35. Sony Chan, Comedian, Designer | Paris, Hong Kong
Sony Chan is known in France for her subversive humour on radio and television (you don’t quite know what is happening: a perfectly turned out woman with impeccable manners starts sending up French propriety with absurd commentary). She is also in more recent years a star in Hong Kong, doing sold out comedy shows where she once again inverses tropes with beautiful manners and a lot of style.Sony is an online fashion icon as well - not an influencer as she will explain but a very active ambassadrice for all things French for her Hong Kong audience.Sony came of age studying 90s supermodels in magazines. Chameleon Linda Evangelista was her most powerful influence as she struggled with gender as a young person. Ever since, fashion has allowed her to “signal” who she is to the world. Always intending to work in “show business”, Sony actually attended a very prestigious architecture school in Strasbourg. Her parents convinced her that university was a good idea and the architecture school was near her house. After that, she managed get herself fired from a string of design or fashion adjacent jobs until she finally made it to the stage in her thirties. She tells funny stories about some of the things she did to lose those jobs!Just for the record, she did her first stand-up comedy gig wearing a yellow Christian Lacroix teardrop dress! Nowadays Sony also designs accessories and curates Parisian shopping experiences for her Hong Kong audience. You can find her shop at https://sonychanselects.com/. She is @sonychanfrance on InstagramWhat first inspired me to reach out to Sony and ask her to chat on this podcast was how her story echoed the story of my children, in that she had to adjust to a new culture as a child. She moved from Hong Kong to France when she was 11. Something that wasn’t easy but it seems in Sony’s case to have given her a kind of superpower when it comes to reading cultural codes.
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34. Andreas Bernhardt, Hair and Make-up Innovator | Berlin
Andreas Bernhardt has a shy laugh when I ask if he was an “It Boy “ in the 80s and 90s. He certainly was!A 20-year-old kid from Berlin, he was introduced in one night to “everyone in New York”, that’s Keith Haring to Debbie Harry, thanks to a chance encounter with Joey Arias in Fiorucci. He posed nude for Andy Warhol’s last photographs. He became a queer icon in that unforgettable Gay Paris photo by Pierre and Gilles. And perhaps most importantly, he spent many years of innovation as a hair and makeup artist in Manfred Thierry Mugler’s inner circle. Andreas has always had a knack for being in the right place at the right time.In our conversation, Andreas revels in memories of his life within the Mugler “posse”. He unpacks the details - months of rigorous preparation; last minute perfectionism and excitement; shows starting wildly late season after season! Mugler pushed Andreas to create new materials and new ways of working - and we know that those wigs, hair pieces and diamond eyebrows coming down the Mugler runways have become indelible elements of fashion history! By the way, Andreas still has those velvet eyelashes he made for Jerry Hall! While Andreas had access to all the party scenes in fashion’s heyday in Paris, he has advice to people who get caught up in fear of missing out. Andreas is a philosopher; reflects on beauty and the idea of always working from a place of love. He also underscores the importance of discretion in his profession. Let’s face it, he’s seen everything! He is careful to respect the trust people put in him. Supermodels Debra Shaw and Emma Wiklund encouraged me to have this conversation with Andreas because he was a mentor to them backstage - had always done the research and had the backstory they needed to hit the podium with an extra level of knowingness in their comportment. So of course, Andreas and I get around to talking about them and some of the other models who have inspired him. Find out more about Andreas @andreashbernhardt on Instagram.To find out more about my documentary and overall project, visit @cartondinvitation on Instagram. Link in bio has a lot of resources as well. If you feel inclined, please do subscribe to this podcast on your preferred platform. Thank you for listening.
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33. Brian De Carvalho, Designer | London
London was already buzzing about Brian de Carvalho! But now his reach is going global. Fergie and the Netflix team promoting Lena Dunham’s new series Too Much just released a remake of London Bridge and yes, they commissioned Brian to create the fabulous Union Jack corseted gown that Fergie is wearing!He’s also had a gown appear on the cover of Italian vogue - and Lady Gaga has worn his work. The singer Micah too. Brian is also fueled by the energy of having very recently presented his second show. It was very well received - despite his fears that people might not have approved of the gown he made of 20,000 razor blades.Brian's trademark is the Serena corset. John Galliano saw him wearing one at Vogue World and took time to study it carefully. Then he told him he must be a designer -advice Brian took to heart and he quit his retail job and produced his first collection a few months later.Brian is thoughtful - and intentional - in his exploration of 18th dress to express modern queer issues. I hope you enjoy meeting him here in this podcast episode.Please subscribe if you enjoy this series. Check out my Instagram which gives you an idea of my larger project @cartondinvitation. There is a video excerpt of this interview there too.Find Brian at https://www.briandecarvalho.co.uk/Original music by Ashley Rivera, Myla Carlo and Chloe Hsu.
