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A Tribute to Michèle Lamy
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A$AP Rocky, Rick Owens, Yasiin Bey and more on their relationship with one of fashion’s last true eccentrics
One of fashion’s last true eccentrics, Michèle Lamy was born in the Jura Mountains and grew up amidst significant societal upheaval in Paris, including the May 1968 demonstrations and the first gay liberation movements. However, she was always drawn to American counter-culture, and after stints as a law student, stripper and performer Lamy decamped to Los Angeles, where she set up her first eponymous fashion line. In the mid-’90s, she became known as one of the city’s most flamboyant characters through her creation of Les Deux Cafes, a combination restaurant/cabaret that became a pitstop for the city’s cultural elite, and where Lamy first explored her secret passion for music in surreal live performances.
\n\nIn 2003, Lamy moved back to Paris with her husband and creative collaborator, fashion designer Rick Owens, where she continued to make her presence known in a variety of projects relating to art, fashion and music. She has worked with a diverse range of electronic and hip-hop artists ranging from Zebra Katz and UNKLE’s James Lavelle to FKA Twigs and A$AP Rocky, and her latest project is “Montage Of A Dream Deferred,” an exhibition and album created as a living homage to Langston Hughes and presented as part of the Red Bull Music Academy Festival Paris 2017. Here, Michèle Lamy’s friends and collaborators – including Kanye West, Yasiin Bey, A$AP Rocky, Christeene, Bobby Woods and more – reflect on Lamy’s indefatigable creative energy.
A$AP Rocky
\n\nI found out about Michèle in 2008 by knowing she was Rick Owens’ wife. She dipped her hand in dye and had gold teeth, and the first time we met she was everything I thought she would be plus more. We talked a little about fashion and life, but mostly about art. We developed a really good relationship through art and she mentored me, guided me in the right direction as far as tasteful art, preference and aesthetic. She taught me the difference between Renaissance masters and contemporary artists, and I’m still learning.
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I love the fact that she’s open-hearted. Also, she knows her position in life. Michèle is involved in shaping and changing a lot of things as far as life, culture and art go. She reminds you of a mythical creature, because you don’t think this person exists until you’re in the presence of them.
\n\nShe shot my last album cover for At. Long. Last. ASAP. She curated it and also gifted me a ring which is similar to hers, which I’m wearing on the cover. We worked on a few films together as well. One of the things I learned from her is that anyone can do anything at this point, but not everyone does it right or good.
\n\nWe both have permanent diamonds and jewelry in our teeth, but aside from that, our outlook on life is very similar. I’m always conscious, precautious and aware of my moves, but being around Michèle, our relationship, rapport and whatnot enhanced it and helped it evolve. There’s only a few people who are geniuses, like Danger Mouse or Frank Ocean – she’s one of those, but for fashion. She’s the Dark Queen of Fashion. And I’m still sorry about not wearing her favorite Comme dress on the cover of my album, like she wanted me to!
She already knew everything about me before I was born and I always knew she was my destiny.
Rick Owens
\n\nWhen I was in my rock crystal crib my wet nurse was warned of a demon that would hunt me down and violate me. During the LA riots as we were looting the same store, I saw her through the tear gas as she was loading an alligator bag with brandy half-pints while smoking a cigar. Blood rushed to my bone, I peeled inside-out and hovered in the air. I joined her in her waiting car where she fisted me for the first time with the fires raging around us. Then we walked about the eternal cosmic truth. She already knew everything about me before I was born and I always knew she was my destiny. I like her scorn as much as we both like the full weight of her foot on my neck. Our life is a continual shimmering shuddering slow motion glitterbomb explosion. I never know when she is going to stab me. But one day I am going to shoot her in the head. Right before I shoot myself.
Bobby Woods [Les Deux Love Orchestra]
\n\nMichèle and I have been partners-in-crime for decades. I don’t know, 25 years? Something like that. We met at her restaurant, Café des Artistes, almost nightly. Sometimes I would play the piano in the garden. Later, she turned a Hollywood parking lot into Los Angeles’s most notorious restaurant, Les Deux Cafés. In classic Michèle fashion, the restaurant had no kitchen: The kitchen was across the street in another building, and the waiters would carry the plates across traffic to bring the food to the table. Later, Michèle found a condemned two-story house which was two blocks away. She put it on wheels and moved it down the street – the entire house – and into the parking lot. This house would become the kitchen and another dining room for the restaurant.
