Interview

OZ: You left Paris for New York, where you joined up with Maripol and her crowd. That must have been an interesting time.

E: When I first arrived in New York, I lived with a friend of my first husband, Jean-Louis Jorge-Jean-Louis had given me a note in English that said: "Please take care of my wife, she's a good friend." It was the winter with people skiing down Fifth Avenue, steam gushing out of the ground in the middle of the streets. I was overwhelmed. I had met Maripol in Paris when she hooked up with Edo Bertoglio, the photographer, and they decided to make it in New York. I didn't really know her, but when I arrived in the Big Apple, I stayed in the Village, and Maripol and Edo lived uptown. I would go visit them and hang out. I didn't speak English, and they did, and they already knew everyone who one should know in the city, so I was home again. She is still my sister, and we recently became neighbors again. Maripol took me to the Mudd Club downtown. I don't think I need to talk about my New York cousins. Everyone knows about downtown New York in the '80s. If you don't by now, you should be ashamed.

OZ: Did you know Andy Warhol? Was he your gateway to the New York underground?

E: Andy definitely opened doors for me. Or at least my connection to him did. We had a silent connection, obviously because we didn't speak the same language. I was totally in awe of him, but I played it tough, and he liked that. He brought me to Studio 54 regularly, and I would sit in the little roped-off VIP area by the dance floor next to Halston or Liza Minnelli and dance with Bianca Jagger and fall in love with Patti Hansen, all in a heartbeat.

OZ: After appearing on the cover of Façade with Warhol, you were described as "la reine du punk a Paris." But in a video interview with Maripol, you said, "Punk is fashion." It took amazing lucidity to link punk with fashion then, to recognize that it was more than music.

E: This was the way some of us fashion outlaws felt. To be punk in the sense of the term, you do it through your music and your uniform. We'll do it through our revolutionary style. Punk was a revolution, after all. I was never a punk rocker; I was the Queen of Paris Punk.

OZ: You modeled on the runway for Thierry Mugler and Jean-Paul Gaultier. How was that different from the runway today?

E: The early shows of both Thierry Mugler and Jean-Paul Gaultier were like a punch in the face,

OZ: Did you encounter Yves Saint Laurent-with Loulou de la Falaise, perhaps?

E: Of course I met Yves. While I was working at Le Palace, he heard my birthday was coming up and offered to make me a suit I could wear at work, so Loulou arranged it. I was to design my own tuxedo. Wow! All I wanted then was red tux pants with a satin band on the side and a waist-length white jacket with gold buttons. A couple of fittings later at a Palace party, I was proudly wearing my one-of-a-kind Yves Saint Laurent tuxedo fitted by Loulou herself. Someone broke a glass in my hand and covered my white jacket in blood. How punk was that? I still had the pants a couple of years ago. I passed them on to a dear friend who worshipped them. I still have an Yves Saint Laurent necklace, Loulou gave me that one night in the bathroom of the Club Sept. It has been with me ever since and forever will be.

OZ: You broke a barrier with tattoos. You sported them when they were still rather taboo. Do you still get tattooed?

E: My tattoos are stepping stones in my life-moments, loves, fears, messages. My tattoos expose my heart and my soul and make me stronger. I still cannot hear the buzz of a tattoo needle without wanting one. I will never stop getting tattoos; they are my diary.