There is no time to waste, no hesitation for Scott. His reckless skateboarding earned him an international reputation, along with a severely damaged knee.

Photography & interview René Habermacher.
Styling by Suzanne von Aichinger, assisted by Chafik Chariet and Lahcen Fatah.
All looks by Berluti.
Retouching by Dimitris Rigas.
Edited by Antoine Asseraf & Ed Siddons.

Special thanks to Geraldine Nicourt @ Elite Models.

Left: Scott Bourne wears an Aubergine linen jacket, deep violet pants and scarf by Berluti,
shirt and knit tie by Charvet. Right: a map of Scott Bourne's nightly excursions.

But the otherwise well-mannered man still attacks his topics full on: champion-turned-writer Scott may be “Bourne Free” as the ink on his chest proclaims, but not yet quite ready to die.

Starting at the end of a dirt road in Carolina, passing through a windowless room in San Francisco… Scott Hobbs Bourne was pretty much in the dark about the city of lights.

Now in Paris, he walks among the dead, or with them, as he likes to say.

Cotton sand-colored sweater by Berluti.

Did you choose Paris or did Paris choose you?

I definitely chose Paris. I came here when I was 27 and fell in love with it overnight. It took me three years to actually make the move and I really struggled hard to get back here.

For six years I was living here illegally, which is a fun game to play with the French and also kept me moving. But no matter how much I traveled, every time I returned to Paris I would see the city from my taxi window as it started to happen, or from the train, and all of a sudden you’re more excited to be home than you were about going on vacation. I totally chose this place, and everyday I’m excited to be here.

“For six years I was living here illegally, which is a fun game to play”

Your last book on your years in San Francisco was about a dark room. Then you came to Paris. What was it like going from a dark room to the City of Lights?

I was actually skateboarding professionally when I first came here, so we were outside skating around, I looked up, saw the Eiffel tower, and said, “No way! The Eiffel tower is in Paris?” That is how ignorant I was. Even the biggest idiot in the world knows the Eiffel tower is in Paris. I knew nothing about this city, and less about the City of Lights.

“‘No way! The Eiffel tower is in Paris?’ That is how ignorant I was.”

Do you see yourself as a Parisian?

No, man! I’m working really hard to not be a Parisian. I’m originally from North Carolina, and I always say I’m from North Carolina, because that’s where I’m actually from. I lived in San Francisco for ten years and never once have I said I was a San Franciscan, so I certainly wouldn’t call myself a Parisian.

I grew up in the only house at the end of a dirt road. My father was a minister, both of my parents worked in mills. I am the American cliché. Not that we were super poor – we weren’t – but we were living in a poor farm and mill community.

Where I grew up manners are really important. You open doors for ladies, you help them with their coats. And I realized now that this type of stuff is like old southern law, and it might even be sexist. It’s crazy, but I have manners and really like having them, in that regard I think Parisians are really a rough bunch of people. They plain and simply lack everyday common manners that are a must in the community I am from. But once you pay the rent here you just become instantly Parisian: you just start pushing people out of the way and say “pardon” before you even bump into someone – it’s like yelling “get out of my way.” So that’s why I say I am really trying hard to not be one of them!

It’s a crowded city and everyone wants to live here and there is a lot of competition for a space that is only getting smaller and smaller.

Scott Bourne wears olive linen pants by Berluti.

“It’s a crowded city and everyone wants to live here and there is a lot of competition for a space that is only getting smaller and smaller.”

What’s the opposite of a Parisian?

It’s someone who just doesn’t think they’re special. There is no such thing as a Parisian. Parisian, what do you mean [by that]? They’re just people who think they’re special: that’s why they bump into you, that’s why they expect you to get out of their way, that’s why they act like they don’t see you. Because they think they’re special.

Where is the center of Paris?

I’ll tell you: the center of Paris is… [Points to his heart] bam! Right there in the middle of your ribcage in each and every person. That’s Paris for me.

It navigates from you. It’s important to realize that Paris isn’t any one thing. For one person the center is over there and for another it’s over there. And that’s the glorious thing about this city, it’s not like an American city, it doesn’t have a defined downtown.

Where is Paris going to be in five years’ time?

It’s gonna be a nightmare! Everything inside the Péripherique will be so expensive that people like you and I probably won’t be able to live here.

