Diane Pernet. Photo by Peter Lippmann.
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It’s not often that a journalist is regarded as a figure of intrigue. Being interesting is the subject’s role; we writers are there to pay attention and faithfully tell their story. That’s generally speaking. And there’s nothing general, it seems, about Diane Pernet.
“The fashion journalist Diane Pernet crosses the Pont des Arts at midnight, slipping like a shadow past singing packs of students, pairs of lovers and gawking tourists. She is nearly that easy to miss in the cover of darkness, dressed, as she has been for 25 years, in black from top to toe. But as her eerie silhouette comes into focus, students stop singing, lovers stand aside and tourists suddenly gawk at her,” wrote Josh Patner in the August 28, 2006, issue of The New York Times‘ T Magazine.
Diane used to be neighbors with Roxanne Lowit, as she notes at her blog, A Shaded View on Fashion. The two were recently in Paris at the same time—Roxanne’s book Backstage Dior is making its debut in France on Thursday—and the two did a video interview. Among the subjects that they cover are the books that Roxanne would like to make next. One of them is a collection of portraits of artists and photographers, and the other is a best-of her backstage pictures. The latter would span some 30 years. “Instead of a book,” notes Roxanne, “it’s more like my encyclopedia.” The video is worth watching both for Roxanne’s recollections of her early days shooting backstage and for the sound of the smoky voice—whose face we never see—asking the questions.
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