I wouldn’t say I have a personal style signifier, though I often wear two rings that I love. One is a gold ring I made myself; it’s moulded on a piece of aluminium that I crumpled around my finger. The second is a little diamond ring that I found on the street in Paris, not far from the Silencio on rue Montmartre. I also love wearing badges. I have old ones from the Vietnam war, “Peace now”, things like that. They are a way to tell people what you stand for.
The last things I bought and loved were two pieces by Max Coulon, a young sculptor from the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. One is a bird and the other is a sort of half-human, half-animal character with no neck and its arms spread out. Max pours concrete into children’s clothing to create the bodies of these small figures. He’s very talented. I like to buy pieces by young artists because it’s an encouragement for them at the same time as being a gift for me.
The library in Agnès b’s home in Louveciennes, near Paris © Aliocha Boi
The place that means a lot to me is La Baie de la Garoupe in Cap d’Antibes. I went with my father when I was three and a half years old and he took me out on his little boat, put me in the water and said, “I know you can swim” – and I swam. That was also the bay Picasso visited in the ’50s. One day I caught him in the stairway, and he told me I was beautiful and gave me a kiss. So I went home singing “Picasso gave me a kiss, il m’a embrassé, Picasso.” I was 17. He was the first artist who gave me a kiss. The second was Jean-Michel Basquiat.
