Model Noémie Lenoir On Her Suicide Attempt: "Really, Really Stupid"

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  • Noémie Lenoir agreed to speak to the Guardian about her suicide attempt. “Last May,” she says, “I did something really, really stupid.” She says she moved from New York to Paris to give her relationship with soccer player Claude Makélélé, with whom she has a 7-year-old son, another chance, but found herself lonely, depressed, and drinking too much. “I came straight from New York to living in Claude’s house, and I really wanted it to work, and it didn’t work out. He hurt me… so I decided… I don’t know how to say this. It was like a bad, bad depression, a very deep depression. I felt really alone…People say, ‘How could she do it, how could she try and kill herself, didn’t she think about her son?‘ But they don’t understand. I love my son so much. But I didn’t think I was good enough, I thought I was poison. Poison for me and poison for him. When I was depressed I felt like I was poisoning his life by being in it. I thought he would be better with his dad and my mum to look after him. I didn’t realise I was hurting anyone, until I woke up in the hospital and saw my mum crying.” Lenoir continues: “After my… after I tried to kill myself, when I woke up, I finally realised: Claude is not the man for me. And I am not the woman for him. I am too independent and he is too independent also.” As for their relationship now, she says it is “sometimes good, sometimes bad,” but that the most important thing is that he is a good father. [Guardian]
  • Kate Moss and Jamie Hince have yet to confirm their engagement publicly, but that shouldn’t stop a tabloid editor from planning their wedding: allegedly, the couple has asked their friend Tracey Emin to install her art all over the space where the reception will take place. [ContactMusic]
  • Meanwhile, when Vivienne Westwood was asked whether or not she was making Moss’s wedding dress, the designer replied, “I think she’s designing it herself. She has done her own fashion range and she knows about clothes. She knows what she is doing, she doesn’t need my help. Kate is a mate. I’ve known her for years and I’m really happy for her.” [Daily Express]
  • Emmanuelle Alt says “there was no question” that she would put Gisele Bündchen, shot by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, on her first cover of Vogue Paris. [Vogue UK]
  • Kenzo‘s official Twitter account just wrote that rumor has it a certain French designer at a major house is on his way out. The C.E.O. of this house has just departed, and now the designer is set to be replaced by another big name — one who hasn’t worked in fashion much in the last couple years. This seems clearly to refer to Yves Saint Laurent‘s Stefano Pilati. YSL C.E.O. Valerie Hermann, with whom Pilati was said to have a difficult working relationship, resigned last week. Pilati’s collections have been greeted with poor sales and mixed reviews. [@KenzoPR]
  • As president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, Diane von Furstenberg recently sent an open letter to Michelle Obama, describing the U.S. industry group as “surprised and a little disappointed” that the First Lady wore a non-American designer to a state dinner with the Chinese president and his wife. But now, in a conversation with Tina Brown, DVF describes herself as “embarrassed” by — though not sorry about — the comments. The designer says she’s “definitely” going to write to Obama. “She has been super supportive of American designers,” she added. [TDB]
  • Sarah Brown says Michelle Obama‘s first words to her were, “At last, a normal-sized person.” [Vogue UK]
  • Flash sale site Gilt Groupe, which has attracted oodles of venture capital, is mulling an IPO in 2012. [NYTimes]
  • Here are 1,048 words of speculative nonfiction about Kate Middleton’s wedding dress, tiara, and shoes, from a self-described “Award-winning journalist and royal contributor.” It remains true that no details of Middleton’s real planned attire have been confirmed. [HuffPo]
  • Kate Hudson, Demi Moore, Brian Atwood, Nicole Richie, and Joel Madden all attended Rachel Zoe‘s baby shower. [P6]
  • Gucci face James Franco interviewed the house’s creative director, Frida Giannini, for Harper’s Bazaar. When asked if she considered herself an artist, Giannini said, “Art is not something that after six months you change. That’s why I say I’m not an artist. I need to try to sell every single collection to make it a success.” Franco replied, “In film, you think of the director as a kind of artist. But if you’re directing a movie, especially if it’s very expensive, you have something of a responsibility to make the money back for that studio. You’re working with a similar model.” [Racked]
  • Andrej Pejic: “Around the age of 14, I decided to experiment with my look. As a kid, you get to the stage where you realise the gender barriers that exist in society and what you’re supposed to do and not supposed to do. I really tried being someone else during that period. It was hard for me — not being able to express myself and feeling I had to be someone else. But now I’m comfortable in my skin, and for my look to be celebrated is great. My look is very personal to me. When I started experimenting, it was a personal decision because I was unhappy. It wasn’t something I did for attention.” [SMH]
  • Today in open secrets: Taylor Momsen wants a fashion line. “I’ve always wanted to have a line at some point but when I do do that I really want to have the time to be able to commit to it properly. Right now I’m so busy but sometime in the future I would love to have a line, absolutely. I’ll be very involved in the design and all of it, I want to spend all my time making it the best it can possibly be. I don’t want to just put my name on it and have other people do all the work.” [Female First]
  • Cathy Horyn, on Proenza Schouler‘s fall collection: “It just so happens that Proenza created a compelling bunch of clothes, maybe the most interesting we’ve seen this week.” We happen to agree. “The inspiration for their collection came from Native American blankets gathered during a road trip the designers made last fall, from Santa Fe to Wyoming. Those patterns and others objects were scanned and then manipulated on a computer and eventually turned into wool jacquards. From what I understood, other fabrics and designs in the collection benefited from computer technology…They used the jacquards – in black, wine, red, mustard, blue, gray — for slim, boyish trousers. Additionally, they made jacquard and solid wool skirts that fit rather low on the waist, with a folded down waistband, and were worn with black or white suede western-style shirts. The shirts were cut extra long, too, so you could sort of half tuck them in.” [On The Runway]
  • Here’s Kirsten Dunst, on the differences between American and English stye: “I think it’s all to do with heritage and where you’re from. Because of that, the way Americans look and the way you guys look is totally different. You have this history with tailoring and those little school boy uniforms. That led to something you know? You just don’t get that in New York.” [Vogue UK]
  • South African sprinter and double-amputee Oscar Pistorius is the new face of Thierry Mugler‘s relaunched A*Men fragrance. [WWD]
  • Foxy Brown was hired to headline the Indashio after-party during New York fashion week, but allegedly showed up just ten minutes before the party was scheduled to end, refused to perform, and locked herself in a bathroom. She had to be removed by security. [TMZ]
  • Dita Von Teese, on what her forthcoming perfume will smell like: “No fruit, no vanilla, no candy. Velvet sensuality with a dash of vulgarity! I want to evoke passion with fragrance: intense love/lust and distaste/fear rather than merely popular acceptance.” [@DitaVonTeese]
  • Lily Cole says she put off pursuing acting, even though it is her dream, because she didn’t want to be “that whole model/actor cliché.” [Vogue UK]
  • During New York fashion week, 121,608 bottles of free Fiji water were handed out at the tents. There were recycling bins, but only 2,700 empties were returned. [Fashionista]
 
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