The French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF), MADE Fashion Week, and Milk Studios are thrilled to launch FIAFs acclaimed fall arts festival Crossing the Line 2014 with Olivier Saillards Models never talk, on Monday, September 8 at 4pm and 7pm at Milk Studios.
In the 1950s, Parisian couturiers arrived in New York with their collections in suitcases, models in tow. In 2014, French fashion curator and director of the Palais Galliera Olivier Saillard will land with only his muses and their memories.
Seven former supermodelsAnne Rohart, Charlotte Flossaut, Axelle Doué, Christine Bergstrom, Claudia Huidobro, Amalia Vairelli, and Violeta Sanchezbreak their traditional silence in a world-premiere performance that reveals the person behind the image and the soul beneath the style.
For more information on FIAFs 2014 Crossing the Line festival, visit: www.fiaf.org/ctl.
For Immediate Release
Media Contact: Natascha Bodemann | 646 388 6677 | [email protected]
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Blake Zidell and John Wyszniewski at Blake Zidell & Associates | [email protected] or [email protected]
French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF), MADE Fashion Week,
and Milk Studios
present
World Premiere
Olivier Saillard:
Models never talk
Monday, September 8 at 4 & 7pm
Milk Studios, 450 West 15th Street
[Olivier Saillard] has been igniting the city with a series of exhibits and performances that hold up a poetic mirror for fashionVogue
New York, NY, August 13, 2014As part of the 2014 edition of Crossing the Line, the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF)s acclaimed fall arts festival, FIAF, MADE Fashion Week, and Milk Studios are thrilled to present Olivier Saillards Models never talk on Monday, September 8 at 4pm and 7pm at Milk Studios.
In the 1950s, Parisian couturiers arrived in New York with their collections in suitcases, models in tow. In 2014, celebrated French fashion curator and director of the Palais Galliera Olivier Saillard will land with only his muses and their memories.
In a world premiere performance presented during New York Fashion Week, seven former supermodelsAnne Rohart, Charlotte Flossaut, Axelle Doué, Christine Bergstrom, Claudia Huidobro, Amalia Vairelli, and Violeta Sanchezwill break their traditional silence.
One by one, these icons, whose faces, bodies, and gestures have shaped fashion history, will walk the runway, reliving the dresses of the famed designers. In a parade of words, the muses to Yves Saint Laurent, Thierry Muglier, and Jean-Paul Gaultier will share intimate reminiscences at turns vivid, poetic, and scathing. Dressed only in memories, they will invite the audience to recreate their garments from an abstract pattern of sartorial confessions.
Over the past decade, author, poet, and curator Olivier Saillard has electrified the international fashion community with daring exhibits and convention-defying, contemporary performances that have become a highlight of Paris Fashion Week. Playing on the latent drama of fashion shows, Saillards work comments on the ever-accelerating fashion cycle in an era of behemoth luxury conglomerates, mass production, and over-abundance of product.
With his acclaimed performances, Saillard has developed a new genre and a fresh, alternative vision, galvanizing the energy of the runway to restore fashions poetic luster and reveal an ephemeral art. Models never talk is Saillards first performance in the United States.
To those seriously interested in fashion and its history, Saillards shows have been irresistible.W Magazine
Olivier Saillard has put his mark on fashion.The New York Times
Olivier Saillard: Models never talk
Assistants: Gael Mamine, Alexandre Samson
Sound: Mode-F, Laurent Ballot, Alexander Maxwell
Manager: Aymar Crosnier, Studio Olivier Saillard
About Olivier Saillard
Olivier Saillard (b. 1967) is a French writer, fashion curator, and performance-maker. Well known as a fashion historian and director of the Palais Galliera fashion museum in Paris, Saillard has curated numerous exhibitions, including Alaïa at Palais Galliera; Paris Haute Couture at Pariss Hôtel de Ville; Madame Grès, la couture àluvre at Musée Bourdelle; and Christian Lacroix, histoires de modes, Yohji Yamamoto, juste des vêtements, and Sonia Rykiel Exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs.
Saillard is the author of Histoire idéale de la mode contemporaine (Editions Textuel), in which he has catalogued and analyzed the most iconic fashion shows from 1970 to the present day. Saillard has been a resident at Villa Kujoyama in Kyoto, Japan, a program sponsored by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Culturesfrance in association with the Institut Franco-Japonais du Kansai.