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32. Emma Wiklund, Supermodel, Entrepreneur | Stockholm
Back in the 90s, when Supermodels headed down the runways from Chanel to Versace to Mugler, Emma Wiklund (formerly Sjoberg) was always one of the chosen few.Emma was at the centre of what a lot of people now think of as a Golden Age of fashion, whether that day she was the embodiment of total luxury in a high collared Lanvin jacket cut by Claude Montana or the height of edgy cool in a metallic bikini by Mugler. Of course, we can't forget she danced in Mugler's motorcycle dress in the Too Funky video by George Michael and ?. She tells stories here about how that infamous shoot went!After modeling, Emma went on to become a busy film star in France - think the four Taxi movies. Now she is back in Sweden - an entrepreneur who has created an eponymous skincare line, Emma of Stockholm. She went back to school to learn how to build a company and she invested her modeling money (that was scary) to make it work. In recent years, Emma has beome one of Sweden's most successful skincare entrepreneurs!Emma is savvy, charming and refreshing - and I was thrilled to sit down and be able to interview her again after all of these years. She shares what it was like as Anna Wintour and Andre Leon Talley helped Karl Lagerfeld style her Chanel runway looks in the atelier. Humble, she laughs about how she never got the best dresses on all those runways she walked at Versace but Donatella told her she was cast because whatever she wore sold - in Germany. She recalls the atmosphere in the Dior atelier under Gianfranco Ferre: models had to “zip it”. Be seen and not heard. And Emma shares many touching remembrances of her work with Mugler and Montana. She expresses both delight and bemusement that people such as Beyonce and Lady Gaga relaunch iconic pieces that were originally designed for her to wear.We explore what it meant to be a model - the intricacy of the co-creative process.Find Emma @emmaofstockholm on Instragram or at https://emmas.com/about/about-emmaPlease subscribe wherever you may listen. I thank you for your support of my efforts to create an oral history archive!Check out my Instagram @cartondinvitation for a video version of this interview and to learn about my documentary project.Original music by Ashley Rivera, Chloe Hsu and Mlya Carlos.
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31. Onerva Luoma, Conceptual Artist, Costume Designer | Helsinki, Finland
Onerva Luoma is a young Finnish artist who has come up with a clever - and really fun project - that combines fashion and a library card to make a statement about consumption and so much else. In her own words, Onerva explains, "The conceptual artwork is called Lead Me out of here (even if I Do not Know if such a Place Exists) and it consists of 55 paintings made on old clothes. Anyone can borrow a painting with a library card, so the artworks will continue their journeys out of the library and into various private and public spaces and situations. The work explores what a meaningful relationship with clothing might look like in the age of climate catastrophe and how we might see clothes as something more than commodities, objects to be bought and sold."
The first time I heard about how destructive fashion was to the environment was back in the 80s in Paris when Katherine Hamnet started talking about green cotton during her fashion shows - so that’s a long time ago. Young designers today must be scratching their heads wondering why ethical production and for that matter consumption practices haven’t evolved all that much since then. As I work on the Carton d'invitation project, I encounter young designers who are trying in their way on a small scale, to address these issues. And that’s inspiring. When I came upon what Onerva Luoma is up to in Helsinki, I contacted her right away and asked if she would come on this podcast to share her brilliant project.
By the way, this is a very inspiring podcast for anyone involved in library work - and I want to thank Danielle Lum of the Toronto Public Library system who consulted with me in advance of talking to Onerva.
Find out more about Onerva: www.onervaluoma.com or go to Instagram @onervaluoma.
Please subscribe to this podcast wherever you might be listening!
To learn more about the Carton d'invitation project and my documentary, check out my Instagram @cartondinvitation
Thank you to Ashley Rivera, Chloe Hsu and Myla Carlos for the original music.
Carton d’invitation celebrates the fashion journeys of Supermodels, designers, journalists, stylists, creative directors, illustrators etc. Stars of 90s Paris as well as emerging creatives in conversation about "life before the internet" and making fashion now.
I was a TV reporter in the Golden Age of fashion in Paris in the 80s and 90s, back when it was a new thing to bring video cameras into that elite world. Now I am a documentary maker and writer thinking about embodiment, glamour and sartorial disruption. These podcasts honour legacies. Touching and fun - a fashion history archive.
Ireland