Vogue España Feb 2008
"Irina La Dulce"
Ph: Nico
Words: C. Sáiz


[показать] [показать] [показать] [показать] [показать]

[показать] [показать] [показать] [показать] [показать]



"Irina La Dulce"

The Tabloid world has presented her on their covers as the vampire who got in the middle of Pete Doherty and Kate Moss. While the tabloids speculate not only about her relationship with the bad boy of British Rock & Roll, but also about a possible wedding, the main character in this story, more than a man eater, is a model with artistic ambitions that has found herself in the middle of a creative hurricane. When she's not walking for the best designers, she spends her time writing poetry or working with Sean Lennon on her first album. No one could have imagined that this little girl -of fragile complexion and political(says human in the article idk) refugee on the canadian town of Saint Hubert- who was once locked on her locker(?) by some classmates till the point of almost asphyxia, years later would become the head of a new generation of models. Owner of a singular elegance, un common and rebel that has conquered some of the top names in fashion. Karl Lagerfeld has described her as a mixture between the boheme presence of Juliette Gréco, the pioneer spirit of Coco Chanel, whiling to brake formulas and bounderies, and the tricky(?) fragility of the poet Anna de Noailles. And Milla Jovovich has compared her to the actress Claudette Colbert, for her face and fringe. Because irina Lazareanu, in spite of the fact that she can transform her look with different expressions , she revindicates an expression of individuality in a world used to blond hair. "My first show was for Chanel Couture. I only saw long blond hair and tall curvy bodies, I felt insignificant, and even more short with the flats they put me on", remembers Irina while she eats a plate of Ham(Prosciutto/AKA Jamón Serrano), before starting the photo shoot. Know-er of the properties of this dish, she learned how to enjoy the smell, taste and texture during a trip to Spain years ago. "With my boyfriend of that time we traveled on a car through the whole country, I only knew the Prosciutto, and when i tried this Ham i realized they were nothing a like. The first word I learned in Spanish was: "Where is the Ham". If it was for her, cátering would only consist on Ham and fried eggs.

From the moment you meet Irina, you realize she's very special. Chased by the regimen of Ceaucescu, her family was exiled to Canada when she was Five years old. Lover of Classic Ballet, at the age of 12 she got a scholarship to enter the Royal Ballet School in London. "In my teenage years, nothing would excite me as much as Dance did, I read all the stories about the genius of russian ballet, Diaghilev, Nijinsky, Massine...". She discovered that was passionate her so much about ballet was the ability of transforming effort into grace: "Watching how a dancer, when she comes on stage, transforms herself into music thanks to he tenacity". Un till she broke her knee on an Accident. It was around that time when she met a boy that looked a lot like her; that taught her about the rhythmic poetry of Dylan and Leonard Cohen, and Oscar Wilde's writing. That boy was Pete Doherty, lead singer of The Libertines at the time. "He was a role model to me, He had passion for life; he read, he wrote, he wrote music. He taught me about the 'Beat Generation', not so much in Ginsberg or Kerouac, but in William Blake. He taught me how to convert my poems into melodies and showed me that rhythm is an essential part of a poem". Since then they became inseparable. They started to write songs -they wrote La Belle et la Bête, with Kate Moss on parts of the vocals- ; She went with him on tour on the Shamble-Mobile, Played drums in the band once... "His constant fighting with the other members of The Libertines ended with him leaving the band and forming Babyshambles. They didn't have much stability and it got worse with Kate Moss' Scandal in 2005. It was when I decided to leave the boys", she remembers with sadness.

It was at that time, when her meteoric career on the runways started, Her big brown eyes, her androgynous disturbing sensuality, her Chelsea Girl look and her intellectual fame caused fire in the fashion world. in 2004 she walked for the kaiser at Chanel Couture; the next year Kate count on her for the editorial "Extravagance de plumes", on Vogue París; She flew to N.Y. for a cover and a 70 pages editorial with Steven Meisel for Vogue Italia; Was fashion consultant for Balenciaga for four seasons and she just took Sita Murt's new store under her wing: "I love her knits. They're basic light and wearable". Even if fashion has bowed down to her feet, her biggest passion still is music. "The melodies take the emotion, the feeling and the passion of the artist, things that a face alone can't do. When you are a model, you are part of a prosses that shows another person's talent. With my music I can show my own, I open to the world". Irina has the need to make music because is a part of her. "My works feed each-other", she explains.

She considers herself as a replica(as close as i can get to the original word in spanish, sorry) of Patti Smith, with her Street beat look. "At the time, people had a lot of professions related with the creative world. Artist like Nico or Patti were models before, photographers, actors... at the Factory those works were part of a same tree".

Un till now, Irina has worked infinite times for others, but not for her. She almost drop the towel when she saw her old friends going against what they said they loved. "In London I lived in communities, with flowers on our heads fighting for out ideals. The people that taught me that were the ones that acted against them after, I felt like they sold out", Her faith broke down... And then she met Sean Lennon: "He gave me my confidence back, and encourage me to do something on my own". This faith comes alive on an album, recorded like chapters of a book, where Sean is a collaborator and producer. With a whispering and melancholic voice, in Some Place Along the Way, talks about her own experiences and feelings. "Strange Places is about having faith, Is dedicated to Peter, because he had abandoned life. He cried a lot when he listened to it". Fountain is about how to deal with failure and Dead Man Walking is a reference to her colaboration with Amnesty International(?). Irina is a musical magnet. Mick Jones taught her how to play the guitar; Joni Mitchell took interest of her writing; Cat Power is on her album; In march of 2008 her single with Patti Smith will be released. "We have the rigths to do a version of Dylan's 'Girl From the North Country' and it wold be great if Peter and Sean would do it". Is in the legendary recording studio, Record Plant in NY, where all of this comes together. The same studio where Yoko Ono and John Lennon recorded 'Double Fantasy' and were John spend his last night alive. "Yoko is with us all the time, it's a place with a lot of memories for her and full of symbolism". Idealist, she told us her dream: "Get together with all the icons from each generation and have a jam session where we can all experiment our liberty and never stop doing that".