Since 2005, Saillard has been creating fashion performances.He has presented several works as part of the Festival dAutomne in Paris, including his collaborations with Tilda Swinton, The Impossible Wardrobe (2012) and The Eternity Dress(2013).
About Christine Bergstrom
Christine Bergstrom was discovered by Angus McBean while working as an assistant stylist at LOfficiel Magazine. Paolo Roversi and Lei Magazinepromptly put her on the cover. From then on, in between gigs singing with Jean-Marie Rivière at Pariss Alcazar cabaret, Bergstrom focused on fashion. She has collaborated with photographers including Peter Lindbergh, Jean-Baptiste Mondino, and Helmut Newton, and walked the runway for some of the most acclaimed designers, including Comme des Garçons, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Azzedine Alaïa, Claude Montana, and Martin Margiela. Her charisma is tangible on the catwalk but also in fitting sessions, and has led to longstanding friendships with many of the designers. Today she is the founder of LIWAN, a designer label that promotes Lina Audis work with artisans throughout the Middle East.
About Axelle Doué
Spotted time and again at the houses of Christian Lacroix, Anne-Marie Beretta, Thierry Mugler, and Karl Lagerfeld, Axelle Douéwas admired for her very Parisian spirit and ease at adapting the signature style and nuance of each designer. The rigor and precision of her approach earned her the loyalty of Claude Montana, whose image she embodied for many years. She has also collaborated with various photographers, notably the American photographer Norman Parkinson.
About Charlotte Flossaut
During the 80s and 90s, Charlotte Flossaut forged close professional relationships with the designers Popy Moreni, Chantal Thomass, Claude Montana, and Christian Lacroix. Her subdued style emphasized the signature consistency and elegance of Yohji Yamamotos creations. She has worked with photographers Albert Watson, David Seidner, Sarah Moon, Bruce Weber, Sacha, Deborah Turbeville, and Tyen, and in 2003 founded her own agency representing artists, sculptors, and photographers.
About Claudia Huidobro
Originally from Chile, Claudia Huidobro first walked the Paris runway in the 80s for Popy Moreni. Her unconventional beauty and the novelty of her look attracted the attention of the Japanese designers Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo. But it was with Jean-Paul Gaultier that she developed a particularly strong rapport. Huidobro easily and freely adapted a variety of styles, ranging from couture to relaxed, each time incorporating her trademark indifference and nonchalance. An interdisciplinary artist, she is known today for work that flouts compartmentalization, via a range of media spanning video, painting, sound, photography, and sculpture.
About Anne Rohart
Anne Rohart began her modeling career in the early 80s after being discovered by ELLE Magazine at the age of 18. For 15 years, she worked with numerous photographers including Dominique Issermann, Sarah Moon, Peter Lindberg, Paolo Roversi, Horst, William Klein, Serge Lutens, and others. She became the image of Sonia Rykiel and Dior, and was featured in advertising campaigns for Yves Saint Laurent, Christian Lacroix, Emmanuel Ungaro, Valentino, Versace, Yohji Yamamoto, Hermès, Donna Karan, and Moschino. At the same time, she was photographed for magazines including French Vogue, American Vogue, Vogue Japan, ELLE, Marie Claire, and Égoiste.
Rohart has walked the runway for both haute couture and ready-to-wear, working with designers including Christian Lacroix, Valentino, Versace, Hermès, Moschino, Calvin Klein, and Donna Karan. In 1983, the photographer Dominique Issermann dedicated a book to Anne, entitled Anne Rohart by Dominique Issermann, published byShirmer Mosel. While modeling, Rohart took up photography and shot several Super 8 films. The stylists and photographers she worked with were the first to solicit her skills and advice as a director. Over the past 15 years, Rohart has directed music videos, commercials, and corporate films, all while developing her own personal work. She first began working with Olivier Saillard for his performance Fashion in Movement.
About Violeta Sanchez
Sensual and aristocratic, Violeta Sanchez is the archetypal Iberian muse. Her look inspired the fashion for unconventional beauties who challenged the uniformity that was often de rigueur in the 80s. Discovered by Helmut Newton and Yves Saint Laurent, she was also a muse to Thierry Mugler, Moschino, David Seidner, Antonio, Tony Viramontes, and Jean-Paul Gaultier. Trained as an actress, her temperament and the scope of her gestural range enabled her to embody the poetic vision of various different designers. This spiritual theatricality earned her the loyalty of numerous prestigious names in fashion photography.