She also built a cabaret for us to play in. Les Deux Love Orchestra – named after the restaurant – was created and performed weekly. These shows became very popular, and the place was always packed. Shows went on until all hours of the morning, with many guest performers. Grammy award-winner Larry Klein was in the band, and his ex-wife Joni Mitchell performed with us many times. There was something about the atmosphere of the place which encouraged strangers to smuggle instruments – trumpets, accordions, saxophones – into the showroom. Often, it was absolute chaos. Once there were sheep running around inside the place.
\n\nBut of course, for all of us the features of the night were Michèle’s performance. Her distinctive smoky voice, the lyrics and the poetry created dream-like episodes like little travelogues, mesmerizing the audience. We made several records, some recorded in the cabaret.
At the time, Michèle and Rick Owens were living across the street in Rick’s studio. (There was no kitchen there, either. There was a toaster, however, and dinner parties, some featured in the New York Times, made toast a main staple on the menu.) Early Rick Owens fashion shows in the cabaret featured Les Deux Love Orchestra playing while the models walked the bar, which was converted into a runway. Later, when Rick and Michèle left LA for Paris, the band and Michèle’s performances went international. We have performed with her in New York and many cities in Europe. She has worked with many artists: Zebra Katz, Matthew Stone, A$AP Rocky and others. They all know the great fun and the artistic freedom which comes along with Michèle’s world. Making other artists comfortable is a rare and valuable gift.
Kanye West
\n\nI first saw pics of Michèle on the internet. Later, I found out that she was a fashion instructor, and after that I found a jersey skirt from her own line. I remember wanting to use a piece of Rick’s furniture at a performance I did in Basel, and asking her to borrow it. We’ve talked about mostly furniture, but when I met her on other occasions we spoke about broader concepts. My impression is that she is a deep soul who has been here in multiple lifetimes.
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Christeene
\n\nI first heard about Michèle when my dancers and I were invited to fly to Paris and perform at Michèle and Rick’s Spotlight party. Michèle and Rick were new to us, so I began doing my homework on who these folks were and why they had decided to bring Christeene over.
She’s a teenage dreamer in a warrior’s robes, the best gateway drug in the whole wide world.
I remember arriving at the Palais Bourbon back in 2011, and walking up the long flight of stone steps and into their home. I was nervous about being there: The place was unlike anything I had ever seen and nothing like I was expecting. She came down from her top floor and greeted us – she was spry, light on her feet and mischievous. She would float her arms in an elbows-up kind of way when she spoke, and it always felt like she was speaking to everything around her, not just to you, until her eyes locked onto yours and drilled you with their energy and spirit. Bright, stone-blue eyes. It was magical to witness. Still is.
Most of the time I was trying to understand what in the hell she was saying! It takes a minute to warm up to her whisperings. We talked about the events of the evening and of our stay, all the to-do’s. Always a very, “We will do this! Then we will do this! Then we will do this!” kind of conversation. It was exciting, like you were planning a secret attack with her. She’s a teenage dreamer in a warrior’s robes, the best gateway drug in the whole wide world. Her personality is endless – I want to bottle her scent and her voice and pour it onto my pillow every night.
\n\nWe worked together once on a music video for a song I wrote called “Butt Muscle.” It was hella playful and there was a lot laughter on the set. We got naked, we got lubed up and we held and spun around like a nasty dream on fire. Thank God there were cameras.
Matthew Stone
\n\nMichèle and I made a record together called “How Do You Feel?” The title of the track, borrowed from the Langston Hughes poem “Old Age,” sums up a key part of Michèle’s collaborative process for me. She is very astute and always able to recognise the exact, vulnerable moment when others begin to operate out of unconscious fear or insecurity. In her own mercurial way, she’ll prod and trigger you, essentially asking in various forms: \"How do you feel?\" It can feel very annoying, but it is a gesture that is never ineffective or misplaced. If you are ready to hear her, it is a reminder to reconnect confidently to your own intuition and sense of personal freedom, something that she always seems to do effortlessly.
