There is a sizable genre of films about fashion designers — Coco Chanel alone has spawned over a dozen movies, TV episodes and mini-series. But designers who make their own movies are a rarity.
Seventy-three-year-old Agnes Trouble owns and runs Agnes b., a clothing company with a net worth of around €65 million (¥8.7 billion) that is hugely popular in Japan. From 1984, when Agnes b. opened its Japanese flagship store in Tokyo's Aoyama neighborhood, right up until today, Japanese women young and old have dallied with the brand in one way or another. From a personal standpoint, if not for Agnes b., late '90s Tokyo would have been a self-important, grunge-heavy, fashion scrapyard on concrete, with not an ounce of cheap chic to alleviate the dreary cityscape. Merci, Agnes!
Now Trouble has made her own feature film called "Je m'appelle Hmmm..." (Actually it was made in 2013, and has taken two years to reach our shores). Considering her long, arduous relationship with film and filmmakers, the only question is why this didn't happen sooner. She produced Harmony Korine's "Spring Breakers," provided the additional wardrobe for David Lynch's "Inland Empire," pals around with Gaspar Noe and is a guardian goddess of the French indie scene. Uma Thurman wore the iconic white Agnes. b. shirt in "Pulp Fiction" and Charlotte Gainsbourg showed up at her father Serge's funeral in the brand's enormously popular black t-shirt, inscribed with the Agnes b. logo.