by Edwina Dunn
MAJORA CARTER
Urban revitalisation strategist
VANESSA FRIEDMAN
Vanessa Friedman was born in New York and studied at Princeton University. She became a journalist and wrote for magazines, such as Vanity Fair and US Elle. In 1996, she and her husband moved to the UK and she went on to work for the Economist and InStyle. She also freelanced for the Financial Times before becoming their first fashion editor in 2003. In 2014 she left the FT and took up her current post as fashion director and chief fashion critic of the New York Times. She is known for her incisive socio-political commentary on the role of fashion in our lives. In 2010, she published her first book, a celebration of the life and work of Italian designer Emilio Pucci.
* * *
When I was growing up, I wanted to be a lawyer, then a neurosurgeon. I thought about being a chemist for a while, and an astronaut. At Princeton I studied history and wasn’t interested in fashion. I thought it frivolous and superficial in the way that intellectually pretentious 20 year olds do. When I graduated, I worked for a law firm in Paris for a year and a half because I was thinking about going to law school, but I was also considering journalism. In the end, I decided that I could still go to law school if I didn’t like magazines, but I was never going to get into magazines as a 40-year-old editorial assistant!
My mother was a book editor and then a literary agent. She was very much a mother but also a professional, and successful at a time when there were not a lot of women in her profession.
I worked at a variety of magazines and culture was always my focus – I liked books and film and TV. Then, in London, I started freelancing for the Financial Times and that’s where I first wrote about fashion. When they decided to have a fashion editor in 2003, it coincided with me going back to work after the birth of my second child, and I got the job.
Part of what was fantastic about the job at the FT was being able to define fashion in a way that glossy magazines and other newspapers didn’t already do. And I feel similarly about the New York Times. The people who read these newspapers care about fashion but clothes are not the guiding principle of their lives. Their lives are about lots of other things and so our job is to show them where the choices they make about clothes intersect with the choices they make about a whole host of other areas with which they may be more familiar.
I feel strongly about professional women being up-front about the different roles they play in their lives.
My parents were my formative influence. They gave me my value systems and guided me. When I was growing up, my father was a corporate lawyer who went into government, and my mother was a book editor and then a literary agent. She was very much a mother but also a professional, and successful at a time when there were not a lot of women in her profession. She dealt with all the prejudices and gender stereotypes that we hear about and that, to a certain extent, still exist, although not in the same form. I remember her telling me that she was in a salary negotiation and somebody said to her, ‘Why do you need more money? You have a successful husband.’
The important thing in life is to be curious and open to possibilities.
My mother gave me a very important piece of advice – you can have it all, just not necessarily at the same time. And I think, as a woman trying to balance family and work and travel and hobbies, that is absolutely correct. You make choices depending on what’s going on in your life at different times. I never doubted that I came first, despite both my parents having full-time jobs, and that is what I want for my children – I have two daughters and a son. I feel strongly about professional women being up-front about the different roles they play in their lives. So I will say to employers, ‘I have to go to my kid’s graduation,’ or, ‘I can’t come in today, my son is sick.’ Getting these issues out there is important, not just for women but also for men. It is our responsibility to acknowledge the challenges that everyone faces in family life and work life so that they are part of the conversation, and to demonstrate that you can be professional and have everything in on time – and go to the school play.
I will say to employers, ‘I have to go to my kid’s graduation,’ or, ‘I can’t come in today, my son is sick.’
The advice I would give my teenaged self is the same advice that I give my kids – when you are growing up, some of it sucks and some of it’s brilliant, and that’s actually what’s interesting about it all. When I was going through school, there was still a sense of career paths – you studied x and it led to y – but that is not the case any more. One of the things I said recently to the graduating class at Parsons [School of Design in New York] is that we’ve created a very messy, very scary world. Competition comes from all sorts of unexpected places but, also, opportunities that you couldn’t even imagine, and that’s incredibly exciting. The important thing in life is to be curious and open to possibilities. If you had told me when I was 18 or 21 that I would be a fashion critic on a newspaper, I would have told you, in not very polite terms, that you were very wrong, and that shows just how wrong I was.
Vanessa’s Object
A trapeze bar. My hobby is the flying trapeze and, like my career in fashion, it’s something that I came to relatively late and I love it. The flying trapeze requires a lot of the same qualities as a career – the willingness to jump in unexpected directions, the need to listen to and trust other people (you have to trust your catcher) and exposure to a different world that’s fascinating and populated by all sorts of characters.
