Kristen Stewart’s much hyped live Q and A Balenciaga interview to promote the fragrance Florabotanica took place earlier today.
In humorless and somewhat stilted English, the interviewer asked the actress a series of banal and repetitive questions such as: What movie does Florabotanica remind you of? What color? What kind of ‘personality?’ You get the picture.
To be fair, the questions were sent in by fans from all over the world. But it was odd that, out of staggering 5,000, these were the best of the bunch. Off the table — of course — were questions about Robert Pattinson, but Stewart did offer some interesting gems about how her attitude to fashion had changed since working with Balenciaga .
“Well, I started so young having to sort of have a relationship with fashion. You walk down the carpet, it matters … At first I wanted to get it right I wanted to have like smooth sailing and just be able to do my job.
“Then I did a photo shoot with Nicholas [Ghesquière, Balenciaga’s creative director] … and it was the first time that taking photos in high fashion felt like really telling a story … it felt like something , it really evoked a feeling … it can bring things out of you that you wouldn’t expect.”
Asked the obligatory ‘describe-Florabotanica-in-three-words’ question, Stewart said:
“Dangerous! Definitely danger … it’s super-French and I think maybe it’s fresh as well. One thing about fragrances is that you can start to smell like an old lady … I don’t know, like a chemical, I don’t get that from this.”
The 22-year-old added that she thought Florabotanica was a scent for “individuals” who were “fearless,” “present,” and “not to be denied.”
Asked if these qualities reflected her own personality, the actress joked:
“Damn right! I hope so. God, I try to do that [be present] every day.”
Billed as a 30 minute chat, it actually came in at just over 16 minutes. With a more imaginative, fluid interviewer it would probably have gone the full stretch, but perhaps that’s just the right amount of time to talk about a scent.
Take a look at the video here.
