Hi Vogue, we're La Femme and we're here to tell you about our icons.
Andy Warhol
because he created a lot of the icons of my childhood.
He was a real icon factory and he himself is iconic.
He even once said, "Everybody will be a star one day in the future".
And I think that with Instagram, for example, his prophecy has come true.
I also think he was significant because he was at the origin of sampling,
which is this technique of taking things and reappropriating them.
Now, we see that in music, especially in hip-hop and electro.
He used to do it with images, photos, cultural products, and so on.
All his pop art with the four colors and Marilyn Monroe's face,
we've reappropriated it and we do this kind of thing.
We also sample our own photos
and he also influenced us a lot with his idea of having a factory
where we can do video, painting, photography, music.
I chose Clara Rockmore
who I discovered when we started making music together.
I'd seen a band that had a theremin on stage.
It's an electronic instrument that is played in the air.
And it was while I was researching it that I came across some videos of Clara Rockmore.
She's a master of the instrument and she plays in a classical way,
it sounds like a violin, a voice, it sounds like classical music.
The story of this instrument, which was created by a Russian in the 1920s,
is quite fascinating.
It is one of the first electronic instruments.
-There's a magical side to it. -A little bit like Houdini.
You don't know where the sound comes from.
Yes, that's it.
I think that's what makes you want to play a theremin when you see one.
It makes you feel like a magician.
So we started using it.
That's when I wanted to start playing this instrument.
We used it in our songs, especially in the first album,
Antitaxi or Le Blues de Françoise, for example.
All styles from London in the Swinging Sixties, Carnaby Street,
that period of turmoil that happened in England in the mid-sixties.
There were actually a lot of small independent stores at the time
that made clothes for rockstars.
The trend was suits with floral prints, colors - orange, purple -
frilled shirts, polka dots, and suits with big stripes.
For example, there was the Granny Takes a Trip store
and I met Gene Krell there, who is now running Vogue Japan,
who was one of the founders of that store
and who dressed Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones
in crazy clothes at the time.
And there's also a back-to-nature side, flower power,
all these prints with these plants, which is quite nice, etc.
If we want to go further,
Oscar Wilde is also an inspiration in terms of style,
with the whole dandy movement.
Even the twenties.
Also the Zazou movement.
It's a movement from the end of the ’30s and ’40s with a whole aesthetic.
For example, they had umbrellas, a kind of mullet,
their hair was slicked and they claimed to be swing, etc.
It was very strong.
I'd say David Bowie because he was very daring,
daring to be ultra-feminine or ultra-masculine,
and even his hair.
This androgynous side where we don't even know who he is anymore,
an alien from somewhere else.
And when I was a kid, it was Michael Jackson.
I like more sober and darker icons,
like Johnny Cash, Barbara, Gainsbourg, that kind of singers.
For me, Barbarella is very iconic.
It was originally a comic book, and I have a copy from the ’50s, I think,
it's an old comic book.
And then there was the movie.
Do you speak French?
Wait, let me adjust my Tongue Box.
I like Vogue's early covers.
I think they reflect the essence of Vogue.
The ones where you see drawings with an eye or a mouth, for example.
You can feel the refinement and the accuracy through that.
I also like the covers with Laetitia Casta.
I think she's a French model who represents the French style, simplicity, etc.
The Côte des Basques, which is a beach in Biarritz,
and it's in the neighborhood where we met.
It's an iconic beach,
in the sense that it was the beginning of surfing in Europe.
-It all started in Biarritz. -It started there.
It's the place where we grew up, so we were immersed in this culture,
this spirit of guys who arrive in vans, Volkswagen vans,
and who go surfing.
It eventually connected us with Californians and it led to our first trip there.
There's really a magical and mystical atmosphere over there,
that we captured in the video clip for Vagues,
which we recently released, which is a song from our previous album.
I would say Walk on the Wild Side.
It's one of the most beautiful songs in the world.
It talks about all the freaks, all those people who are a bit eccentric,
often coming from transvestite or trans circles.
But not only that, also the performers, all those people who are on the fringe of society.
It's a very beautiful song to listen to in a quiet place
and which has accompanied me all my life.
I would say maybe Re-Bop, which is a song by Marie et les Garçons,
a French band from the ’80s.
It touched me a lot at one time.
It even inspired one of our first songs, Sur la planche,
because the lyrics are very simplistic, repeating over and over again,
with the same kind of structure.
"Like in the Sixties."
I would say ours, we don't know where it comes from,
but I think we invented it.
It's "Like in the Sixties"
and we say it all the time, for all kinds of things.
It's actually a state of mind and a philosophy.
It's basically not giving a damn about anything.
For example, one of my buddies would say, "You're going to have to sleep on the floor,
but no worries, just like in the Sixties".
"There's nothing to eat, just like in the Sixties."
Or even: "There's plenty to eat, just like in the Sixties".
-It's a real catch-all. -Yes, that's the word.
In the United States, we say: "Like in the Sixties".
A sailor sweater.
It's really stylish, we wear them a lot.
And it's timeless.
It's a classic, it's an essential.
You can wear it in many situations.
It works on tour like in the Sixties or at a social event,
it will work.
I'm going to say a trench coat.
It's beautiful, it's iconic, it's elegant.
We've seen it a lot in English and French culture too,
even in all the movies of the sixties, Nouvelle Vague, all that.
The trench coat is really a beautiful piece to have that works every time.
Also, a piece that I really like very much is the perfecto.
I have a lot of them.
I had my picture taken when I was little, when I was one year old,
for a postcard with a perfecto in a suitcase,
a little bit of a baby rocker, but really a baby in that case.
It was kind of the rebel's jacket at first
and now, of course, they're everywhere, in Zara, H&M, etc.
It's become THE piece.
Even Kanye West and Kim Kardashian wear them.
So, that's saying something.
I think the ultimate icon, even if it's not necessarily my icon,
is Marilyn Monroe or Elvis Presley, the two ultimate icons.
I don't know if you can get more iconic than that.
Maybe Brassens, I'd say.
Not just for his music, but also for the character
and his philosophy and his way of approaching life as an artist.
Philosophically, he speaks to me.
Thanks Vogue for this little interview about icons,
it was very nice and don't forget to subscribe to the channel.