My personal style signifiers are blue jeans and cardigans. Cardigans, for a reason I don’t understand, are a bit out of fashion. I like dressing like an old person; even in my 20s I used to wear clothes with moth holes. I’ve never tried to be fashionable; it would be ridiculous on me for a reason I can’t explain. At home, I love having antique things but, with clothing, I prefer new things – from Monoprix or Ralph Lauren. With vintage, I have the feeling that I’m wearing something the previous person died in. Also, I have very long arms. Before people were shorter, so if I see a nice jacket at a flea market it is never my size. I think it’s important to dress well – there’s a thing nowadays of people going to the opera house in sneakers; it’s so disrespectful, to the place, to the opera singer. If I go out, I always try to dress properly and be elegant.
The last thing I bought and loved was a sweater from Muji. I was in Japan recently and Air France lost my luggage, so I had no clothes. The airline said they’d reimburse me. I could have gone to luxurious shops and bought luxurious things but, in the end, I went to Muji. I didn’t ask for my money back. I liked what I bought so I don’t see why Air France should pay for it.
The best souvenir I’ve brought home is a pitcher from an antique dealer in Seville, whose shop was full of rubbish. He couldn’t believe I wanted to buy it; I think he found it horrible. I bought it for €10 and he was really happy to get rid of it. It’s a kind of scary circus thing with golden teeth – very colourful. He’s a nice guy, a bit rock ’n’ roll. I’ve never seen such a thing in my life.
The best book I’ve read in the past year is Le Faux Coupon, a short novel by Tolstoy. It’s an extraordinary story: it starts with two kids forging a little bond coupon, which leads to a human catastrophe. It shows how a small thing can have a huge result. I like how Tolstoy analyses humans and is very fun and quite cruel.
My style icon is Samuel Beckett. When I was younger, I was very skinny. I’m quite tall, so even when I wasn’t wearing anything fashionable, people would say, “Oh, you’re so chic.” I was not particularly chic, I was just tall and skinny. Then I became fat and instantly, everyone stopped telling me I was elegant. A person who kept being old and skinny is Samuel Beckett. I was never so interested in his writing, but whenever he was being interviewed he was so stylish, with his little glasses. I thought one day I should try looking like him. And no chance, because I became fat.
The best gift I’ve received recently was from my friend, the sculptor Serena Carone. It’s a trompe l’oeil ceramic that shows a cup and little spoon with chocolate spilling out of it. It’s a lovely piece of art.
The last music I downloaded is “La Sublime Solitude” by Keren Ann, who has been around in France for the past 25 years. She has this very sweet, poetic, melancholic thing going on. She sings in English and French. This new one is in French. There’s something absolutely unique about her.
I have a collection of drinking glasses. I buy them again and again because I break them a lot. So it’s a never-ending collection. I like 19th-century or early-20th-century glasses, quite rustic in style. I don’t buy crystal or anything. I like when they have little bubbles and they’re all slightly different because they’ve been blown.
When I was an art student, the best way to spend €5 was on a lottery ticket; €5 was not enough for lunch, so I would hope to win €20 and have a proper lunch. Now the best way to spend €20 is on two packs of Tibetan incense. I mainly use Tibetan incense because it’s made with medicinal herbs. The fragrance is extraordinary and can calm down anxiety.
A way to make me laugh is with something a bit absurd or nonsensical. Mr Bean is hilarious. There’s an extraordinary French actor called Louis de Funès. Whatever he does, I start laughing – he doesn’t even open his mouth. And I love Cameron Diaz. Any movie with her, I find hilarious – any microscopic thing she does with her face, or the way she moves. Some people have that power. I think she’s underestimated; she’s only doing horrible films. I’d give her the best roles.
In my fridge, you’ll always find petit suisse, soft, individually wrapped cheese – a bit like a set yoghurt. You can add sugar and it’s super-yummy. You’ll also find things to make pasta like parmesan and guanciale. I always have cornichons and different mustards, including a very interesting one called Savora. As a French person, I love butter. And I often have leftover cat food that I forget to throw away. I give my cats super-expensive food. One is obese and it’s meant to make him slim. But he has put on weight, so I’m furious with my vet.
I believe in life after death because I’m Buddhist. I was raised as a Christian and I would vaguely believe people went somewhere after they died. Maybe paradise. When I was 18, I started studying in Tibet and became Buddhist. It seems so logical to me now, reincarnation. I have no idea how I’ll be reincarnated; I hope I’m not an ant or a fish – that would be horrible. If you’re a fish, you either eat a smaller fish or are eaten by a bigger fish. That would be low on my list.
The last item of clothing I added to my wardrobe was a Ralph Lauren suit in denim. I bought it in Paris and it was super- expensive – I feel chic whenever I wear it.
The thing I couldn’t do without is coffee. It wakes me up and makes me feel fresher. For years, people claimed caffeine is horrible. And now suddenly you have stories claiming it’s good for your health. I used to drink a lot. Now I drink a maximum of two cups in the morning. I have a Krups coffee machine, which has changed my life.
An object I would never part with is an Etruscan head I got two years ago. It has weird eyes. The dealer told me a kid might have painted on top of the statue, but you can see it’s not the hand of a child. The eyes have little dots of white, which a kid would never do. It’s very skilled; it’s a bold thing to paint on top of an ancient statue, but it gives it a strong personality. My feeling is that it was owned by a painter. I like things that are a bit weird like that.
