This is the incomparable Diane Pernet lounging at an afternoon sit-down session with a group of young Mexico City fashion and culture bloggers on Thursday at the hotel Condesa DF. Videographer Jun Olman is seen documenting on right. It was a spirited conversation. Diane shop-talked blogging, fashion, Mexico, her international fashion film festival, and her own short on the fascinating and extremely media-shy corset-maker Mr. Pearl.
From the talk, below are snippets of memorable quotes.
Diane on fashion and film: "People weren't using film as an expression for fashion. Fashion is feared by many directors. I love both equally, that's why I put them together."
Diane on her signature look: "My least favorite question. I started wearing the color black in 1980. The influences are neo-realism films, Sicilian widows, Marie Antoinette. I did have a fantasy of young widows. When I was 30 my first husband died in a car accident. Probably my look has something to do with that. To the funeral I wore red shoes. Red shoes and black."
Diane on contemporary Mexican fashion, from what she's so far seen: "I think it's sexy. Colorful and sexy, and it looks like they're having fun, and looks like Mexico. To take from your roots, I think that's got to be the goal. Not to copy anybody else. We don't need more France, Italy, New York. We don't care."
Diane on fashion and blogging: "It's a whole movement in democratizing fashion. Before blogs, [fashion] was restricted to 300 international press people. Through blogs everyone gets to say what they think. Blogs are the answer."
Diane on moving to a strange, new place; in her case, Paris: "It's all a matter of [whether] you have a passion to be somewhere. I just think that if you really want to do something, you'll figure out a way to survive."
More from the screening of A Shaded View On Fashion Film in Mexico City in the coming days.
* Many thanks are in order to Carlos Carillo, president of Trendsetera, for hosting Thursday's meeting. For all posts at Intersections related to fashion see here.
