French beauty, sartorial princess or one of the stars of a new Hollywood, whatever title you wish to peg to Clemence Poesy one thing is for sure, her star is soaring. No surprise then that she is the face of the fifth instalment of the mytheresa.com women series. Here is the shoot and the life lessons she shared, exclusively, with Emirates Woman.
It’s important to have icons. I’ve always been fascinated by Lee Miller. She is one of my heroes. I also love Francesa Woodman. Sometimes I can just stare at the patterns in her pictures all day or at the shape of one of her shirts. It’s more about the atmosphere that she’s creating. I adore Niki de Saint Phalle, she’s a very elegant woman and I think I’d be lying if I didn’t say Patti Smith and Jane Birkin influence me, though everybody names them.
Always treasure your possessions. I was raised by a mother who taught me and my sister to take care of all the things we had.
I believe in quality over quantity. I like the idea of buying something that you keep for a long time versus buying many things. I have a shirt that was my mum’s in the 1970s and it has a perfect shape and I wore it so much that I can’t actually take it out of my wardrobe anymore. It just sits there because I think it’s going to break as it’s so thin now.
What I love about New York is that no one cares, you can wear whatever you want. You can be as crazy as you want. No one will even look at you and everyone can just be whoever they want to be.
Hats are great accessories. I personally tend to wear lots of hats in New York, I don’t know why.
People watching in London is fascinating. I think the Brits have a really amazing sense of style.
I really think acting is similar to what you’re doing when you’re eight years old and you’re in your room and you’re a princess for a bit and then someone calls you and you’re you again. I think my desire to become an actress began when my parents [her father is the actor and writer Etienne Guichard, her mother is a French teacher] started taking my sister and I to the movies. They would also share plays, music and literature with us and gave us space to play together and come up with our own story ideas, which we would act out.
Acting is an amazing thing. You learn, you never stop learning and the minute you think you do, the minute you feel you know something, and you know exactly what you’re doing, everything usually falls into pieces and you have to re-access and learn everything again.
I thought every little girl wanted to be an actress and I didn’t want to say I wanted to be an actress. I kept saying I want to draw. I wanted to design costumes. I think the process of finding a costume for a character is one of the most essential parts for me when I’m prepping for a film or a play.
Check out Clemence’s interview with mytheresa.com in this video
