her work.  

After exiting Vogue Paris, Roitfeld was “not scared at all, I did not have Vogue blues, like when you have baby blues” and instead was convinced by her art dealer son Vladimir, 35, that she should use her clout to become a brand herself. It’s under his leadership – he is now the CEO of her business – that the duo launched Roitfeld’s bi-annual magazine, CR Fashion Book, her creative talent agency CR Studio and then the perfumes.  

In fact, such is her dedication to her son’s prominence in her newfangled brand that Roitfeld asked him to complete the notes in ‘Vladimir’, the headiest scent of the set, which was named after him and her Russian father, “because I really want him to wear it.”

“Vladimir creates the structure, the business plan, he makes my life easier, and it’s fantastic for me – it keeps me younger,” she muses. “I did not think when he was young that one day he would work with me so it was a good surprise that now he does. I get to be creative and I really trust him, which is very important for me."

Vladimir is one of Roitfeld’s “good luck people”, the figures she credits with supporting and encouraging her throughout her life and in her work. “You know in life they say you have your key people and business, I can already tell you who my people are," she says.

The first is Mario Testino, “because I made so many photographs with him”, the second is her good friend and close collaborator Tom Ford. The third is her friend, the late Karl Lagerfeld. “He was like a protector for me, I did all the campaigns with him for almost ten years.” And the fourth and final key figure in Roitfeld’s life is her son, Vladimir. 

Ignoring convention is something Roitfeld is no stranger to. She and Tom Ford were responsible for shaving a G into a model’s public hair in a now-infamous Gucci advert from 2003 and in 2007, she featured non-binary New York socialite Andre. J on the cover of Vogue Paris.  She has said previously, “I was always using oversized girls in my magazine. I was the first one to do an entire issue at Vogue with a black girl. They said “Don’t do it, it will not sell” – it sold very well.” 

“I have always worked with diversity, it’s not new for me,” she says. “I think there is a lack of diversity everywhere, but not just in fashion, and it is never good enough, we can always do better.”

And that forward-thinking extends beyond challenging fashion’s age-old stereotypes. While Roitfeld spent lockdown being a tourist in her home city of Paris, in a normal year she would have spent the spring preparing for the annual amfAR gala at Cannes Film Festival, where she stages a charity catwalk show for the AIDS organisation. Instead of canceling or postponing the annual event this year, Roitfeld’s CR Runway teamed up with Derek Blasberg at YouTube to livestream the show, which featured appearances from the likes of Kim Kardashian-West, Hailey Bieber, and Virgil Abloh. She has also recently teamed up with Adrian Cheng Partners to launch an Instagram TV series dedicated to showcasing craftmanship in fashion. 

Having come of age during the pre-digitalisation of fashion, how does she feel about the industry’s embrace of the virtual realm? “I hope virtual fashion isn’t the future, some of the shows are great, but it’s not the same excitement as when you go to see a show in the flesh," she states, “I just really hope it’s just not the new normal.”

Towards the end of our conversation, as I ask her what we can expect next from her, Roitfeld removes her tinted glasses to reveal her signature smokey eyes. 

“I am working on my own make-up!” she blurts out, winking to showcase her smudged kohl-rimmed eyes. "It’s mainly eye make-up, nothing too complicated, not a lot on the skin, but some black eye-liner and a bit of glitter which is my new trend… You know?”

Indeed, I do know. In the pantheon of Vogue editors, there is none to ever do it quite like Carine. 

Shop Carine Roitfeld Parfums here. Prices start from £180.