“This skirt has my first name – Sophie – embroidered in large letters on the inside. It is pleated, made of pattern canvas, and a frame (you can see if you enlarge) exactly follows the line of the seamstress's pencil. It was Armine who made it for me. And I gave him permission to market it. I started with a model of hers, and I asked for it to be like a draft. As naive as possible. Like a definitive essay, see. And light. I told myself that one day I would help Armine because of a sentence she said to me the day she approached me in the street, a year ago: “We came from nowhere and we didn’t know anyone.” A few months later, I walked past the store and went inside. Armine told me about her journey from Armenia. His family came from Azerbaijan, refugees in Yerevan. Dad, historian of the Russian language. At 11, she designed a chapel and won an art competition, and as a result a trip to Chasse sur Rhône, staying with the mayor. Return to Yerevan. Then back to Paris, fashion school. She pockets all the prizes. She trained with others and opened a boutique-workshop in Paris. In my work, we meet a lot of cynical people, so it feels good to go back to the source, to Armine's unlimited honesty. Long live this skirt. It means: someone did it for me. »

Sophie