Adeline Ziliox
Stylist
Sometimes it doesn’t take much to open the doors of imagination.”
C.J Walker
A rough start
Sarah Breedlove was born in 1867in Delta, a Madison parish village. Her parents were former slaves and she is the first child born after the emancipation. After losing her parents, she moved to Vicksburg, Mississippi with her older sister. At the age of fourteen, she married a worker called Moses McWilliams who died in 1887. Even though she had no professional training, the young lady needed to support her two-year-old daughter Lelia. She moved up the Mississippi river and settled in Saint Louis, Missouri where she worked as a washerwoman while taking evening classes. Her brothers Alexander, James and Solomon were working there as barbers. She went to St Paul’s Methodist church, which allowed her to befriend black local socialites.
In the 1890’s, she started to suffer from a skull disease which lead to losing all of her hair. No matter which products she used, nothing could stop her hair from falling. She was ashamed and prayed for a solution. The idea appeared to her in a dream : she had to create a product with ingredients from Africa mixed with sulde and petroleum. When she applied the mixture, her hair started growing back quicker than they had fallen. She was so happy with the results that she decided to develop her vegetable shampoo.
In 1905, Sarah moved to Denver and got married for the third time with Charles Joseph C . J. Walker, a St Louis journalist. After changing her name to Mrs C. J. Walker, she started her own business whose first production was made in her kitchen. And she started selling her Wonder Hair Grower by Madam Walker. Madam Walker did not invent the straightening comb or chemical perm, contrary to what many believe.
FROM ENTHUSIASM TO SUCCESS
She was so proud of the extraordinary results that she started sharing her mix with other people affected with similar diseases.
In 1906, Madam Walker starts travelling around the United States and the Caribbean in a dizzying crusade to promote her new hair care products. She went door to door and visited churches. Then she settled in Pittsburgh in 1908 and opened her Lelia University Beauty School to teach women to become sales representative and thus gain nancial independence. Two years later, she settled in Indianapolis and built the biggest factory in the country, a nail salon and a school.
“I have made more and more room for skull and hair care products. After using it on myself and on others for a year, I was conviced of its merits then, I started travelling and making it available for thousands of people in Denver, Colorado where I settled” she said in a 1911 pamphlet.
1917 is a turning point. Madam Walker invites all her “Beauty Culturists” at a Philadelphia convention. Over 200 women gather to learn more about sales and marketing. It is one of the rst national businesswomen meeting in the country. C. J. Walker gave awards and money to the women who had most contributed to charity in their community to encourage their political activities.
THE LIGHT OF SUCCESS
Perseverance and dedication, faith in herself and in God, quaity products and honest business relations : those were all the key elements and strategies she taught to aspiring entrepreneurs who wished to know the secret to her wealth.
Madam C. J. Walker died from hypertension on 25th May, 1919 at the age of 51 in her personal family residence in Irvington-on-Hudson, New York. When she died, Walker was the sole owner of her million-dollar company. Her personal wealth stood between $600.000 and $700.000.
Today, Madam C. J. Walker is widely known as one of the rst African American woman to become a millionaire, a philan- thropist and a social and political activist.
White hair don’t care
Grey is the new blond
If white hair give men a certain charm, they are still not positively perceived for women. We make women believe that they don’t have the right to age. Novelist, journalist and columnist Sophie Fontal talks in her book “Une Apparition” (Robert LAffont, August 2017) about the social pressure that forces women to die their hair, and I could not agree more.
Society depreciates old age and it’s time to do something about it. Free yourself from this dictatorship of youth! Why do you care what other people think? You know you can’t please everyone anyway, you must please yourself first. White, salt & pepper, grey, natural color hair is in. Make up with greying. Take care of your hair and make it a strength.
There is no age for white hair, and they are very trendy! Here are a few examples of famous women who embrace their hair and/or play with the trend by extrapolating the color. There are naturally whitened hair like Meryl Streep’s, or silver hair like Cara Delavigne’s, Winnie Harlow’s and Kim Kardashian’s. In both cases, your hairdresser session will not be enough to maintain your color. You need to find a home hair routine to get your crystal grey color. Illuminating Shampoo Silver Pearl by Balmain Haute Couture, Bleu Malva/Mauve Bleu by Aveda conditioners and the fabulous Shooshing Crème cream by White Hot.
These little miracles will illuminate and reveal the spark of your blond grey or silver hair and neutralize the undesirable yellow/copper shades while deeply nourishing them.
I personnally love big hair changes, as you can see it on my Instagram. Time goes by, but they are changing. And that is good, otherwise we would be so bored! So no regrets, dear divas, only memories…
Live! Play! Be Grey!
Pauline Payet
Tennis woman
I dream of taking France to the Olympics to win.”
Pauline, when did you fall into the magic potion’s cauldron?
I was born on the Reunion Island and I started playing tennis at the age of 8. I started with ballet and then swimming lessons, but after two eardrum surgeries, I had to stop swimming and putting my head under water. My swimming pool was part of a tennis club and I wanted to do something else, so I tried hitting the little yellow ball and fell in love with this sport.
What does it represent to you?
