She has this kind of almost intimidating beauty that catches everyone's eye.
Long blond hair, high cheekbones, luscious mouth, large Baikal blue eyes that underline her Slavic origins, which she inherited from her father, the son of Russian immigrants.
From her Breton mother, Alexandra Golovanoff also inherited this French elegance and two family fads: that of the knitted sweater and Bréhat, this small island of pink granite with flowery fields of agapanthus and hydrangeas.
"My first link with clothing is my mother," says the one who, in 2016, launched her own brand of cashmere sweaters (1). “She knew how to sew and knit, and dressed us completely, my three sisters and me. With the scraps of fabric, she also made outfits for our dolls.” Bréhat is also a childhood story. In this Breton micro-island, a family holiday resort since she was born, Alexandra dreamed, since the age of 11, of owning her own house there. Whose act ten years ago. Bréhat has become her refuge, the one she invests in long weekends to garden, cook, paint, take care of the decoration (another of her great passions) and cut herself off from the world in the company of her dog, Koshka. , and of her cat, Tolstoy: "My new children, she said laughing, because mine -
Virgile and Mila, 19 and 22, editor's note
- are now grown up and independent.
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Alexandra Golovanoff and Brehat
New wave
Striped cashmere set, Alexandra Golovanoff.
Eagle Boots
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Through rose-colored glasses
Koshka: cashmere sweater, Alexandra Golovanoff.
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The sense of cool
Blazer, bodysuit and jeans, the Celine set by Hedi Slimane.
Pierre Hardy sandals, Louis Vuitton bag.
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casual luxury
Denim patchwork dungarees, Chanel, cashmere tank top, Alexandra Golovanoff.
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offshore wind
Free pace
Love knit
Exquisite simplicity
Refinement
nature and culture
Sweetness accomplice
wild spirit
happy mix
serene bohemian
See the slideshow
14 pictures
A bohemian childhood
Before becoming the creator of “knitwear that makes you look beautiful” that girls in chic neighborhoods are snapping up for their flattering “fit” and their color palette, the just-fifties (who looks ten years younger with her height and complexion young girl) has known several lives.
She recounts in her deep, calm voice: that of a little girl tossed about between Paris and Moscow, where her father worked.
She has kept sepia photos and memories of her at 5, running on Red Square or lost, in tights and a pink tutu, on the vast staircase of the mythical Metropol hotel, where her parents sometimes went down.
When the latter, who had become antique dealers, settled permanently in the 16th arrondissement, Alexandra landed with the nuns at the Ecole de la Providence.
If we are not at the Groseille family of
Life is a long calm river,
of Étienne Chatiliez, the Golovanoffs are not the Le Quesnoys either.
Far from there.
“Of course, my parents both received a bourgeois education, says Alexandra, but they were very whimsical, a little crazy, not at all classic.
The type to lug my sisters and me around in the back of their car to take us to visit antique shops in Germany and England.
I also saw them very stressed by their profession, whose status is more than uncertain, even risky”, continues the one who will still keep from her parents’ profession a real expert look at beautiful things.
Fashion route
After the baccalaureate, Alexandra studied law, art history, was bored on the benches of the university, became a costume designer, worked in film production, then in finance, landed on the Stock Exchange on the derivatives market, then went to India, Bangladesh, China and Senegal for the CSAO decoration shop... A real will-o'-the-wisp which, driven by curiosity, experimented, tempted, sometimes became disillusioned.
At the age of 27, after having applied for a classified ad for
Liberation,
she became an economic journalist in the program
Les Femmes et les Patrons d'abord
.
A little later, she landed the casting of the cult magazine
La Mode, la mode, la mode,
on Paris Première, where her sunny side and her offbeat tone brought her to the front row of fashion shows and backstage to interview the greatest, Karl Lagerfeld in the lead.
She stayed there for fifteen years, before deciding to take the plunge by launching her own small fashion business.
Last September, she also created a perfume, Eucalyptic, which smells of Breton air, and is still thinking of expanding her field of activity at the start of the year.
Next step after sweaters?
It will undoubtedly be jeans, confides the one who never stops and who quotes this sentence from André Gide, as one of her favorite mantras: “It is good to follow your slope, as long as it is uphill. »
(1) alexandragolovanoff.com
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