About Amalia Vairelli
Amalia Vairelli is one of the fitting models that Yves Saint Laurent loved to use for his collections. Over nearly 20 years of assiduous fitting sessions, she collaborated closely in the birth of the great designers clothes. On the catwalks of the 80s, her feline and mysterious grace seduced the salons of Avenue Marceau and beyond. Moschino, Ungaro, and many Italian couturiers hired her. She was abundantly photographed by Helmut Newton, among others. Her presence and the very haute-couture style of her gait on the catwalk established her as an archetype of the Parisian model.
About Crossing the Line 2014
Crossing the Line is the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF)s annual fall festival, presenting interdisciplinary works and performances in New York. The festival explores the dialogue between artist and public, and examines how artists help re-imagine the world as critical thinkers and catalysts for social evolution. Crossing the Line is initiated and produced by FIAF in partnership with leading cultural institutions. The festivals eighth edition takes place this year from September 8October 20, 2014.
Since its inauguration in 2007, Crossing the Line has cultivated an increasingly large and diverse following, and received numerous accolades in the press. The festival has been voted Best of 2009,Best of 2010,Best of 2012,” and Best of 2013by The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time Out New York, Artforum, and Frieze, with performances earning an Obie and several Bessie awards. The New York Times states, For terrifically unusual, unpredictable, unnameable performance, weve come to expect a lot from the curators of the French Institute Alliance Françaises interdisciplinary festival,and The New Yorker says, This interdisciplinary festival, focused but not exclusively devoted to contemporary French culture, goes from strength to strength.For more information, visit fiaf.org/ctl.
About MADE
MADE is a downtown creative hub that encompasses fashion, music and youth culture through its innovative incubation programs. MADE Fashion Week was founded in 2009 to counter the impact of economic recession on designers who could no longer afford the cost of runway shows during New York Fashion Week. Now in its tenth season, MADE Fashion Week is a global, year-round media company that harnesses the energy of creative communities around the world. MADE Fashion Week events include over 40 fashion shows and presentations, events, and concerts anchored by Fashion Weeks in New York and Paris, plus an unrivaled digital presence at www.MilkMADE.com. MADE is at the forefront of a movement thats making fashion and music more accessible; MADE encourages creativity, fosters growth, challenges convention and connects visionary brands to the creative vanguard of Fashion, Music, Tech, Art, and Culture.
About Milk Studios
Milk stands at the crossroads of the fashion, music, photography, and film worlds. A media company based out of New York and Los Angeles, Milk spans contemporary culture and is a hub for nurturing creativity and supporting partnerships with some of the industrys most visionary talent and innovative brands. www.milkstudios.com
About the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF)
The French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) is New Yorks premiere French cultural and language center.FIAF’s mission is to create and offer New Yorkers innovative and unique programs in education and the arts that explore the evolving diversity and richness of French cultures. FIAF seeks to generate new ideas and promote cross cultural dialogue through partnerships and new platforms of expression. www.fiaf.org
Merci!
Models Never Talk is sponsored by Marvin Traub Associates. Additional support from Fekkai, Maybelline, and Roger Vivier.
Crossing the Line 2014 is made possible with the generous support of The Hermès Foundations New Settings program; Presenting Sponsor Nespresso; Air France and Delta Air Lines, the official airlines of FIAF; Florence Gould Foundation; and Pommery.
Our Producers Circle: Ron Guttman, Tom McCarthy & Violaine Huisman, Agathe Lerolle, Elizabeth Krief Manardo, Virginia A Millhiser, Marie Nugent-Head, Barbara & Henry Pillsbury, Antoine Roset-Ligne Roset, and Elisabeth Wilmers.
FIAF would like to thank the following for their generous support of Crossing the Line 2014: The National Endowment for the Arts; Institut Français; New York State Council on the Arts; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; FUSED: French U.S. Exchange in Dance, a program of the New England Foundation for the ArtsNational Dance Project; The Enoch Foundation; The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation and Robert de Rothschild.
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| What: | Crossing the Line 2014: Olivier Saillard: Models never talk |
| When: | Monday, September 8 at 4 & 7pm |
| Where: | Milk Studios, 450 West 15th Street (between 9th and 10th Avenue), NYC |
| Tickets: | FIAF Members $20; Non-Members $30 |
| Information: | 212 645 2797 | milkstudios.com |
| Transportation: | SubwayA, C, E to West 14th Street |
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