Everybody wants to live in a beautiful and charming place, and they’re not building beautiful and charming places anymore. The new thing is Montreuil [an eastern suburb]. Everyone is moving out there, it’s like the new Brooklyn. But who cares? Brooklyn is horrible too. No one ever said “I wanted to move to Brooklyn,” they said, “I wanna move to New York,” and ended up living in Brooklyn. Or they said: “I wanna live in San Francisco,” but they all end up living in Oakland. But, you know, I wanna live in Paris. So I’m here, fighting my way to live in Paris.

“Everybody wants to live in a beautiful and charming place, and they’re not building beautiful and charming places anymore.”

What would you wear to Paris’s funeral?

Fucking nothing! I would go butt naked – hell yeah! How else do you greet the biggest whore in human history? You know what I mean? Jesus Christ, man. If I’m gonna go to the funeral of Paris, I’m going to bare it all.

Left: Bottles in which Scott stores souvenirs of his nightly excursions.
Right: Scott wears a cotton sand-colored sweater by Berluti.

“Fucking nothing! I would go butt naked – hell yeah!”

At the same time, I’m not the first guy that slipped up under her dress. There’s something inspiring and fantastic under that garment. Is she a whore, is she a lady? I don’t know. We just know that Paris is a woman and she can give birth to fabulous ideas and artistic movements.

Historically speaking this city has been fucked by every great artist in the world. What the hell are you gonna wear to that funeral?

I have this theory about Paris. Everything is beautiful. Even the ugly girls are beautiful. There are strikingly beautiful women, or strikingly beautiful men. People always compliment them, always look at them – you can’t help it. I’m more interested in the girl that’s not so beautiful. She did something, she made you look, she made herself be noticed.

I love the girl that is just a little bit freaky looking, a little crazy, the one who is not like that picture perfect magazine beauty and she got you to look. That’s a really beautiful quality – to get someone to notice you. That’s the thing about Paris.

Is there anything that you would want to take with you to the grave?

What is there to take? My cowboy boots to kick some ass on the other side? I think it’s amazing: you get to live and you get to die. That’s what’s cool about it, this doesn’t have to go on forever.

I think “death” is this wonderful taboo that no one talks about. I’m fascinated with taboos. You know, it’s like, “Is Paris dead?” and I think, who cares if Paris is dead – I’m not!

Left: Scott Bourne's typewriter.
Right: Scott Bourne wears a long sleeve tshirt with shirt cuffs, 
olive linen pants and sneakers by Berluti, suspenders by Charvet.

“I think ‘death’ is this wonderful taboo that no one talks about.”

I know I’m going to die, I don’t have time to waste, I don’t have time to sit around and do nothing. You never know when it’s going to happen; you could pull out a gun right now and shoot me, and bam, that’s it – game over! I feel incredible inspiration comes from knowing that.

Just a couple of weeks ago my wife and I snuck into the Père Lachaise in the middle of the night, just so we could walk through the cemetery alone, not to do anything else. Just so we could have it to ourselves. I’m 41 years old. There’s barbed wire [on the cemetery walls]. There are spikes. Why would I do that? Because I wanted that cemetery to myself, I wanted to walk with the dead and not a bunch of tourists.

I have this theory about something the gods don’t have: it’s called flesh [slaps the interviewer]. And everything in my life is about flesh. I am not sitting in a room somewhere meditating about something trying to get my chi on.

The one thing that we know that we cannot take with us when we die is our body. Flesh! So until death takes me, I am pushing this thing, this whole body thing, this whole physical thing as far as I can. You know, I wanna get punched in the face, I wanna eat pussy, man, I wanna live – you know what I mean? I wanna ride my bike. I wanna get naked and run through the cemetery. I wanna do everything I can with this flesh.

“The one thing that we know that we cannot take with us when we die is our body.”

All those people over there in cyberspace, virtual reality, they’re missing the gig man. They’re missing the gig. Because when you die, this is the one thing that you can’t take with you. Don’t waste it.

I met a friend of mine yesterday who lives in this incredible four-storey mansion here in Paris, a wonderful guy with a beautiful wife and fabulous kids. After I had seen him I went home to my 60 square meter apartment, and the cars are flying by and we have this wrought-iron on our windows and the shadows are running all over the walls. And I’m like, man, I wouldn’t change my life and the relationship I have with my wife and my kid, and this relationship I’m having with Paris for anybody’s life. I really love my life and it’s because I’ve made choices to keep a firm grasp on my flesh.

