Inside Paris Fashion—Nathalie Rykiel - French fashion designer - Brief Article - Interview

INGRID SISCHY: So, Nathalie, you were barn into fashion. Right?

NATHALIE RYKIEL: [laughs] I am first and foremost a Parisian. For me, it's always been Paris, and it's even more than Paris. It's the Left Bank of Paris. Actually it's two areas. The first was the one where I spent my childhood, the 14th Arrondissement, behind Montparnasse. It's where my father had his boutique called Laura. And that is where my mother started to do her pregnant dresses and the first "poor-boy" sweaters. The funny thing about it is when she moved the boutique to the Sixth Arrondissement, to Saint-Germain-des-Pres, I lived there with her for a long time, and 10 years ago Simon [Burstein, her husband] and I bought our house back exactly where I spent all my childhood. Both areas are in the Left Bank of Paris. Everybody always says to me, You're the Left Bank girl." [laughs] The connection with fashion came much later, even though every day I came back from school and I would go through my parents' shop. The flat we were living in was about 50 meters from the shop. But, for me, it was just the s hop of my parents. The realization of the word "fashion" came when I was bit older. I was maybe 10 and Sonia was starting to become famous, and at school we had sewing lessons and I was the worst of the class. I just couldn't sew anything and that drove my sewing teacher absolutely mad. One day, in front of the whole class, she said, "I do not believe that the daughter of Sonia Rykiel is really the worst in the class." At this moment, I realized very quickly the meaning of the words "fashion," "Sonia Rykiel," "daughter."

IS: Did you feel that you had a choice to not do fashion?

NR: Yes. I was actually not going to do that at all because I had this fantastic father of mine--very intelligent--and he'd put in my mind the fact that children who work with their parents haven't proven themselves. And he was very much against the idea. So I was going to be either a movie director or, eventually, a doctor. But at some point, things moved in my life. My father died, very suddenly, from one day to the next. My mother needed somebody to work with her. And I thought, Well, why don't I give it a try? I found the right place for me, beside Sonia. And I found the way to express my own creativity, which was important.

Nathalie Rykiel is creative Director of Sonia Rykiel.

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