BURBERRY sweater; MAISON MICHEL lace ears; LOVER pants.
She worked for an advertising agency before she was spotted skateboarding on the streets of Paris. A classically trained dancer, Aymeline Valade soon found herself showing up to a Balenciaga casting in a Grateful Dead T-shirt and getting an undercut by Guido Palau. She is determined and witty and likes to get back to Paris as often as possible. Our always muse, we captured her before she traded her dark locks for a shock of ice blonde. An object of desire for Craig McDean, Mert & Marcus, Lagerfeld and Testino, she lives by the notion “the show must go on” and takes her cues from nobody at all.
“When I first arrived in Nice I had to take the bus a lot. I hated riding the bus and I saw a guy on a skateboard outside of the window. I realised it was the most pragmatic way to go.”
Your greatest travel adventure was? Crossing Kenya and Tanzania via Mount Kilimanjaro. What are you obsessed with right now? Obsessions are not healthy. When did you know what you wanted to do? I still don’t know what I want to do. My only motivation is to simply make beautiful things or at least to evoke interesting emotions. I really believe in the positive impact emotions can grant when viewing any kind of aesthetic expression. It makes people feel better. Fashion gives opportunities to every woman to find out their style and have better self-respect, which is one of the reasons I like it. As far as what I want to do, I just want to concentrate on now and do what seems right.
Who are you style influences? Nobody. I am more inspired by terms like street, roots, rock, modern, dark, nature, light, classic, minimal, elegant and sobriety. Who or what did you want to be when you grew up? I never thought on those terms; I just wanted to be happy. If you had your time over, would you do anything differently? I don’t think so. I believe that things happen the way they have to happen. What surprises you? The miracle of life, it’s so incredible we exist.
“My style evolves constantly depending on the environment but it always suits my personality and my mood of the moment. It’s like a body language.”
PHOTOGRAPHY Will Davidson @ MAP
CREATIVE DIRECTION Stevie Dance
MAKEUP Chiho Omae @ Frank Reps
PHOTOGRAPHER'S ASSISTANTS Benedict Brink, Andrew Peters and Nyra Lang
STYLIST'S ASSISTANT Sasha Kelly
