Tag Archives: 5 minutes with

Well, change the 5 minutes to half an hour. In Paris I had the honor to chat with jewelry designer Tom Binns, a conversation as interesting as they can get. Mister Binns was waiting for me on a cosy couch at Hotel Lotti in Paris, surrounded his collections from the past 30 years.

Jewelry that would have looked completely different if he would not have anything to do with commercialism. “It is all really nice, but it is not my voice. It is more like a whisper, because I am forced to compromise to be able to have customers.” A customer that Binns describes as ‘daring enough and with funk (read: offbeat)’. “I do not have a special person in mind when I design my things, though they have to have tits.”

The designer reveals that he does make stuff in private, stuff that people ant to buy, but he does not want to sell. Those pieces he calls stories, books, his commercial pieces are more like words.

Even though Binns clearly states he does not agree on the opinion of Suzy Menkes in her article on bloggers, he confesses he has never read a blog himself. “Suzy Menkes used to be the queen of the castle and used to have the word. Other people have the word now and that is a good thing. She feels threatened by it and writes an article revealing how threatened she actually feels.”

Binns choses an online newspaper over magazines, magazines make him angry. “They are not loyal, they use my jewelry and then use anything that looks like mine. They do not give a sh*t.”

What he would love to do in the next 30 years of his career? “I want to take it a bit further, not do any compromises anymore. A compromise is a diet that other people create for you, why would you have the crums when you could have the whole cake? I want to write my books and tell my stories (referring to the more overwhelming pieces he makes at home).”

Shop Tom Binns jewelry:

Tags: 5 minutes with, jewelry, tom binns

Laure Pariente is, apart from a self proclaimed serial mom and huge fan of Karl Lagerfeld’s work for Chanel, the artistic director – the creative brain – behind American Retro. Together with her husband David, she started the über cool French label exactly ten years ago, but her love for fashion took off way earlier.

“It all started in my childhood. My mother used to make me all my clothes, from embroidered dresses to sequined miniskirts, she made me everything and always took me to go shopping. When I met my husband David, we were always talking about fashion and were both so in love with it, that we knew we had to create something together. He studied finance and I studied business economics, but his family comes from the industry so he learnt me everything that I had to know. We really wanted to do our own thing and express ourselves”, she tells me in an interview, while drinking a cup of tea.

In 2004, Laure and David opened their first store in the ever hip Le Marais in Paris, which is now their biggest store. In 2007, Terry Richardson shot their first campaign, starring Johanna Preiss.

“The most exciting part of my job is the elaboration of the collection. To collect inspiration, set up a theme, choose the fabrics, really the whole process of making a collection.”

Laure describes the typical American Retro girl as a girl who likes being positive and fresh. “She likes to be trendy, but not total look trendy. She would mix our pieces with designer pieces and add something vintage.” She mentions she would love to see Charlotte Gainsbourg wearing one of the pieces and also Vanessa Paradis, Kate Moss and Erin Wasson. “I like those kind of girls. Really cool without any effort. All natural.”

The Parisienne’s own style is very eclectic. One day you could bump into her wearing something very feminine and modern, the next day she could look like a teenager or wearing her favorite jeans jacket full of holes. “I get my inspiration from all the girls around me, I like to mix everything and be different.” What her wardrobe looks like? “It is a mess, a big mess, but an organized mess. I know exactly where to find everything. It is full of jeans, vintages t-shirts and tons of shoes.”

Tags: 5 minutes with, american retro, laure pariente