Inès Olympe Mercadal, the most offbeat of Parisian hipsters, talks to us about her latest news.
What’s your latest news?
Inès Olympe Mercadal: This year, I’m launching my new eponymous brand – Inès Olympe Mercadal – which is a collection with a wardrobe that reflects a little of my world. These are iconic pieces from my wardrobe as well as many accessories, including a gold perfecto, a pencil skirt, a fur piece, …
You also collaborated with La Redoute, how did that come about?
IOM: I was lucky enough this year to collaborate with La Redoute, which is really one of the French houses that puts young designers in the spotlight every year. I know there’s also Wanda Nylon… They have the good taste to seek out young designers and give them the opportunity to express themselves through a capsule collection. They’ve really given me carte blanche.
Can you give us a brief introduction to your collection?
IOM: It’s a collection that, as always, refers a little to the 80s, which is really my decade. There’s a lot of gold, as always, a little trench coat cut into a gold jacket with a gold midi skirt, as well as gold carrot pants and a little black sweater. It’s a very luminous collection, relatively original but with chic, sober and fairly classic lines. It’s the color that makes the collection original, not the lines.
How would you describe the process of creating this capsule?
IOM: I was looking at old images from the 70s when I came across an old photo of Catherine Deneuve with Monsieur Saint Laurent, in which she’s wearing a golden panther dress, something quite incredible, and she’s sitting on a red velvet sofa with a boudoir atmosphere and palm trees behind it. You can feel the late 70’s early 80’s universe and that’s how I came up with the idea of doing the gold collection, even though this color is a bit of a fetish for me.
What’s the message behind this collection?
IOM: As always, in collaborations, the message is to make the brand known to a wider public, to offer designer products at La Redoute prices, to have a 90-euro raincoat … So that’s what’s interesting. Offering a collection other than its own at prices affordable to as many people as possible.
Who are your greatest role models and sources of inspiration?
IOM: They’re always women. I’m much more sensitive to the beauty of women from an aesthetic point of view. I find it more stimulating if I see a beautiful, well-dressed girl in the street, it makes me want to fix myself up and make beautiful clothes.
I have muses like Blondie, for example, who is both a fashion icon and a rock icon. I have a special relationship with music and I like it when these two worlds come together. In any case, fashion and music are always intimately linked, in the same way that when you’re little, at school, you can tell what kind of music someone’s listening to by the way they’re dressed. So it’s true that it’s often female singers or rock stars that I’m most inspired by… Janis Joplin, Blondie, Catherine Deneuve Grace Jones, – I like the stage act too…
What’s your watchword in fashion, in life?
IOM: What I really like in fashion is when the classic is taken to the extreme and becomes completely rock and quirky. For example, the chignon, which is normally a very classic hairstyle, worn with big glasses becomes completely quirky. I like these codes. In the same way that the La Redoute collection has only very classic lines, if the skirt were black it would look more like a schoolgirl skirt. I like to play with the codes of classic and quirky.
We’ve known about your passion for fashion for many, many years. Where does it come from?
IOM: I come from a family of shoemakers. My father’s and grandfather’s families have always made shoes. We come from Menorca in the Balearics, where, back in the day, we were already in the shoe business. It’s the only industry that exists in Menorca, and there are quite a few shoe brands there. So my background is leather, and it’s true that the guiding principle of my Inès Olympe Mercadal collection is always leather. The fox stole is mixed with lambskin, the leather jacket… all my labels are in leather. I really have a special relationship with this material; it’s part of my culture and my family has always worked with it.
What’s your fondest fashion memory?
IOM: I don’t know if you can really call it a fashion souvenir, but I love making outfits for myself, putting on turbans or bathrobes… I make outfits for myself to go out that are pretty incredible, like when I put on a bathrobe with a shirt and a turban and go out like that in the street with green waders in the middle of May to go to my birthday party. It’s just mind-boggling. I don’t dare do it as much now, but for years I could spend whole nights sewing initials on a garment or doing embroidery. I really love being able to create from a film I’ve seen or even like that. It’s something I really enjoy.
You also have a strong passion for music. Can you tell us a bit more about it?
IOM: My father is a music fan, and it was thanks to him that I discovered The Clash, The Ramones, Neil Young and Bob Dylan. Today, we have a vinyl collection that we pass on to each other once a month or every two months. It’s a great way of sharing emotions, feelings and opinions. I grew up listening to my father’s music, and it’s true that I’ve always wanted to sing. For me, singing is a way of expressing myself in the same way as I might do a bit of cinema, i.e. I like to have a character (I’m often blonde when I sing, I wear wigs), it’s my taste for spectacle. Singing for me is like a little show, I try to make people laugh, I use accents… a lot of mimicry, something a little more theatrical. I’m only surrounded by artists.
A bit of a jack-of-all-trades, are we going to see you in the cinema soon?
IOM: (Laughs) That would be wonderful.
If you were…
A color? Emerald green or malachite green
A special moment of the day? Aperitif 7 pm / 8 pm
A drink? A draught beer – una caña as we say in Spain
An accessory? A pair of glasses … or a corset belt
A garment? A colored fur like electric blue, green or red
An era? The ’80s, obviously for the music, and for the culture of bad taste in clothing that I adore. The accumulation of red varnish, eye shadow, eyebrows, shoulder pads, belt, high-waisted pants. I just love it!
An application? I dream of inventing an application that does what Shazam does, but recognizes music simply by the sound of your voice.
A perfume? A men’s fragrance like Vetiver or Habit Rouge, Guerlain’s old perfumes.
Music? A nocturne by Chopin, even if I’m a bit too agitated, but it calms me down.
A place? Minorca, the Balearics, that’s where all my family’s history is, it’s really my rallying point.
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