I started the trapeze when I moved back to the US from the UK. My middle daughter was in kindergarten and another mother said that it would be a good thing for the kids to do, to get over their fear of heights. So she arranged a class and I took both my daughters. All the kindergarten kids were horrified, but I thought it looked fun and, with my elder daughter, I carried on and I am in better shape than I have been in my entire life.
The flying trapeze is not the easiest hobby to work into your daily schedule and it’s like being part of a secret society of circus people. Shoe designer Christian Louboutin has a little trapeze studio in Paris and we have done a class or two together. In London there is a rig in Regent’s Park in summer or I go to the circus school at the Roundhouse in Camden. Last time I was there an instructor told me about a rig in Milan so, when I was at fashion week there, I played hooky – and it really cleared my head!
VANESSA FRIEDMAN
Fashion director, New York Times
ASHIMA SHIRAISHI
Ashima Shiraishi is a world champion rock climber. She was born in New York in 2001, the daughter of Japanese immigrants, and won her first competition at the age of seven. She went on to win the American Bouldering Series Youth National Championship for five consecutive years, excelling at climbing without ropes and harnesses. In 2015 she set records when she climbed the Open Your Mind Direct route at Santa Linya in Spain, becoming the first female and the youngest person to have achieved a climb of this difficulty. In the 2015 Golden Pitons she was named Climber of the Year. If climbing is accepted as a medal sport, she hopes to compete at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
* * *
I started rock climbing when I was six years old in Central Park in New York City. One day I was playing at a playground in the park and I saw people climbing on this big rock. I was really interested and started to do it, too. I kept on falling but every day I went back. I had no climbing shoes so I just wore sneakers.
Once I have done one hard climb I always look for a harder one and keep on pushing my limit because that’s what climbers do.
I climb on outdoor rocks and mountains. I also do competitions on artificial rock but I prefer real rock climbing. Climbing is exhilarating. You go up so high and sometimes it’s scary, but the fear is an exciting feeling, and when you get to the top, it’s the best feeling. I have fallen countless times but that’s what makes it so special when you get to the top.
I do two types of climbing. One is free climbing [bouldering], which means that it’
s only me and the rock. There is nothing to help me – only chalk for my hands but no harnesses or ropes. You climb a rock that’s about 15 feet, so not too high. I also do sport climbing where you climb 100 or more feet and you wear a harness and a rope and someone’s belaying you [the technique of securing the climber during a climb]. They are both climbing but they are very different. One is like a marathon whereas the other is like a sprint.
Climbing is so natural for me, it’s almost like dancing on the rock. Since my dad was a dancer, I feel I naturally have that movement inside me. Sometimes it’s almost like flying up the wall and sometimes you actually do fly through the air to grab on to rocks. When I am climbing, I try not to be nervous. A lot of people get really stressed and when you’re like that it’s hard to climb because there are so many things going on in your mind.
Climbing is exhilarating. You go up so high and sometimes it’s scary, but the fear is an exciting feeling, and when you get to the top, it’s the best feeling. I have fallen countless times but that’s what makes it so special when you get to the top.
Rock climbing is pretty dangerous. You can die and you can definitely get injured so it’s a risky sport. But if you pay attention and are aware of what you are doing and are focused, then you’re fine. I haven’t got injured but I have a lot of callouses on my fingers and my feet from rock climbing. Sometimes I get scared when I am high up in the air, but most of the time I am relaxed and composed. Of course, when you are falling, it’s definitely not fun – you are frustrated. But during those times I just think about getting to the top and how I will feel when I get there.
Once I have done one hard climb I always look for a harder one and keep on pushing my limit because that’s what climbers do. Climbing is both a physical and a mental sport. You really have to think when you’re climbing, so you have to be smart. First you have to see the path that you’re going to take – that’s one of the most important parts. You look at the climb and see where you are going to put your hands and then you look at where you’re going to put your feet and how your body is going to be positioned. You can never 100 per cent know what you are going to do, though. I always improvise along the way, because you can’t look at a climb from the bottom and have it perfectly, so as you are climbing you change your sequence. People have told me that I have a high climbing IQ so I can see the sequence very easily and I do sequences that no one else imagines.
Physical strength is important but the most important thing is good concentration. I feel like climbing has made me a more disciplined person and, even at school, it shows.
I love to do competitions and I love to travel round the world. It’s definitely hard to manage school and climbing. I wake up at 6.30 in the morning and I go to school until 3.30. I go to climbing gym from four till eight, then I go back home, eat dinner and do homework. When I go to sleep it’s about 1am so it’s a hard schedule. I care about school and I love to learn but homework is definitely one of my challenges!
My dream is to keep on climbing and I want to push the female boundaries of rock climbing and maybe have females dominating the sport. Physical strength is important but the most important thing is good concentration. I feel like climbing has made me a more disciplined person and, even at school, it shows.
