PARIS — In the final installment of the video series “In the Studio,” which can be viewed Julie de Libran, the artistic director of Sonia Rykiel, discusses taking on the Rykiel legacy, the treasures she found in the designer’s former office and what responsibilities she can’t trust to anyone else. (This interview has been edited and condensed.)
You work, literally, above the shop. Was this Sonia Rykiel’s first office?
This is not exactly the building where she started. The building where she started is just down the street on Rue Corneille, where now we have our contemporary line, Sonia by Sonia Rykiel. The children’s collection is actually in the space where she really started.
How long has Rykiel been in this building?
Since the ’70s. But I’ve been here for only a year. I have my private office, and on the other side there is still Sonia Rykiel’s office, preserved exactly.
Do you go into Sonia’s office for inspiration?
I have been in a few times, though normally it’s kept locked. I go in with Nathalie [Sonia’s daughter]. It’s wonderful, it’s all treasures, and there’s still some of her favorite coats and all her drawings and her pictures. There were some pins with cloverleafs, some padded jackets that were just so fun. The pins were placed on the backs, and I thought that was just such a nice surprise. And her colored pencils, and her desk and all the photos taken of her.
Does she come into the office?
She lives very close by, so I go to see her.
Did you feel a big responsibility in taking on her legacy?
Sonia Rykiel is really an icon. I was always very inspired by her work when I was in fashion design school. I was very nervous, but at the same time, I was so proud to be able to continue the next steps of her work. And I think that happiness, or that desire, just overtook the rest. I’m just having a lot of fun.
Was it important to create your own space in her space?
Yes, it’s important for me to be in an environment that is my own. It really helps me feel at ease, and I like to see things around me that create a certain sensibility and that shock me in a good way, or that make me feel inspired.
I have a Jürgen Teller photo, for example, which was actually a photo that he gave to us for our invitation for the first fashion show here at Sonia Rykiel. I’ve framed it because it’s a wonderful picture of trees that he photographed a few years ago, close to his mother’s home. It’s trees that actually show stripes, and show that stripes come from nature, and it’s the beauty of stripes that inspired my first fashion show at Sonia Rykiel: “La beauté sera toujours rayée.” It’s actually a quote from Sonia Rykiel, “Stripes will always be beautiful.”
Then I have a beautiful photo Solve Sundsbo gave me of one of the shows that we did at Louis Vuitton, where I was for more than five years, working with Marc Jacobs. The photo is taken from backstage, and it’s just a great memory of that time.
You also have a lot of books.
I collect them. I search for them and buy them at different libraries in Paris. Or I find a lot of books in the streets. And in London. One in particular, Sonia Rykiel’s “Forty Years of Fashion,” is a wonderful book from an exhibition at the Louvre, at Les Arts Décoratifs. It’s so well made. It’s almost like Polaroids of every single look of every show for 40 years. I go back to it very often. I also have a lot of Helmut Newton books. Jürgen Teller’s book. The shop downstairs is also full of books. It’s like a private library: very inspiring. Books are really a starting point for me.
What is your process when you start on a new line?
I start with a mood board, because iconography and images are very important to me. I like my images to be put together in a certain way. I do it myself. You have to do things yourself sometimes for them to be the way you want, right? I like for a whole story to be created around my images, with a starting point and an end. For spring, for example, the story is very light. The silhouette and the fabrics, everything is very, very airy, almost like birds flying.
Then I work on fabrics, put my colors together, and I search for ideas of prints that I like. I don’t work on a computer. I do research on the Internet, of course, but I sketch by hand. I have particular paper that I sketch on that is, for me, important, because it’s an incredible quality and it makes the drawing look better, though I couldn’t tell you the name. And I drape by hand. I’m very manual.
Do you work at the last minute, or are you very organized?
I would like to say I’m very organized. I try not to work till the last minute. I feel more secure and reassured when things are not unresolved. I try my best to make decisions ahead of time.
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