Interview

SSB: Did you meet a lot of the artists when you were in New York at this time?

AA: Oh, yes. Basquiat, Haring, Clemente . . . At night we went to dinner at Mr. Chow's. I was friends with Tina [Chow].

SSB: You've always kept a close relationship with artists.

AA: Yes, even before New York. Especially in Paris. Madame Zehrfuss held a dinner almost every week with only artists. I didn't know anything at all, nothing, at the time. I remember the Zehrfusses took me to see my first Picasso exhibition . . .

SSB: And now you carry on her tradition of supporting artists, and bringing people of all sorts together with your lunches and dinners where you cook and serve. One can stop by your atelier anytime for lunch or dinner and always meet the most interesting people, not only from Paris but from all over the world.

AA: That comes from my grandmother. My grandmother
always set an extra place or two for someone coming, because her house was always open. I remember my grandfather would go get 20 baguettes every day, because everyone landed at my grandmother's. She cooked all the time, and then at 70 or 80 she just left. She ran away.

SSB: What? She ran away?

AA: She was fed up at one point and she left. My grandmother disappeared to the south. She eventually came back, and my grandfather never asked her why she left. I think this kind of thing happens in a woman's life . . . At least I see it in the women I know. At some point they assess who they are. My grandmother spent her whole life at home taking care of kids . . .

SSB: People often talk about how you work. You live by your own schedule. You make a collection when you're ready to make a collection and show when you're ready to show. It seems like you wait until you are completely and thoroughly inspired to do a collection. You are much more like an artist in that you don't even think in seasons. Why is this?

AA: I don't create a story. It's in the materials.

SSB: I don't know if people realize that your hand is in every dress. You pin everything yourself. I love the way you always have a fitting model living with you. You have a little room at your atelier where they stay and you knock whenever you need them-24 hours a day!

AA: Oh, yes, always. Naomi [Campbell] was one.

SSB: You often have movies playing while you work. What are some of your favorite movies?

AA: That's hard. There are favorites for periods of time. I love film-it's like painting. When I was a child, when I started to see foreign films, I was 10, 15, 17 years old. Really, there were Italian films, American films, Anna Magnani . . . but I can't pick one. I can't.

SSB: You love Magnani.

AA: I love Magnani.

SSB: So you like that whole film noir school.

AA: I like Marlon Brando. I like Marilyn Monroe. But it's like asking what my favorite painting is. It's very hard.

SSB: You've always been a great collector. In fact you have one of the greatest haute couture collections in the world. When did you start collecting other designers?

AA: I started in 1968 when Balenciaga closed his house. I was already at Bellechasse. The saleswoman who worked at Balenciaga started working for me. She took care of our clients, rich women from all over-some from America, a lot from Brazil. One day she brought me to Balenciaga after they had closed because I was going to buy the mannequins. The director of the house came in and gave me some packages. One day I see a woman cutting a Balenciaga dress to copy something that we were doing. It made me sick to see that dress cut and destroyed. It was one of the dresses from the 1955 runway show. There were the tags with the names of the models. All of a sudden I had this shock about haute couture. I said, "It's sad that the house closes, this man dies, and everything disappears." So I began to collect.