Right now I’m working on a novel that begins with this guy basically being trapped, not literally trapped but figuratively trapped in this room that he just can’t leave. It’s this beautiful room that has this beautiful view of Paris all around. He sees people on the streets, but he can’t make himself participate. So it’s going be inverted from my first novel – instead of darkness it’s about being trapped in this place full of light.

Is Paris dead?

Everything will die. Everything will be forgotten. Berlin has been bombed how many times – destroyed – but it’s still alive.

I would say the world is dead, not just Paris. That’s the whole thing about the computer generation of the “share” function: everybody is sharing and no-one is creating.

You’re living in a generation of “share” or “follow me”. [In the past,] people weren’t following anyone, they were individuals. Albert Camus or Jean Paul Sartre or Simone de Beauvoir – all these people who wrote these great things, they didn’t share, they created. Now people sit around with their cell phones and they send each other cool pictures of what Picasso did, or Carpeaux, or Nijinsky. They don’t create anything.

“You’re living in a generation of ‘share’ or ‘follow me.'”

Is Paris dead? No. But the people sometimes are. They’re like walking cell phone clones, not an independent idea among them because they are all tuned in to the same source.

And what they do create is like a mash up of other people’s stuff. The example I always use is: we could be best buddies, grow up together, I don’t know, in Zurich, and then you go traveling and I go traveling and we both go all over the world and 5 years later we meet in Paris and you show me this tattoo you got of a mermaid while in Japan. And I say, “No way, I got a mermaid in Australia,” and miraculously we have the same tattoo. How does that happen? Because everybody uses the same references now: the Internet!

“Is Paris dead? No. But the people sometimes are.”

A tattoo artist googles “mermaid” and uses the first thing for reference, like ok yours looks a little different from mine, but they have the same pose, the same shaped hair, the same breasts. Yours is blond, mine is brunette. You know, and that’s the world now: homogenizing!

One thing super interesting about literature, even the science fiction genre, is that no one really predicted the Internet. No one predicted what would happen with it, whereas almost every other thing had been predicted, like in 1984. For example, he [George Orwell] thought of “telescreens”, like screens in every room watching people to make sure they did not step out of line. Like the computer that someone will probably read this off of, it’s a telescreen that is actually watching you!

Paris is dead and it’s up to you and me and every other person that trots across these boulevards to make it great again. You can do anything in this city.

Book: Orgy Porgy – Short Stories and True Tales, by Scott Hobbs Bourne, 1980 editions.

Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni in a peignoir of black and red Swarovski - Gaultier Paris.
Ring: "Antigua," 27.97 carat Paraiba gem, mounted with blue sapphires and diamonds. Creation by Nadine Barbey.
Cuff: "Medusa," 55 carat blue green Australian black opal, set in white diamonds and white gold. Creation by Nadine Barbey.

Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni is a nomad, never an exile. London, New York, Los Angeles and Paris have all played host, and all have felt her presence. Venit, vidit, vicit.

Photography by René Habermacher.
Styling by Suzanne von Aichinger.
Conducted by Antoine Asseraf, Rene Habermacher, and Suzanne von Aichinger.
Transcribed and edited by Edward Siddons.
Make-up by Min Kim @ Airport. Hair by Philippe Mensah @ L’Atelier (68).
Production by Agathe Rousselle, assisted by Marion Louapre.
All looks by Gaultier Paris. All jewelry by Nadine Barbey.
Shot in the private salons of Lapérouse, Paris.

Left: mirror at Hôtel Lapérouse. Right: Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni in white silk chiffon blouse and high 
waisted black wool crêpe pant - Gaultier Paris.

The iconic Lapérouse, where Cavassoni is photographed, is no stranger to formidable women. Society’s historic femmes fatales have left their mark in the form of scratches carved into the restaurant’s mirrors, a test of their new diamonds, the gifts from their lovers.

But Ms Cavassoni is no kept woman.
She is no cocotte.

Fearless, incisive and literary, and with a recently published book on the style icon Loulou de la Falaise – co-done with Ariel de Ravenel – and a tome on Christian Dior as seen by his clients, she is a force to be reckoned with.

Who better to cut deep under Paris’ infamous veneer?

Left: Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni in white silk chiffon blouse - Gaultier Paris, worn with Giambattista 
Valli Haute couture metallic and porcelain tiara. Right: mirror at Hôtel Lapérouse.

Did you choose Paris or did Paris choose you?

