MY CULTURAL LIFE ANNE- MARIE CURTIS
We ask a style icon to share what they are reading, watching, listening to and more
Starting her fashion career in the early 1990s as part of Wallpaper* magazine’s founding team, Anne-marie Curtis was fashion director of ELLE for 12 years and has just been appointed the title’s Editor-in-chief, a role she describes as her dream job. The first issue under her impeccably chic leadership, the September edition, is out this month (@AMCELLE; elleuk.com).
The song that makes me feel instantly happy
is You’re the First, the Last, My Everything by Barry White. It was the first dance at my wedding in 2009. Tony and I got married at the Institute of Contemporary Arts just before Christmas, when our children Cecilia and Luca were nine and seven respectively. It snowed as we exchanged vows, I wore a beautiful Erdem dress and we had all the people we love there. I’m currently listening to anything from my 15year-old son’s Spotify playlist! He’s taken to ‘educating’ me about music – Royal Blood ( 7) is a current 3 favourite. It’s interesting to see the bands he’s discovering, such as the Smashing Pumpkins and Soundgarden, that I was into in the 90s. I am a big reader of novels, and I find Truman Capote’s writing utterly transporting, I have read and re-read all of his stories and always take a battered copy of A Capote Reader on holidays – my favourite story is The Grass Harp ( 2). The famous quote that makes me think is ‘Be yourself, everyone else is taken’ – coined by Oscar Wilde. It’s a brilliantly simple life philosophy, and one I always come back to – when you’re working in the everchanging world of fashion, it’s easy to lose sight of who you are. My favourite film has to be Woody Allen’s Annie Hall ( 3), for its brilliantly funny writing and
iconic fashion. I also love the sweeping epic drama and the incredible Ennio Morricone music score from Once Upon a Time in America, directed by Sergio Leone. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen When Harry Met Sally and Breakfast at Tiffany’s, too – pure comfort viewing. My perfect evening
involves dinner with friends at my favourite restaurant, Patron in Kentish Town ( 5). It’s a French brasserie that feels like a little slice of Paris. The last exhibition I went to was the ‘Christian Dior, Couturier du Rêve’ exhibition at Paris’ Musée des Arts Décoratifs ( 4), which celebrates the 70th anniversary of the creation of the House of Dior. It’s truly extraordinary. My favourite place in the world is India ( 1). I’m hoping to go again soon, to celebrate a friend’s 50th birthday in the northern city of Varanasi – it’s supposed to be magical. For family holidays, it has to be the Cyclades Islands in Greece ( 6). The food, the landscape and the waters are absolute heaven. My next stop? New York, for work. To paraphrase Samuel Johnson, ‘ When a (wo) man is tired of New York, (s)he is tired of life.’ There’s always somewhere new to try.