Just like my island, it’s a passion fruit. That’s all. I enjoy playing so much, and winning even more. Plus, it’s a sport where fair-play is always present, even though I hate losing.
Tennis is a great learning experience for life. It brings us values, discipline and rigor. Not to mention the pleasure to play and to share a victory.
Do you have a secret to win?
Can you keep a secret? Well, so can I!
All I can tell you is that I have a strong spirit. Spirit is very important in tennis. I never let go. And I have come to understand that as a professional player, I needed to be surrounded with professional trainers, among other things. From medical care to exercising, nutrition and choosing sponsors. It is all important. Appart City is helping me getting the best housing conditions when I travel. Caps’One helps me perform on the court and PAF ‘The Serious Kitchen” helps me recover. They are all part of my team and my secret.
What is your dream?
I dream of winning a major title one day or a Grand Slam tournament and to play for France. Roland Garros is on my to-do list. I dream of taking France to the Olympics to win. I dream of giving back to those who have given me so much. I dream of seeing pride in my parents’ eyes. I simply dream of being happy and spread happiness around me making tennis my pilgrim’s staff.
What is a typical day in the life of a professional tennis player?
I train 3 to 4 hours on the court and have 2 hours of physical preparation, 6 days a week. My training is not just on the court or in the gym. From morning to bedtime, it is a way of life; with warmups, trainings, recovering, stretching, meditation, sleep, nutrition, medical follow-up. Victories can depend on a small detail. That is why I don’t overlook anything in my preparation.
The healthy diet is one of the keys to success for a sport player. On your Facebook page, you seem to be keen on “eating well”.
What do you eat to be at the top of your game?
I am mindful of nature and my health, so I decided to become a vegan a year and a half ago. Which means I don’t eat any animal product (meat, fish, eggs, dairy). This has been a radical change for me; for my health, my well-being and my capacity to recover. I live life at the fullest!
By Stéphanie GUITTONNEAU
Marilyn Felz
Fashion stylist
We are a 100% made-in-Paris brand that values French know-how and self-assured femininity”
Who is Marilyn? How was the Marilyn Feltz brand born?
Marilyn is a thirty-year-old new designer from the Paris suburbs who has always loved seeing and interpreting fashion in her own way and mostly who tries to disrupt its codes every day. When she was younger, yearning for discoveries and travels, she moved to Los Angeles where the cinematographic aesthetic and self-assured femininity have strongly marked the basis of her style! Jessica Rabbit-like swaying silhouettes, Anna Nicole Smith-like extreme sex-appeal, and Marilyn Monroe-like naïve smiles: here are the ingredients that Hollywood has marked Marilyn Feltz’s skin with forever. Later on, during a crazy dance floor weekend in Berlin, Marilyn met the man who will changer her life forever: Alexis is an artist and musician from the north of France. Together for two years in the German capital, they turned this grizzled city into a temple of romance and nostalgia where ghosts come to whisper the memories of passed beauties… Back in Paris, and now inseparable, Alexis and Marilyn decide to create the brand of their dreams, one that looks exactly like them and which they would have loved to find around a corner but never did! Marilyn Feltz is now two years old and proud to be a 100% Parisian brand with Hollywood and Berlin influences, with classical and playful accents, which hires weavers, embroiderers, knitters in 100% made-in-France workshops and can still maintain retail prices!
Who is the Marilyn Feltz brand target?
Since we created the brand, we have been surprised every day to see how our authentic approach speaks to a wide range of very various women! I think that a good number of our clients is very sensitive to the quality of our fabrics and nishes. They like to think that they are buying a piece which has required the attention of someone in a system where we are ooded with impersonal and assembly line “products”. That is why we have a lot of clients who come from the fashion and couture industry coming to our store! We also have many clients abroad, where the image of Paris and made-in-France remains a synonym for elegance and quality! In addition, we have women looking for an exceptional piece for an event such as a wedding, a professional dinner, a date… We have many artists too who come to us for their shows. Younger and more “trendy” women are coming to find dazzling outfits or wax outfits, for example, as well as women looking for a “retro” look! They are all different and we love it! Their common feature is their taste for glamor!
What is the identity of the brand?
We are a 100% made-in-Paris brand that values French know- how and self-assured femininity while still affordable. That is why we only sell from our Paris store (17, passage Bourg l’Abbé, Etienne-Marcel metro station) or on line (www.ma- rilynfeltz.com). We also organize pop-up stores throughout France and the world. All our news and the pictures of our collections are updated daily on our Instagram (marilynfeltz)
If you were a piece of your collection what would you be? Why ?
It is very difficult for me to only choose one piece, because each piece I draw represent an outfit I want to wear! Right now, I am obsessed with our “Diva” négligé. The fabric has a silken weave, golden and silver threads that make Art-Deco-like scales… It is weaved in Lyon by a family who has been doing this for three generations and who uses very old weaving machines. I also love our “Marlène” piece, which is one of our first dresses! I was thinking of Marlene Dietrich in a Berlin jazz club in the late 1920s when I draw this piece. It is very long, made of silk, with a dizzying neckline and subtle crystals on the wrists. We made it in several colors, including a white pearl models that young brides love!
By Sabrina FOUINAT