I fell in love with Paris when I was 12. I came here with my godmother, so it was always a special place.
Plus, London was awful for kids in the seventies. Imagine sleeping on nylon sheets? The food was disgusting too.

[Later] I was living in New York, and I really didn’t like New York in ’89. I was working at Interview magazine, and I wanted to move back to Europe. I’d been working with the Warhol studio, I had my own column, and it all looked so good on paper, but it was the height of the yuppies, and I found it so materialistic, predictable and dull. Looking back, I just didn’t belong and felt very sad and isolated: a tragic combination for the city that never sleeps!

When I decided to leave for France, Anna Wintour was kind and sent out a lot of faxes on my behalf, and I ended up at Chanel. Anna was seriously generous to have done that because Paris is really closed. You need someone to open the door. But you also need to be able to dance through and stay there!

“I think it’s both a strength and a weakness of Parisians that they’re so exclusive.”

I think it’s both a strength and a weakness of Parisians that they’re so exclusive. If I go to a party in Paris and don’t know anybody, I’ll just leave, because there’s no point. It used to annoy and frustrate me. But I now wonder if that attitude, to a certain extent, has helped Paris keep its gritty persona and charm.

In London, everyone talks about its amazing energy and that’s true. The English are fabulously curious and funny, both traits that I really admire and relate to. Still, there’s this recent obsession with money that I occasionally find pretty terrifying. It’s very old-fashioned of me and I’ll probably end up as a toothless hermit in a smelly but ecological cave but I do have a horror of vulgarity: the idea that only money counts and that everyone has a price and can be bought. What I love about Paris is that individuality and quality count more than anything and are so prominent in their culture. There’s also that continual fight not to become globalised. Love that!

That’s one thing I love about the French: they also refuse to allow a price on their head. In their minds, they are priceless and they are right! When people ask why Sarkozy didn’t work with the French, I say it’s because he refused to understand their sophistication and they found him pretty vulgar, in many ways. Impossible as the French are, they don’t have the same Anglo-Saxon obsession with money and success.

“Impossible as the French are, they don’t have the same Anglo-Saxon obsession with money and success.”

You say you have a “horror of vulgarity” and that the French do too, but doesn’t this sometimes mean less fun?

Not all French – that would be naïve.com of me! And being in fashion, I kiss the toes of those wonderful people that shop til they drop! Fashion has to sell. I’m pretty bohemian, so people that define bon goût all the time, well, they just wouldn’t have time for me, nor I for them, ever! [Laughs.] I have a horror of bourgeois people, French or English, because I don’t get them and they don’t get me. But if I had to choose between the British or the French bourgeoisie, I’d choose the French, because at least the food is good!

“Tough and unwelcoming as they can be, [the French] admire courage and individuality in someone.”

How does one become a Parisian?

I think the Parisians are every cerebral. When I arrived I thought I was being dismissed and judged, and often they’re just thinking about it, chewing an appearance over and I like that. Tough and unwelcoming as they can be, [the French] admire courage and individuality in someone. They’re upfront, and I like that. They set their own terms and there’s a healthy lack of passive aggressiveness and hypocrisy that can lurk behind politeness.

Do you feel like you’re a Parisian?

I am fairly individual in spirit but I don’t think I’m a Parisian. No, not at all! Still, when I go to England, people view me as “Parisian” and that makes me smile and feel a bit of a fraud! I like being a foreigner who lives in Paris because I’m allowed to do and say things that the French can’t.
I once made the mistake of saying sorry, when working in the Chanel studio, and suddenly everything was my fault. I then realised that the French don’t say sorry. Maybe it’s a historical thing, too many times being invaded – that strange pride thing. And they’re right in a way – when the British say sorry it doesn’t mean a thing, it’s just their strange way of being polite.

I wish someone had said to me when I moved to Paris that saying “no” actually means “maybe or even yes tomorrow.” There’s this French thing of just saying “Non!” to everything that can be brutal and quite shocking.

“I once made the mistake of saying sorry, when working in the Chanel studio, and suddenly everything was my fault.”

Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni in black wool crepe with white chiffon mille feuilles collar - Gaultier Paris.
Tank top: Haider Ackermann.
Ring: "Life of a Charmed Infinity," rarest 18.88 carat Harlequin black opal from Australia, double sided, surrounded by "mysterious setting" caliber Burmese rubies and diamonds. Creation by Nadine Barbey.

Where is the centre of Paris?

