Describe what you do.
I am the founder and curator of a fashion film festival which will be launched at the Jeu de Paume in Paris on the 26th September. It is called A Shaded View on Fashion Film, which is an extension of my blog. I am the co-editor in chief of ZOO Magazine; I am a talent scout for the festival d’Hyeres in the South of France and for the WHITE Club in Milan. In addition I make documentary films.

How did you come up with the idea/concept of your video?
Thanks to Michael James O’Brien I met Mr. Pearl. I was curating a fashion and photography festival in Santiago de Compostela and asked Mr. Pearl if he would accept to be on the jury for the Galacian designers. He accepted and during that trip a wonderful friendship was born. As you might imagine, Mr. Pearl had no desire to have his privacy invaded, I gained his trust and the result is we have our little film. He will still remain a mystery to the viewer, you will only be privy to a pair of his beautiful custom made shoes. On the other hand he speaks freely with openness and warmth.

How did you execute your ideas?
I used a small 3 CCD Panasonic mini DV camera and a mic. I visited Mr. Pearl over a period of a few months. I interviewed his muse, Dita Von Teese at her hotel room in Paris. I asked Thierry Mugler to allow me to use archival footage from his Insect collection for which Mr. Mugler asked Mr. Pearl to create 5 corsets. Mr. Pearl’s life partner was a huge force in making the film happen and in the end researched images and also shot some of the film, I shot the rest of it. I edited it and then called upon Antoine Asseraf for the post production work and asked Uwe Doll to create the soundtrack.

Are you happy with the results?
Yes, I am happy with my little low-fi film .  It was not possible for me to reduce the life of Mr. Pearl to 5 minutes therefore what I will be screeninig is only chapter 1. What makes me the happiest is that Mr. Pearl trusted me enough to allow me to make this little film.

What is it about Two See that attracted you to the project?
We share the same philosophy,  what interests twosee in this project is to reveal personal interiors, the central theme in most of my films is pretty much the same.

"Mr. Pearl" by Diane Pernet