French model and creative director Julia Restoin Roitfeld talks exclusively to Hello! Fashion Monthly about balancing her life as a single mother and businesswoman. Her latest venture is a 25-piece Christmas collaboration with British high street store Warehouse - her favourite piece being a multi-coloured sequin dress. “Warehouse is extremely respected and I think the British high street is the most diverse – there’s so much choice. It’s always first with the latest trends,” Julia says.
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Julia Restoin Roitfeld is HFM's Cover star for the December issue
As the daughter of former Paris Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld and Equipment founder Christian Restoin, Julia has grown up on the fashion front line, but the Parsons School of Design graduate who has appeared in campaigns for Tom Ford, Roberto Cavalli for H&M and Lancome; plus consulted for brands such as Miu Miu, Zac Posen and Jean-Paul Gaultier, manages to stand out as a style icon in her own right.
Julia upholds her style credentials as she smoulders in HFM
Raised in Paris, the striking green-eyed brunette now lives in New York with her daughter, Romy Nicole, five. Although she and Romy’s dad, Croatian model Robert Konjic, split in 2013 they live close to each other. “We don’t live together but he’s present. I’d love to have more kids; I loved being pregnant and adore being a mom. I’m lucky to have my brother [art dealer Vladimir] so I hope I give that to my daughter.”
The stylish mother lives in New York with her daughter
Although Julia, 37 this month, still believes Paris is the most beautiful city in the world, she admits that after two days she’s happy to return to New York. “I’d have been a different person if I’d stayed in Paris. You can’t achieve the same. Everything takes longer and I like to get things done right away. I never felt like I fitted in with French culture,” she reasons. Her fashion-focused childhood included lots of “dinner parties, full of international friends from different cultures,” but she wasn’t, much to her mother’s disapproval, always so stylish herself. “It killed my mum when I made her buy me purple Dr. Martens boots from Camden,” she laughs at her 90s Britpop-loving school days.
To read more from Julia Roitfeld's interview, and to see the whole shoot, pick up the latest editor of Hello Fashion Monthly, in shops now...