BOOK: THE OBJECTS OF Saskia de Brauw MANNEQUIN

"Georges Perec." Without lapsing into condescension is a reference that it is rather unusual to hear from the mouth of a figure of fashion. Moreover in that of a model that is expected to cross especially on the catwalks of fashion weeks, unless the aisles of a public library. But Saskia de Brauw has something to shake our assumptions on the environment. After starting aborted in modeling at the age of 16, she returns to her art studies at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, the Netherlands. After graduating, she began a career as a visual artist. It was at that time, during very long walks on the beaches of the country, it begins to pick up objects. Why ? "No exactly. Like so many people who instinctively drop to collect shells, I began, too, to gather what I found." But what interests the beautiful Dutch, it is not marine shellfish or their pretty shells polished by the waves, but the waste from the sea. Distorted, discolored, bent over the object has the deteriorated air, more It fascinates. "Behind a broken bottle, I see the imperfect trace of a human being," she says with emotion. And discuss again the influence of Georges Perec, which she reads and rereads the work regularly. "I do not understand all the layers of his work, but he is a writer who talks a lot to people who, like me, work in a visual world. Thanks to its precise and searched meaning of the description, it is as if one could touch it evokes with words. " Result: rusty scrap pieces, playing cards, debris taillight of a car, all the remains of a battered past are found, especially not cleaned, but scanned, archived with appropriate captions in The Accidental Fold, the self-published book - "to be free" - that Saskia de Brauw present at the Yvon Lambert Gallery bookshop January 28. A kind of visual diary it supplies parallel his modeling career, taken up to 29 years to supplement his income as an artist, often difficult. Today, at 34 years old and free from want after having walked for Givenchy, Fendi or Lanvin, being the image of Chanel and after the publication of his first work as a visual artist, this multi-faceted personality will deliver its New performance in March: the birth of his first child. A very pretty thing.