Sometimes I want to stop climbing because there is so much going on in my life and I just want to be like anyone else, but I always return to it because I just love it so much. If I don’t do it, then it feels like I am losing something. I have two worlds – friends at school who don’t climb and friends from the climbing world. I like to hang out with my friends from school and just be a normal teenager, going to movies and figure skating.
Both my parents are very supportive and I am the only child. My father coaches me and, because he used to be a dancer, he has helped me to move more delicately on the rock and really understand how to keep my core tight and how to prepare mentally. My mom makes all my climbing pants and sometimes she comes to competitions with me, too. I hope to be in the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. As a little girl my dream was to be in the Olympics.
Ashima’s Object
My unique climbing pants. They are what I treasure most in life, the comfortable, loose pants that I always climb in. My mom hand-makes my pants and my father chooses the fabric, which either comes from Japan or is Japanese-inspired. Since no one else in the world has the same pair of pants, I believe that I stand out and, as I have been wearing them since I began climbing, they are a part of me. And when I’m not with my parents, I receive their power from the pants!
ASHIMA SHIRAISHI
Rock climber
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank the following people for inspiration, connectivity and masses of practical help:
For bringing the book and films to life
Brigitte Lacombe, Photographer,
Marian Lacombe, Film-maker
Bea Appleby, Editor
Prof. Phil Cleaver, Designer
Hester Lacey, Journalist
Geraldine Bedell, Journalist
Rosanna Greenstreet, Journalist
Dr Terri Apter, Psychologist and Writer
Amber Cooper-Davies, Illustrator
Janet Johnson, President, Lacombe Inc.
Isabelle Steinl, Video Editor
Emily Lord, Aidan Jones, Jennifer Penny,
et al design consultants
Carey Smith, Publishing Director, Ebury
Lydia Good, Editor, Ebury
The written profiles of Ava DuVernay, Samantha Power, Meryl Streep, Laurene Powell Jobs, Karlie Kloss, Christine Lagarde, Ashima Sharaishi, Vian and Deelan Dakhil Saeed were taken from Marian Lacombe’s video interviews
The Female Lead team
Martha Rampley, Laura Whiteside, Veryan Dexter, Eve Simmons and Samantha Fosbury
The Lacombe team
Vanessa Gomez, Studio Manager
Hanna Bradbury, Assistant Studio Manager
Lanny Jordan Jackson, Archivist
Molly Welch, Exhibitions Manager
TJ Huff, Post-production & Printer
David Coventry, Photo Assistant
Shane Nelson, Photo Assistant
For helping us to develop our campaign
Jane Quinn at Bolton & Quinn, Nick Keegan, Michael Hayman and Nick Giles at Seven Hills, Jeff Boardman, Robbie Newby and Rowena Humby for the What I See project
For helping us to connect
Elizabeth Kesses and Dominique Delport Tina Brown Live Media, Domino Pateman and Joanna Newell at Southbank Centre, Jamila Deria at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, Shanaz Begum at Mulberry School in London, David Vannier and Bruno Silvestre at the IMF, Hagar Chemali and Kurtis Cooper at the U.S. Mission to the UN, John Barker and Andrew Davies at Demeter, David Giampaolo at Pi Capital, Sylvie Bermann Ambassador of France to the U.K., Raphaëlle Rodocanachi Cultural Attachée at Institut Français U.K.
Our Photoshoot Producers
From No Wheelies Patricia Whaley and Elizabeth Johnson
From NorthSix Maria Domican and Matt Malby
Hair and Makeup stylists
Carolyn Gallyer, Rosie Lewis, Kuma
Every woman in the book was interviewed on film by Marian Lacombe. These videos can all be seen at www.thefemalelead.com
ABOUT THE PROJECT
The Female Lead is a not for profit project.
Many of the books, and all of the films and teaching materials are being donated to schools and universities via trusted networks in the UK and USA.
On books sold, all royalties will go back into the project to fund further materials to be donated to schools.
We would like to hear from any organisation that can help us bring this to more countries and more young people around the world.
www.thefemalelead.com
@female_lead
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Epub ISBN: 9781473529458
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Text © Edwina Dunn 2017
Photography © Brigitte Lacombe 2017
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Edwina Dunn has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
Excerpts on pages 104 and 105 from the book Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham. © Lena Dunham 2014. Reprinted by arrangement with Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved
Every woman in the book was interviewed on film by Marian Lacombe. These videos can all be seen at www.thefemalelead.com
First published by Ebury Press in 2017
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Hardback ISBN 9781785033520
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