Isabel Marant - Spring 2013
you know her. The French girl with the just-rolled-out-of-bed, can’t-be-bothered look. She pulls on last night’s clothes—slouchy tee, gray jeans. Fingers through the hair, a touch of makeup, and she goes out. Yet she looks smashing. Perhaps it’s her ankle boots (scuffed just so), boyish jacket, and lambskin shoulder bag. Or maybe it’s the way that skinny chain-mail scarf or mass of bracelets comes off as an afterthought. Equal parts confidence and nonchalance—that’s what makes this Gallic girl so enviable, and no one captures it better than Isabel Marant.
A native Parisian, Marant blends ethnic bohemia and tomboy street chic effortlessly, and her name has long been on the lips of fashion insiders: editors, models, and sexy actresses like Sienna Miller and Rachel Weisz. Until recently, Americans had to jet across the pond to get their hands on her notoriously hard-to-find pieces—slim pants, sheer tees, and draped minis—which they carried home by the armload. (The more enterprising could turn a quick profit on eBay.) The label’s exclusivity was just part of its mystique. “It took some time to build up,” Marant acknowledged in 2008, “but I have never fallen.”
But even after fifteen years in the business, with a rock-solid fan base and booming boutiques, Marant didn’t quite know how to bring her vision to a wider audience—that is, until she reconnected with her childhood friend Emmanuelle Alt, then the fashion director of French Vogue. “My strength is not putting clothes together,” Marant said in 2010. “Emmanuelle, on the other hand, is perfect for this. . . . It’s funny because she has managed to create exactly the image I wanted.”
By 2011, that look of perfectly tousled French cool was hitting its stride, with waiting lists for Marant’s fringed and studded boots wrapping clear around the globe. Stateside fans can now get their Isabel fix in SoHo, New York, where Marant and Jerome Dreyfuss, her bag-designer husband, have set up side-by-side shops.