Yasiin Bey [AKA Mos Def]
\n\nI don’t remember exactly when I met Michèle. She’s been a friend to Rakim for some time and he and I are close, and of course her partnership and marriage to Rick is well known. I do remember seeing photographs of her online and being very intrigued and inspired by her presence. After reading more about her life and work I felt that she was someone I needed to meet. I had no plans or designs on what that would mean or if it would even happen, but I felt it would and should. While in Paris some years ago I called my long-time friend and collaborator Samira Cadasse and asked if she could set up a meeting. We met very soon afterwards at Le Palais – I’m happy and grateful that we did.
\n\nMichèle has a very dynamic personality. She’s engaging, funny, warm and direct. She has a great curiosity and energy about her. Our conversations are like any good conversations: A useful, positive exchange of experiences and perspectives across a wide range of topics – art, family, travel, etc… She’s very easy to talk and listen to. There’s also usually food involved, and Michèle eats very well. I feel a real shared value around food with her. I find a meal with Michèle to be very nurturing and fun – super food, super vibrations.
\n\nI’m not sure Michèle is someone you describe – I think she’s someone you experience. (If you’re lucky.) I find her to be a person of depth, and these types of people I don’t think can be reduced to simple descriptions, because ultimately, based on that character they define themselves. I think we share a curiosity about life and the world around us. An enthusiasm for ideas; a love of beauty, strong perspective and adventure; great food; and boxing! I do miss going to Temple Boxing in Paris with her. The last time I was there with her the trainer and I accidentally butted heads, and I had to get five stitches over my eye. It sounds worse than it was.
This record and its eight tracks is actually evocative of Michèle sitting in a cave, surrounded by wild beasts, ready to devour her.
Loree Rodkin
\n\nI first met Michèle when I was 20 and she had an eyewear store in Los Angeles. She was a creature, so exotic and unlike anyone I ever met. There is no one that can match her passion for life – she’s like a magical, nomadic gypsy. We have some similar eccentricities, and we both like to push the limits. We do a jewelry line together called HUNROD – it’s tribal, mystical and decayed. I learned to expect the unexpected working with her.
Nico Vascellari
\n\nI wanted Michèle Lamy to perform for Scholomance, an exhibition I presented at the Palais de Tokyo last spring. She immediately agreed to my request in a spontaneous and heart-warming manner. We met up a few weeks later in Venice and spent the day together discussing the way she approaches her work. She wanted to know what the exhibition was going to look like. I was so enthusiastic about the fact that we got to meet, and our discussions, that I went to the casino that evening and put €10 down on number 33, which is my lucky charm. I struck gold, and upon leaving the casino I sent a photo to Michèle.
\n\nShe’s someone who has inspired me in a way that others seldom have. I love the fact that she needs to take risks, to visit places she has never explored before. I perceived this clearly when we recorded the soundtrack to this new exhibition, Montage of a dream deferred. She was open to every flight of fancy – all we had to do was ask her to try. In her case, this is a genuine form of elegance. This is how we created the Lavasca project: that’s La for Lamy, Va for Vascellari and the Sca for her daughter, Scarlette Rouge, who also took part in the project.
\n\nI turned up with the backbone for a few tracks, and Michèle had been thinking about using poems by Langston Hughes, so we cut up the words and reassembled them, then added more words, a bit like the surrealists and their “cadavres exquis.” We started working on the tracks, modified them, tweaked them and went over them again, just to see how they slotted into place. She granted me her complete trust, and I told her I wanted us to work together on something extremely intuitive and primitive, essentially based on rhythm and vocals, which are, in a way, the very first instruments of humanity. I was also trying to capture her essence, something that cannot be put into words when describing her, this incredible presence she exerts upon people. She would move about, dancing, her rings and jewellery would click and rattle – I had to take all this energy into account, and manage to record it. In hindsight, this record and its eight tracks is actually evocative of Michèle sitting in a cave, surrounded by wild beasts, ready to devour her. The only tactic she has found to scare them away is to make noise by banging on objects and by reciting poetry.
Header image © Thierry Ambraisse