The Style Series: Christopher Niquet

When Christopher Niquet, who had accumulated a wealth of treasures, from custom clothes to rare books, during his 14 years of living in New York, returned to his native Paris in 2020, his luggage was surprisingly light. “I’d rather have very few but very thought-out pieces,” muses the fashion-industry veteran, who now extends that same exacting eye to the pages of his publication, Study. Ahead of the magazine’s eighth issue, he discusses his sartorial uniform, secondhand thrills, and objects of meaning, below. 

Did you always think you wanted to work in fashion? 

When I was in high school, Carine Roitfeld took over French Glamour for six months before they stopped publishing it, and it had all the cool photographers, like David Sims and Juergen Teller. That’s when I started finding fashion images and magazines interesting. I began buying The Face and i-D because of their mix of fashion, music, and culture, and then the French magazines, including Self Service, which had just started coming out. At the time, it was pre-social media and pre-websites, and magazines were really a hub for things you hadn’t seen. I was discovering very different visions of representations of women, men’s style, musicians, movies… My education was through those magazines.

While at university, I sent letters to French Vogue, Self Service, and Liberation. I got an internship with all of them, but Self Service required the least time, so I could still be in school. The internship was three months, and, after it ended, they asked me if I wanted to stay another six months, and then another six months, and then I stopped college to take a job there. That’s what cemented my love of fashion, but it was the magazine more than clothing because I was always a pretty boring dresser. I was helping everyone at the magazine, especially Suzanne Koller. Those magazines didn’t have much text, so the things that took a lot of time were creating visuals. That’s what conditioned me to start as a stylist. 

I stayed with them for three years, but, eventually, I wanted to try something different and left without having a backup plan. I was interested in doing art direction for a music label, and then I found out A.P.C. had a record label that they wanted to create independently of the fashion house. I liked the idea of it because I would not be working in fashion, but it was still a world that I knew. I applied for the job and met Jean Touitou. He was listening to Cat Power, who was a friend of mine, so the interview went well because I knew her and her music. I think that’s the only reason I got the job because I really had no experience in music.  Pretty soon, Jean started asking me to look at A.P.C.’s collections too. That’s when I got offers to do styling in the front of book pages in independent British magazines, like Another and Dazed.

After two years [at A.P.C.], the French magazine Mixte asked me to become the fashion director. When I arrived, Mixte still had the aura of Babeth Djian, who went on to found Numéro, and Emmanuelle Alt, who had been the editor before going to Vogue. I feel like they just wanted somebody cheap and said, ‘Okay, let’s try something out.’ It did really well though, and we went from four to six issues a year. That was the first time I wasn’t in an assistant position; I learned how to put something together working there and brought in David Bailey and Ellen von Unwerth and David Armstrong. Two years later, I resigned and moved to New York.

How would you describe your style? 

I think I’ve reverted to my style as a teenager, not necessarily in the garments themselves but in the spirit. A lot of people say, ‘Oh, my mother was so chic wearing Saint Laurent…’ but my parents were very conservative, normal French navy-blue-and-burgundy type of thing. Fashion wasn’t part of the conversation. I horseback rode growing up, so when I started in fashion I was wearing Barbours, chinos, boots, and polos. After I modeled a little bit for Hedi [Slimane] and Raf [Simons], I got a lot of free clothes and started to experiment a bit more, which was a good style lesson, but now I’m back to wearing very normal, classic clothes.

In New York, I had a lot of my clothes made, but doing your own thing can almost become overly complicated or too thought-out. When I reached 40, I realized that everything I owned felt a bit too special and precious, so I got rid of all my clothes and just kept the basic things. I made racks of clothes and invited girlfriends to pick up whatever they wanted, and then I donated the rest to Housing Works. When I moved back to Paris, I almost had no clothing. Now, I’m resisting buying anything new; I just want to enjoy the good clothes that I have and to wear those pieces until they disintegrate. [My wardrobe is] really driven by good quality clothes that I can wear everyday.

What are your wardrobe signatures? 

The pieces that I wear over and over again are a yellow-striped Charvet shirt, Leorosa polo sweaters in three colors, Dickies in blue, beige, khaki, and brown from Dave’s in New York, a Loro Piana Parka, and, in winter, two great coats from The Row. And my L.L.Bean tote. Actually, I have two: an army green one, which I usually wear from October to April, and a white one with yellow handles for when the sun arrives. 

I always wore zip-up boots with a little bit of a heel, but the ones you buy from a men’s store were too Cuban or cha cha, so I went to a bootmaker in New York and we designed a pair that were a mix between Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix’s boots. When I moved to Paris, though, I stopped wearing those and only wore a pair of [Crockett & Jones] boots called the Harlech, like Amanda Harlech. They’re lace-up, almost like leather Converse. I recently got a pair of Edward Green boots from Leffot, which are similar but in a dark navy leather. For the first time this year, I also bought a pair of Alden brown suede loafers. I wore them all summer. And, yes, I’m doing a foray into Crocs now. I have them in army green, which I wear all the time, and off-white; those are in my closet still super clean, but they’ll have their moment.