What I love about Paris is that it’s very personal to you. All my American friends would say the centre is the sixth or the seventh – which it is absolutely not for me! I love the romance of the first. I love the Palais Royal, the passage Véro-Dodat, the rue des Petits Champs avenue de l’Opéra… Paris is what you make of it.

Before the opening of the shop Colette, my hood was quite neighbourly and low-key and now it’s become a parade of flashy fashion shops. That one shop totally transformed the rue St. Honoré. You have to hand it to them at Colette! And clearly business is great and things are selling.

Where do you see Paris in five years?

[Hesitates.] I guess the ninth and the eighteenth will be further discovered and gentrified, and will be where the fifth and sixth were in the seventies. There’s something very Parisian and unspoilt about the ninth and the eighteenth, all those little shops, restaurants and small brands: it’s an area that hasn’t yet been globalised.

I do hope that Paris stays as it is. I refer to the state education and welfare system. I gave birth in a state hospital. Both my daughters are going through the state education system. All that really matters to me. I mean the idea that everyone person in France deserves a decent education and excellent medical care. But I keep on being told that it will change and become privatised. I pray not!

Is there a difference between old Paris and new Paris?

When I first arrived in ’89 I walked down the rue St. Honoré wearing jeans and there were stares. There was a lot of colour and Saint Laurent going on – those Matisse colours – and women were dressed much more like their mothers, and now there’s this horror of not looking remotely like their mother.  Instead women have this obsession with looking sexy and young. Speaking from experience, it doesn’t always work!

“… now there’s this horror of not looking remotely like their mother. Instead women have this obsession with looking sexy and young. Speaking from experience, it doesn’t always work!”

Besides, Parisians in their sixties and seventies often look great because they choose what suits them and they’re not obsessed with the age issue.  In general, young Parisians now make less of an effort, or alternatively, a lot more of an effort at looking like they’ve made less of an effort. It’s still done better in Paris than elsewhere though.

Is fashion still in fashion?

People have got so much money and they’re buying buying buying. Contrary to everyone’s prediction including yours truly, the obsession with the latest thing and next season’s items continues. Obviously, this is tremendous for fashion because, to keep it going, someone’s gotta buy it! [Laughs].

I think fashion has become such an Anglo-Saxon thing because they buy in a way the Parisians don’t. The Parisians have an eye, they will look at Elle and Vogue, and see what they want, do it their own way, and get it for twopence. They’ll say “I’ve had it for years” and they’ve just bought it…

I see it in my daughters at age thirteen, it’s something you acquire living in Paris – I mean is it in the water or the bread? Seriously, there’s an innate knowledge of fabrics, styles and a certain discipline of thought.

Left: Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni in black silk chiffon cape with black melting into blood red Swarovski 
- Gaultier Paris. Right: Lapérouse detail.

What would you wear to Paris’s funeral?

I would wear my Yves Saint Laurent leather jacket that has big diamond buttons and suede sleeves, because whether I am thin or fat, it has a certain 1980s presence. I bought it when I was flat broke. I had gone into the Rive Gauche boutique and a saleswoman grabbed me, saying “I have the perfect jacket for you.” She was right, it was perfect! There are only two that exist: Betty Catroux has the other one. At Paris’s funeral, I’d wear that jacket with black pants and Louboutins.

What object would you be buried with?

A photograph of my kids and – hopefully – their kids: I long to become a grandmother!

I might also wear a Loulou de la Falaise necklace, created when she was at Saint Laurent. From a distance you’d think it was a barbaric Cartier panther – made of glass, it’s all grey, reds and blacks. I loved Loulou – she was so brave, creative and ballsy. Like real French women.

“I think a city that appreciates individuality, creativity and courage can never ever be dead.”

Is Paris Dead? And if so what comes after death?

Paris isn’t dead. I think a city that appreciates individuality, creativity and courage can never ever be dead.

That said, I spend my time defending Paris. So many English people love – and I think it’s the Agincourt thing – saying “apparently Paris is really down,” but the Parisians have never been jolly, it’s always been foreigners that have made Paris fun. The point is quality of life and possessing an amazing respect for creativity. In many ways, Paris is the city to watch because of that.

MORE:
Loulou de la Falaise, by Ariel de Ravenel and Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni, Foreword by Pierre Berge, Rizzoli.
Monsieur Dior: Once Upon A Time, by Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni, Pointed Leaf Press.