Study, a quarterly magazine launched last year by Christopher Niquet, devotes each issue to a specific subject that he has a close connection to, including the work of playwright Adrienne Kennedy, stylist Camille Bidault-Waddington, the photography of model Vivienne Rohner, and even more atmospheric themes like New York homes or the architecture of Dakar as seen through the eyes of photographer Romain Laprade. The latest issue, On Models as Cultural Markers, is inspired by the work of Dominique Vinant, a casting director who in the ’90s worked with Martine Sitbon, Ann Demeulemeester, Martin Margiela, and Yohji Yamamoto—designers known for seeking to create a completely self-contained universe on their runway that is also a reflection of their own communities, their very specific place in the world. Vinant began working in PR, first as Alexandre de Betak’s assistant, and later by opening the first Karla Otto office in Paris. She became a casting director “by accident.”
“The way I arrived in fashion was really just following my instincts; there weren’t any plans,” Vinant explained via Zoom from Paris. “It’s really just the storyline of my life and people I met, and I was lucky enough to meet Margiela and walk for him when I was young and then work with him.” As such, she has really never been about casting the latest, biggest It model, or one who fits the most straightforward category of “beautiful.” Rather, she was most concerned with finding personalities, women whose specific “energies” matched that of each designer. In the latest issue of Study, her casting Polaroids float on a white page, the gazes of the models drawing you in as if you’re in a museum. Vinant often talks about emotion when describing her work, and it’s impossible not to feel something when looking at her images as well. For those us who have grown up looking at runway shots and fashion magazines, they are also the faces that have defined a specific kind of womanhood and femininity; their off-kilter beauty and, it has to be said, their vibes a reminder that another way to live in the world is possible.
After taking a step back in recent years, Vinant is casting Yohji Yamamoto’s show in Paris this season. We spoke two days before the show.
How did working on this issue of Study come about?
Christopher is a friend. We met in fashion a long time ago, and he was always very curious about my Polaroids. I would always tell him, “One day, I will do a book.” Last February, he contacted me through Instagram—I’m really old school and I just started using Instagram two years ago because people said if you want to go back to fashion, then you need to be on it. So I just put up some little things that said “Okay, I’m here.” Then he contacted me and said, “Do you still have your Polaroids? Because I want to do something on Study.”
What was your process for editing the Polaroids that appear in the issue?
I really let Christopher do it. He is a good friend, and I was totally confident in him. I had boxes, everything very well classified by names and models, so it was really easy. He came to see me in Marseille. He chose what he liked and then went back to Paris.
When you look through them, do they bring up memories for you?
The memories are really the energy of the girls. When I was doing these castings, Martin [Margiela] was really about the energy, the story of the girl. But it’s also about the clothes—the woman is important, but the clothes have to go perfectly on the runway. The work with Margiela was very specific—it was the way they were walking, their body, and also how they walked when they were “hidden.” It’s an energy, an elegance, a body altogether, no name.
In your conversation with Rachel Chandler in the magazine, you mention connecting with Ann and Martin through music, and it struck me that your job is very much about emotion in a way. It’s all about connecting people.
Yes, it is very emotional. And this is part of the problem sometimes, because it gets very emotional when I work with people, and fashion is a business. It’s always been a business, but it’s more and more so. Now that I am back working with Yohji for his women’s shows, I realize how much has changed. There’s no time for emotion, no time for anything. And at the time we were really doing it with so much emotion; that is really what probably made the difference. It was less of a business plan, not “how many followers does this girl have, how many influencers do we have?” It was really about the connection: “Oh, this girl is like Debbie Harry; oh, she’s a Patti Smith.”
Did you take a step back from casting completely, or were you just more selective about the work you were doing?
I took many step backs because, really, I am an emotional person and very sensitive. At one point, it started to be really difficult for me when people were asking: “Do you have a stylist? Who do you have in your lineup? Which girls did you take?” I was hurt by the questions. I took it personally. I’m doing great castings, I don’t need people asking me who I’m taking and this and that. This was also around 2010 to 2015, and I had also had a baby, and my mom was feeling less well and she passed away. So I thought, Okay, let’s take more family business and less fashion business. So I started focusing more on menswear casting. I really enjoyed doing men’s fashion shows much more because it was still cool and there weren’t all these other things around it.
Now you’re back and working on the Yohji womenswear show.
Yes, I’m back with the Yohji show, and that’s a very nice story, that’s full circle. I started with Yohji in 1992–93, and I was working with them until 2000, mainly for special castings and research. We were doing many different things that everybody’s doing now, but we did it a long time ago. So they called me back for women, which is really nice because I never did women for them before, so it’s very interesting. I know the house very well. It’s still very hard because the industry is still the industry, as we said, and before our show, we have Nina Ricci and Giambattista Valli, so there’s a lot to work around, but I’m very happy. I was looking through it with my assistant, and I was like, “Wow, that’s a good casting.” It’s very much about discovering new faces, and I like it.