How do you incorporate vintage pieces into your wardrobe and apartment? 

A lot of the clothes that I have now are vintage, like my Loro Piana parka and chinos. The secondhand market now has a lot of inexpensive, good quality pieces, so, if you know a brand and know that something fits you well, you don’t have to buy it full-price — and you’re not participating in the [industry’s] overconsumption and waste. Going to stores is not fun for me anymore, but there’s something nice about the experience of visiting a vintage website or shop; even though many of them are more curated, you still feel like you’re finding something special that’s not available to everyone. 

Shopping for the home is different though; it’s more about the surprise aspect. Maybe there’s something that you missed buying and you get a second chance, or maybe your taste has slightly changed and you see something in a different light, or maybe you encountered it when you couldn’t afford it, but it stayed in your mind, and then you encounter it again when you can purchase it… I’d rather have very few but very thought-out pieces, so it’s not about impulse buying something new but rather finding something that perhaps I encountered a couple of years back and am now willing to buy because I know it’s going to fit my lifestyle.

What are your greatest finds? 

A pair of Loro Piana chinos with a raw hem — they were too long, so I cut the cuffs — and a vintage beige cashmere Brioni overshirt that’s super thin, almost like a scarf. The two pieces that I love the most in the house are a small wooden Charlotte Perriand stool, which is the first piece of furniture I bought when I moved back to Paris, and a modular, gray flannel sofa, which [my boyfriend] Julian [Taffel] found on a German secondhand site.

What’s on your wishlist? 

In terms of clothing, the only regret that I have is getting rid of Helmut Lang pieces that I bought in my early 20s when Century 21 still had really good deals. I’d like to find a nice Helmut Lang suit and denim jacket from the late ’90s. I look regularly, but it’s super hard to find the original pieces.

In 2017, you published the book Models Matter, and, now, your next issue of Study is devoted to models as cultural markers. Who are some of your favorite models? 

One of my favorite models is Donna Mitchell, who was a muse to Bob Richardson and later became an actress; [Steven] Meisel still shoots her sometimes. I also love Susan Forristal, who is a decorator. They’re both New Yorkers from the late ’60s and early ’70s, and they both did other things with their careers. They were not conventional looking at the time, but their personalities and styles were a big part of why they were getting the jobs. Yes, you have to be beautiful and photogenic, but it always interests me when models really understand the creative process and create a persona so that they’re booked for themselves. They come as a package.

Speaking of books, you also had a vast collection of vintage books, a number of which you sold. How did you decide which to keep and which to part with?

I tend to get a bit obsessive with things, and then the quest becomes really exciting. I had a lot of books, but, in the process of moving, you look at what’s a necessity for you, and I realized that a lot of the books I had were not necessarily ones that I was going back to. So, when I moved back to Paris, I decided just to keep the books that I have an emotional link to, like my books by [Richard] Avedon, which were some of the first photography books I bought, and David Armstrong because I had a close relationship with him. For authors, it was Raymond Carver, Joan Didion, Tom Wolfe, Jean-Jacques Schuhl, and Marguerite Duras, whose writing style inspires me or gives me confidence; they’re so free that it almost legitimizes what I’m trying to do with what I write and the mistakes that I make. Getting rid of the rest was not that hard. I have a good photographic memory, so a lot of my photo books were nothing I needed anymore. Also I like the idea of being able to pack my house fast and move in in two weeks. It’s a nice feeling to be mobile and just keep the things closest to your taste and way of living.

What are your favorite style books? 

Fashion, edited by Camilla Nickerson and Neville Wakefield in the late ’90s, is a great book because it’s a study of fashion photography just when it started shifting from classic photographers to a younger generation of artists. It’s one of the few books that I kept and often look at and refer to. I also love Bruce Weber’s A House is not a Home, David Bailey’s Goodbye Baby & Amen, with its collection of ’60s portraits, and The Beginning, a new book of Tina Barney’s early photographs of people in mid to late ’70s New York and Idaho.

Do you have any style rules? 

I had one big style rule that I recently threw out the window: never wear black. I always felt like black was a lazy option — and since I didn’t want to be another person working in fashion wearing black, I consciously never bought it. But, last summer, I bought a $5 long-sleeved Lacoste polo at a store in the Hamptons, and I realized that I do like black. I haven’t bought black anything since, but I’m open to wearing it now.

What’s your biggest style pet peeve? 

People who change style with the season. During Céline’s Phoebe Philo-era, a lot of people working in fashion suddenly looked great because her type of clothing made women look interesting, but when she stopped those same people were wearing head-to-toe Vetements or had just moved onto another brand and style. To me, that is always a little bit sad. I feel that you can find a lot of the same [kind of] pieces by a lot of different designers. Obviously wardrobes change based on what’s available and the new things you may want to experiment with, but when you do a 360 it means that you don’t really have personal style; you may dress well, but in a fashion victim way.

What’s your secret style address?

I haven’t been in a long time, but I love the tailor Mr. Ned in New York. A lot of my suits came from him. I gave them all away because they had a kind of ’70s silhouette, which I didn’t really feel like wearing anymore, but eventually I’ll go back to do another custom suit.

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