The public relations person who manages the galaxy of Dior stars (and the number missing from her phone): “The Pope. I would love to send him an SMS so we can have tea”

Taylor Swift in tartan at the MTV Music Awards ceremony. Lady Gaga at the Venice festival. Céline Dion at the opening of the Paris Olympic Games. Or maybe that day in Cannes when a dress too sheer for the five o’clock light forced the only recourse when all the doors were closed. closed: Use the Martinez Hotel curtains to create a look. They probably call it the Midas touch, or the ability to position a Dior product on the right person, in the right space, at the right time, fueling the hashtag #starsindior, just as the DNA of fashion and style Parisian life guarantees that it has been in the family for decades to facilitate beautiful life by Mathilde Favier. Well, that and a solid contact list, of course. “Yes, it’s good.” What name is missing from the phone number of Dior’s global celebrity director? “The Pope! I loved meeting the Pope, talking with him. I don’t know what we would talk about but I would love to be able to sit down with him and talk. Maybe text him and ask if we can have a cup of tea and talk. I don’t think he would come to a parade, but I would go to it, without any problem!” he tells the Observer.

Mathilde is not alone in this mission. In the Dior showroom, the public relations team also depends on Lucie, Aurore, Taria, Aline, Christèle, Marine and Hélène, with whom they have been working for twenty years.

On a sunless Friday morning in Lisbon, flavored water fills the glasses and bags on the store’s first floor. home French. It is on Avenida da Liberdade where Favier presents the book with the Flammarion label published in May, about this apparently perennial joy of living in the French capital. “Why haven’t there been great women artists?” (Why were there no great women artists?), reads its marinière, the same one that opened the show that anticipated spring 2018, and that revived a feminist slogan created by Maria Grazia Chiuri. With a miniskirt, black stockings and your Miss Dior Pumps on your feet, what do you do when everything burns? Enough, nothing serious, it’s just an Eden Rock candle on the table, in front of the public, which reactivates leisure seasons on the French Riviera, whose charm seems not to have faded. But it is a fact that the rules of the game are different.

Mathilde in 2013, with creator Pierre Cardin and Lee Radziwill © Getty Images

There were times when designers from major fashion houses headed to the Oscars armed with their best dresses, hoping to be chosen by the stars, without any transaction involved. The positions have been reversed and today brands chase celebrities who are changing the direction of numbers, flashes and the flow of information. The circle of the public relations manager, Mathilde Favier, is full of ambassadors and other celebrities who make up the so-called A List, where the names of the most coveted are found. They are spearheads of haute couture with creative direction from Chiuri, who perform on red carpets, parties, film festivals, front rows of fashion shows and other important events on a global scale. “You can’t be a public relations person if you don’t like the brand we represent,” Mathilde says halfway through the intervention.

on this star systemThere are both memories of stars of galactic proportions and the faithful local squires. Both Isabel Abreu and Filipa de Abreu sit in the first rows of this meeting. From the first water of the theater to the influencer, there is room for diversity in the constellation of home, whose tentacles are increasingly vast. Sónia Balacó (who leads the session), Victoria Guerra and Joana Ribeiro complete the cast of national actresses, with impeccable Dior looks.

“Yes, things have changed. In the past we had fewer ambassadors, fewer actresses and they were not covered by exclusivity contracts as they are today. My job is to discover them and catch them while they are not yet known, to allow them to pursue their careers here. Hunting them when they are still very young is also the most difficult part of my job,” Mathilde admits to us, on the sidelines of the presentation. How do you decide where to bet your chips? “This is purely intuitive, of course I know what they like and they look for Maria Grazia or Delphine Arnaut. I watch a lot of movies, you know?

It was thanks to cinema that he discovered Nadia Tereszkiewicz, protagonist of François Ozon’s film, monday crimewho would become an ambassador for Dior, a good example of this process of exploration. “I told my team that we had to look at that girl because she was actually very good and that’s how she became our ambassador.” And since we are talking about cinema, perhaps it is worth the reader to review the film “Marie Antoinette”, by Sofia Coppola, director, personal friend of Favier, who recruited several illustrious Parisians for her classic filming in Versailles. “My sister and I played courtesans. Even my uncle appears in several scenes.”

