AMAZONIAN WOMAN
In Paris for Longchamp’s 70th anniversary celebrations, Charmaine Ho cosies up with Kendall Jenner for an exclusive tête-à-tête.
With an army of Instagram followers that’s close to 98 million people strong, countless features on magazine covers across the globe, regular appearances on television and even more appearances on the fashion runway, Kendall Jenner is arguably one of this generation’s most recognisable faces.Yet, despite the barrage of Kendall imagery found on every news and social media feed (eating, sleeping, or simply breathing with her hair shaped into hearts), the 23-year-old Instagirl’s beauty #IRL still manages to astound.
The Longchamp brand ambassador is sitting poised and collected on a lush sofa in the Parisian brand’s office, located above its Rue Saint Honoré flagship store.The light is streaming through the windows and it lights up her skin as if she has magically managed to surround herself with a filter app. She’s dressed in a white leather dress and black gladiator sandals from the brand’s spring/summer 2019 collection that showed during New York Fashion Week (the brand’s first-ever) just three days prior—a collection she’s quick to declare as being “super-fun”.
“I remember watching the show and just thinking that everything was full of life and interesting to look at; plus it’s full of colour,” she says of a collection filled with breezy chiffon numbers, grounded ever so slightly by fringed leather that swayed happily with the body’s every move. “I wore a bright purple little dress to the show. It was super-cute and it made me happy. The line is pretty similar; there are some really bright looks and prints that I liked.”
And it’s not just the ready-to-wear that Kendall appreciates.When asked what three things she would get from the collection, she quickly points out a pair of leopard print boots that she’s “obsessed” with, an ingeniously light and chic rabbit fur patchwork jacket that’s her “favourite”, and “a good bag” like the black matelassé leather Amazone Hobo satchel that she has chosen for the day.
“I’m very weird because I have only a couple of bag sizes that I genuinely like,” she explains.“One of them being this size [pointing to her Amazone Hobo bag] so that I can throw it over my shoulder and it fits just about everything that I need perfectly. And then another bag that I love is a giant bag for like the airport or something; and I have both of those from Longchamp.
“I think that Longchamp’s a very classy, worldly brand. It has that Parisian aspect to it that really drew me to it. And once I got in, and I learnt more about its history, I realised what a big deal [this year] is for the brand, and it’s really cool to be a part of its 70th anniversary,” she continues. “Everyone’s been very fun to work with.When you have a relationship with someone, and you’ve got to work with them all the time, it’s always so much better when the relationships are organic.”
The positive feeling is quite mutual. Just moments before, Sophie Delafontaine, Longchamp’s s Artistic Director and granddaughter er of brand founder Jean Cassegrain, shared hared with me the myr iad reasons why Kendall is the quintessential Longchamp woman.
“Well, first of all, she’s beautiful; but, of course, that’s hat’s not the only thing,” Delafontaine says. “What’s very nice about Kendall is that she is international and she’s also doing lots of things on her own. She’s a model, el, a photographer and she just recently launched her own radio channel on YouTube. She’s sophisticated and casual at the same time, and that’s a nice mix. She e can be many different women at the same time. I think hink it’s a nice body with a nice brain, you know?”
Apart from its contract with Kendall, Longchamp’s ngchamp’s activities for the year show that it has had its sights s firmly on reinforcing its presence in the US for its 70th birthday: From its collaboration with Hood by Air’s Shayne ne Olivier in April that resulted in a conceptual collection n that got hypebeasts hyperventilating, to the grand opening g of its Fifth Avenue store less than a month later, to the debut of f its collection on the NYFW runway; not to mention the spring/summer ring/summer c collection that Delafontaine descr ibes as having a “Califor “nian vibe with a twist of eccentr icity”. As D Delafontaine tells me, the U.S. is the brand’s second biggest market after Europe so it makes sense that it’d want to focus its sights on the continent.
“It was very good to show in New York. And I am also very happy to have the party tonight in Paris because, for me, it’s the opportunity to really show the two sides of Longchamp. We are a French company, so tonight the party in Paris for the 70th anniversary is really all [about] the heritage and the French way of life. The show in New York three days ago was an opportunity to show the other side:The creative part of Longchamp; its future and international spirit. So it’s nice to combine these two events nearly at the same time [to show who we ar are] on both sides of the Atlantic.”
T That night at the grand party, as Paris’ beloved Palais Garnier is transformed tran into a vision of beautiful surrealism with a visual cacop cacophony of gobo lights, a cavalcade of masked horsemen, and in intimate dance performances, I recall Delafontaine’s story of her grandparents’ tobacco store,“leather-covered pipes” and “ciga “cigarette pouches”, and can’t help but wonder at how far the brand has come to becoming a fashion heavyweight—no matte matter which side of the Atlantic you’re on. ■