On my Instagram “For You” page you’ll find a lot of cats. But, lately, I’ve been annoyed because I started going to the gym regularly and I’ve been overwhelmed by millions of super-hardcore gym videos. I was happy just to see stupid cats doing funny things. I never used to go to the gym at all, but when you’re older you have no choice, otherwise you become decrepit.
The one artist whose work I would collect if I could is Balthus. His wife gave me his painting board, which I have on my wall, but I would love to have a painting that costs millions. Balthus was rebellious, and there is something extremely beautiful and powerful in his paintings. Le Passage du Commerce Saint-André is one of my favourites. When I saw it in real life, I could have kept looking at it for hours.
The grooming staple I’m never without is cologne. I wear Astier de Villatte’s Mantes-la-Jolie, which is minty, and Delhi, which is inspired by India. I also love My Clémentine by my friend Dominique Ropion, as well as cheaper products. Bien-être’s eau de Cologne is the cheapest thing ever – you really splash it on and feel super-awake. There’s also one called Tabac, which is kind of a musk in this really ’60s bottle. It’s hard to find because it’s so out of fashion. We were working with a nose called Françoise Caron who worked for Hermès, and I said I felt ashamed I wore it. But she said, of course, it’s one of the best perfumes ever.
My favourite building is Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge, the British city I know best. My father had a girlfriend who lived there, so I spent all my teenage holidays there. The woman, who was a Quaker, worked at Cambridge University Press and was friends with a lot of intellectual people; I loved the atmosphere. Kettle’s Yard had just been given to the city by its owner a few years before. You would ring the bell and a maid would open the door. It’s where I saw Ben Nicholson, one of my favourite painters, for the first time.
I don’t have any wellbeing gurus. I do shiatsu, but I don’t like it. I hate people touching me – I hate when I go to the barber and they touch my head; I say, “Leave me alone.” I’ve had the same hairdresser coming to my house for the past three years. She cuts my hair in 20 minutes.
The podcasts I’m listening to are TheBoldWay hosted by Adrien Garcia, who talks for hours with experts and entrepreneurs involved in various industries, and a current affairs podcast by Internazionale called Il Mondo. We are living in a world that is quite scary, but it’s a nice analysis of what is going on.
The place that means a lot to me is Japan. There’s a small city near Kyoto called Nara, which is the former capital of Japan. There’s a huge park with deer who are free and wild and walk in the city. You can feed the deer with these special biscuits called shika senbei sold by old ladies. In front of the park is my favourite hotel in the world, the Nara Hotel. It has a modern side, which isn’t nice, but the old side is a delight. You have this feeling of going back into a very obscure time, like where an Agatha Christie novel would happen. I’m so unimpressed by luxury nowadays. There’s a lot of bling-bling stuff, but this hotel is old-style. When I went there, I had dinner in a French restaurant – the kind of French cuisine you’d never have in France, totally made up by Japanese people. We sat at round tables with a green tablecloth touching the floor. I felt totally lost in space and time.
I can’t remember the best gift I’ve given. I gave a friend of mine a jumper, but it was not particularly exciting. It was a very classical jumper, good-quality, in grey. She is much older than me. I found it beautiful, but because she has grey hair, she said it was too much grey. I had to change it for a red one.
The works of art that changed everything for me were the Roman paintings I saw at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples near Pompeii. When I was a student, it created a Big Bang in my head. There’s an avant and an après. People saw them as archaeological artefacts, but I saw them as the most beautiful paintings ever made.
My favourite room in my house is my kitchen and living room – it’s one room. I’m going to move soon, but it’s going to be the same thing. When I was younger I didn’t like open-plan kitchens – the cuisine américaine, as you say in French. Now, rooms that have one single function freak me out. I like things to be multifunctional, like what Americans did with lofts. I’m not very tidy or minimal, I like to be surrounded by things.
I’ve recently rediscovered the French singer Juliette Gréco. I didn’t like her when she was alive because she had a weird voice. I’m a bit ashamed because there’s so much controversy around Spotify nowadays, but I’m a huge user of it – I play music all the time. Although I’m terrified of the algorithms, there’s something quite useful about them. Spotify’s playlist of the week often has music I like. But it’s a bit scary, how does it know I’m going to like it?
When I need to feel inspired, I go to see the La Dame à la licorne, a series of tapestries at the Musée de Cluny in Paris five minutes away from where I live. It’s really an extraordinary piece of art. You go into this little room, which is very dark because the tapestries are so fragile. You have to give it time. It’s a bit like seeing a James Turrell work: you take time for your eyes to adjust. It’s something I learned at art school: just stay in front of the thing
One of my favourite websites is Maison Empereur, a very old shop in Marseille, which has everything. Manufactum is similar – it’s German and you can find a lot of good stuff. But my favourite app of all is Scrabble. I play it at night, on the Métro – I play against the computer.
In another life, I would have been a doctor or a nurse. I love the idea of healing people, of saving lives. When I was younger, I thought it was disgusting to be with sick people. Getting older, I feel differently. When I go to the doctor and they give me a pill and suddenly I recover, I think of them as magicians. I would like to do it with perfumes.
The best bit of advice I ever received was from the painter Luigi Boille, who was best friends with my mother. I stayed at his place in Rome when I was younger, and I was painting what I saw from the terrace, which was bizarre because I was staying with an abstract painter and was doing a figurative style. But he was very kind to me and encouraging. He said, “Why are you not doing more? Why don’t you go bigger?” I said it was too difficult. He told me that difficulty is a self-imposed barrier – it is you who decides what is difficult. It’s a standard you create for yourself.
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