At the Dior Fall/Winter 2023/2024 show © Getty Images

Legitimate daughter of the seizième, she was not yet 14 years old when she began an internship at Chanel. Years later, at Glamor, she would learn the lessons of Brigitte Langevin and Anne Chabrol and meet the biggest names in the industry, from Mario Testino to Carine Roitfeld, from Jurgen Teller to Babeth Dijan. The rest is practically history. Mathilde swims like a fish in water in this stronghold that flows online: more than 200 thousand people follow her on Instagram alone, which also makes her a digital influencer in an era in which it always seems more is more. “We live in a world with everything, but quality is always more important than quantity. It is about privileging beauty and detail. It feels better to pour a Coke in a glass than to drink it from the can.”

Let’s say that the sophistication of small gestures dates back to long before the heyday of networks. His uncle, Gilles Dufour, was German Karl Lagerfeld’s right-hand man at Chanel. Sister Victoire de Castellane is a jewelry designer for Dior. Pauline, the youngest, is a television presenter. “I am lucky to have grown up in a family that works in fashion and art, of course this elevates our soul, the style. “I’m always thinking about this idea of ​​transmission.”

Here is Mathilde Favier, who took the same bus as Carla Bruni, was a schoolmate of the super stylist Emmanuelle Alt, and in this version coffee table k explores the spaces and figures of his personal website, from the interior designer Jacques Grange to Terry Gunzburg, from the makeup brand By Terry; among them the jeweler Aurélie Bidermann, or Elisabetta Beccari, wife of the general director of Louis Vuitton, without forgetting Eva Jospin, daughter of the former French prime minister Lionel Jospin and responsible for the Dior catwalks. In good shape c’est si bonThe work also recommends special stops in Mathilde’s routine, such as the restaurants Le Voltaire or La Poule au Pot, the Caractère de Cochon delicatessen, the flowers at Moulié Paris or the books by Galignani.

From the mother, Françoise, to the daughter Heloise Agostinelli, the book explores several more intimate corners.

“We live in a very difficult world. I feel privileged, I live in a protected bubble. When we post a photo everyone imagines a perfect life, ‘oh, how lucky he is.’ Maybe I wanted to leave a more appropriate trail,” he notes about this edition, which contrasts the famous 15 minutes of fame with “15 minutes of light, of lightness, of vitamin.” If only to slow down a little and write a nice message for someone in your own handwriting. “Between me we are surrounded by falsehood. ‘Oh, hello! good day!’ “I am moved by real people who have time to dedicate to others,” he says, explaining that he loves saving the little handwritten notes, which appear somewhere in the first pages of the book. And how age provided the wisdom necessary to discover hidden agendas. “Our environment makes a big difference, it helps us see the difference between correct purposes and less true ones. I think maturity helps us a lot in this. “I made a lot of mistakes, I won’t say which ones, but they taught me a lot in life.”

Live beautifully in Paris is a visual compendium of destinations, activities and people that can have such most suitable path but it will still seem distant to many ordinary mortals. It includes texts by Frédérique Dedet, who “perceived exactly” what made sense to record for posterity, and photographs by Pascal Chevallier. And also table arrangements, lots of selfies in front of the mirror or simple inspiration to redecorate the house. It will serve one thing for sure: to tune up the countrymen’s chips (at least he hopes so).

The cover of the Living Beautifully in Paris edition, with the Flammarion seal

“The French spend their lives complaining! I wanted to be a witness and ambassador for my city and for people to understand that it is fantastic to travel the world and return to Paris.” And unlike so many other compatriots who packed their bags and flew to Portugal indefinitely, don’t expect the same from RP. “I have moved several times in my life. New York, Geneva, etc. I’ve reached an age where I don’t think about it. This book is not a life lesson, it is not intended to teach anything. I am very happy to be able to say that Paris is my city, it is where I want to end my days. Yes, of course Paris has changed, but life has also changed. Cities do what they can to keep up, I always support small businesses to survive, for example, because we need them.”

After the presentations in Madrid and London, and this stop in Portugal, Favier will head to New York. Return to Paris.