Article from
THE NEWSLETTER THE ÉLYSÉE ENVIES US - 07/10/22
Patricia tells you a little more about her extraordinary muscular physique.
After the release of my secret weapon, Rafelson and its rainbow stripes, most observers thought I was incapable of staying the course and blowing your mind. That's not knowing me at all, as I was brought up on films where willpower is the key word.
I don't know if I told you, but I use to live above my grandparents (a blessing for me, a curse for my father who couldn't stand having his in-laws forty steps below). So I was always stuck with my grandfather, who would have loved to have a boy for a grandkid. I didn't hold it against him. After all, everyone has the right to be a bit of a twat.
Disappointed that I wasn't a boy, he nevertheless went out of his way to force-feed me testosterone-fuelled films. That's what he liked. He wanted to go into the army, even have a career in it. But he'd been discharged for flat feet. Nevertheless, he spent his time training and building up his muscles to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. He wanted to be the first rock-hard blackfoot. When I was a kid, I watched Commando, Predator, Red Heat and Terminator over and over again. While he was watching these films, he was doing push-ups, practising on a rubber dummy that his wife had bought him for his 50th birthday.
He encouraged me to do the same, to keep up with his relentless pace, telling me again and again to build up my strength, because he was very clear that women's rights would always be challenged by the weak-minded who were only too happy to take away our freedoms. So I did as he advised, I trained hard to build the body of an Eastern European athlete. Then I boxed for 10 years and won several regional titles.
So, Grandpa, thank you for bringing me up like this, because it's also thanks to Arnold and his Breton mover's build that I've been able to build and design collections that are so special, and sometimes incongruous. Collections that have met you because you are the women I love to create for. You are my reason for living, breathing and hoping.
Because it doesn't get any better than that:
