FLIGHT OF FANCY
When Tina Arena met stylist Catherine Baba on a flight to Paris, it was the start of a creative friendship between two fabulous Australian Francophiles.
CATHERINE BABA (on set with Jean Paul Gaultier in Paris): “Hi darling, how are you? Bonsoir!”
TINA ARENA (in rehearsals in Melbourne): “Hello, how are you?”
CATHERINE: “I feel like I’m in the womb of the world, speaking to both of you. It’s quite cosy in this womb …”
SOPHIE TEDMANSON (in the office in Sydney): “Hello, ladies. I’m intrigued to hear how you met and about your friendship.”
TINA: “We actually met on a plane [in 2016] when we were leaving Paris, and Catherine, you were accompanying Martin Grant, who was coming back to launch the Qantas outfits he had designed.”
CATHERINE: “We met in the sky, of course!”
TINA: “Yes, and we just hit it off immediately. Energetically, it was like: ‘Oh hello, I feel like I’ve known you all my life!’”
CATHERINE: “I feel the same way darling. I feel like we were separated at birth.”
TINA: “We probably were.”
SOPHIE: ”How often do you get to see each other? Considering you, Tina, split your time between Paris and Melbourne.”
TINA: “I don’t know. We are always travelling to different countries and when I’m in France I’m usually there to work, but we’ll always try and manage a dinner catch-up or something, or we’re on the phone to each other. We do the best we can. I want to check in on her because I adore her. I adore the woman, not just the talent!”
CATHERINE: “Ohhh, devotion! I adore you too!”
TINA: “It’s Catherine’s spirit that I absolutely warmed to immediately: a woman from humble beginnings, who had a dream and followed it. I’ve got a lot of admiration for people who do that and Catherine did that and she ventured out some 25 years ago now and I think it was very courageous. And I think I did the same thing … looking for something else.” SOPHIE: ”Are you surprised that you didn’t meet earlier? Because, Tina, your story is very similar to that, and you’ve been in Paris a long time as well.”
TINA: “I’ve never been in the fashion industry as such. I mean, I know a few people in there but I’ve never been a great socialiser. I don’t know why, maybe it’s a self-preservation thing. But we have a great time together; we kind of speak the same language, really.” CATHERINE: “It’s rare and when we do find those women, it’s fabulous because it is fair and I agree, I think when we socialise it just takes so much energy and I understand that self-preservation, even though with my work, I do need to get out more.”
TINA: “It’s not about the quantity for us, it’s about the quality time that we spend together. As you get older, that’s really where the appreciation lies. We don’t hang out of each other’s pockets and so when we do catch up it’s not idle chatter, it’s digging through some foundations and finding out what’s been going on and how one’s feeling and where you are creatively, but also where you are personally.”
CATHERINE: “And then we save the world! We sometimes have dinner at Loulou’s with Melissa George, and we have lunch in the Marie, near Martin Grant’s.”
TINA: “Exactly – a really beautiful little bistro in the Marie with really lovely, great, simple and clean food. We caught up there and we spoke about what Catherine really wanted to achieve with this shoot.”
CATHERINE: “And about life and your moment now, which is a full-body chapter … how we are in Paris and then Australia. It’s not that it’s a double life, but it’s a continuous life, multifaceted, and I think that it’s important to be able to have exchanges where all of that is concerned and put a lot of faith aside. But also to create and to express, and that’s what I really wanted to have in the shoot, to see all the facets of Tina and to celebrate her