petit-bateau-garance-dore

12 years ago by

A while back, my agent Salomé called me to talk to me about a super crazy project. Well I mean, super crazy for me. I mean ok, I am totally the kind to jump around dancing and shouting in front of my friends to Sean Paul’s “Temperature” (and I discovered on Saturday that I am NOT the only one who likes to booty dance on that song – Yeaaaaah !) but I would be totally unable to do it in front of a camera. Well, as I was saying, Salomé :

“I have this amaaaaaazing project for you. What would you think of making a video for Petit Bateau? They’d film you dancing an awesome Madison. Of course they’d give you some classes a few days before…”

“No. Nooooooo! I can’t do that. I’d look ridiculous, and I’ve never danced the Madison in my life. No. Salomé, just no.”

But the thing is that, hearing myself that talking that day, I found myself to be the most booooooring person in the world. Seriously now, a project as fun as that with a brand that I love as much as I do AND a challenge as funny as getting to learn to dance the Madison…
You’d really have to be a downer to say no.
Plus, taking yourself too seriously is the first sign of a boring life.

And so just like every other time Salomé has believed in a project, she was insistent. And I still couldn’t say yes, stuck in my fear of being ridiculous, right up until she said…

“Zoe Cassavetes is filming it.”

Pffffff. She knows all my weaknesses. I love Zoe Cassavetes and even though I’d never met her, I just couldn’t say no.

“Yeah. Ok.”

After hearing Salomé’s victory lap, I hung up. I started imagining the most catastrophic scenarios, like Zoe smacking me in the face with the camera because I couldn’t figure out how to put one foot in front of the other, or a joke-video where the joke is me, or Adeline from Petit Bateau having to call me and say, “Well, in the end, it turns out that you’re just such a terrible dancer / are too unattractive / your hair is just too curly so we had to cancel the shoot” and I started pulling my hair out I was so stressed.

So I told myself, “Come on stop stop stop, Garance, you said yes — you’re going through with it. No use overthinking it.”

I pulled out what I call my fainting goat technique. It works really well. I use it every time I have something super stressful in my life, like a meeting with Jay-Z or some kind of test (I never met him but I can imagine).

Why pull out the fainting goat? It’s simple… Look at that : when the goat feels the danger coming, it just freezes. I heard it works super well. (plus it totally cracks me up).

So with the help of the fainting goat, the time came and one day, I found myself in a dance studio in Paris with two of the most handsome, nicest, most attentive professional dancers ever. What angels. We danced all afternoon. I started at such a low base-camp and we just ignored all that and I was totally comfortable with the denial.

Zoe came by to say hello – and to see us dance – and again I didn’t think about it about it because otherwise I would have died I was so impressed by her and just felt so ridiculous. I did my Madison, cracking up when it didn’t work, and Zoe told me it was exactly what she wanted. She didn’t want to film a dancing star, she wanted to film me (cue the violins).

The next day, ready to go, not clouding my thoughts, fainting sheep in full bloom, we filmed.

I’m not gonna tell you it was amazing because there was a good amount of pressure. But really, it was awesome. Zoe is the funniest and most chill girl I know and the team was super cool and encouraging. We laughed and laughed and that night I got to go get smashed have a glass of wine with Aurélie until we were too tired to go on.

And I started to ask myself how the video would look… And again, decided to not think about it.

A few weeks later, this is what popped up on my screen :

MORAL OF THE STORY (too long, I know, I know…)

Really, even though it’s totally weird to see yourself, I think the whole thing is pretty cute. I have amazing memories from it. And I’m proud of myself for having some courage with the whole thing, for not being stopped by fear. I’m proud for not being so attached to whatever the image was I had of myself. I have a tendency to just hide behind the camera. I can’t tell you how difficult it can be to be in the spotlight (and frankly, pretty darn hot too. You get all sweaty.).

A few years ago, I would have been so stressed out for weeks over nothing and it would’ve ruined everything – I think I’ve made some progress.

So now that I’m cool with the heat of the spotlight, next time I’m making a booty dancing video to “Temperature” by Sean Paul. Cool?

How about for Christmas?

Bahhhhhhaaha, kidding.

Big hugs!

———-

So now that I’m a big fancy movie star and the critics are going wild, here’s my Oscar moment (if you weren’t there that day, maybe just stop here…) :

Thank you to the entire team for sporting me (in both senses of the word) : Adeline & Petit Bateau (thanks for believing in me!) Salome (thanks for pushing me out of my comfort zone) that dancers Tom and Elie (thanks for lowering yourself to give classes someone as slow as me), Zoé (eternal love and when are we grabbing that drink at Buvette?), and Nina for telling me that for a film, you have to always wear a nice red lipstick or else your mouth just looks too small (and I bought the same Acne jeans as you because you are style personified), thanks to Paolo, the hairdresser for using Leonor Greyl products (the Bamboo Shampoo is just too amazing), thanks to the catering crew for the orange cake because really, it was amazing and just because I’m a movie star now doesn’t mean I’m gonna stop eating. Thank you to my mother to my… No, I’m getting…. Okay, I’ll stop! Big hugs!

Translation : Tim Sullivan

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