As a sort of addendum to my post on Pierre Jancou's splendid new cave-à-manger from earlier this week, I thought I'd share a lesser-known aspect of Jancou's admirable career.
During our first conversation, a little over a year ago, I happened to mention that I work for a fashion company. Jancou was familiar with the brand - because he'd modeled in one of the same company's runway shows a few years back.
I remember finding it all a marvelous coincidence. Then, perhaps distracted by the wine that evening, I forgot all about it. But just the other day it finally occurred to me to look around for the images, and, voilà.
He certainly makes for a refreshing change from the usual sour-faced, cat-torturer look of many younger male models. For it's worth highlighting that this is the men's autumn winter 2000 show, which would have taken place around January of same year - when Jancou would have been easily ten years' older than most male runway models. (At least by present day standards. I'll confess to knowing nothing about industry norms twelve years ago, or if they've changed at all.) Theoretically this would have occurred between his time running La Bocca and his founding La Crémerie.
In any event, it's nice to know I'm not the only one who ever attempted to reconcile seemingly contradictory interests in fashion and natural wine. The former industry is too often totally unconcerned with non-visual aesthetics, let alone production ethics, while the latter industry, being agricultural at base, can be almost pugnaciously provincial, reflexively leery of anything sophisticated or cosmopolitan. I suspect both fields would probably benefit from more polyvalence; but for evidence I can only cite the beauty of Jancou's restaurants.
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