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Closet Confidential: Why Wendy Long Loves Saint Laurent

One thing’s for sure: Wendy Long lives and breathes high fashion.

Closet Confidential: Why Wendy Long Loves Saint Laurent
“I love the exaggerated silhouette; it’s refreshing, youthful and edgy all at once!”

From the pieces she picked for this interview and photoshoot with A Magazine, it’s clear that Wendy Long lives and breathes high fashion. For this real estate and equities investor, fashion is like “wearable, interactive art that serves as our canvas for individual expressionism”. And one artist she admires is none other than Anthony Vaccarello, creative director of storied French brand Saint Laurent.

In fact, she still describes the Saint Laurent show during Paris Fashion Week in September 2018 as one of her most stylish moments. She’d arrived at the store in Avenue Montaigne and snagged a little black dress from its AW18 collection. With a giant flourish at the neck that shrouded half the face, it was chic yet mysterious.

Wendy still describes the Saint Laurent show during Paris Fashion Week in September 2018 as one of her most stylish moments.

The next day, Long wore it to Saint Laurent’s after-party — and was spotted by the artisans who’d made her dress. They’d produced only three pieces, and envisioned an Asian wearing it! Over cocktails, Long’s new friends confided further that it was incredibly satisfying to see their work worn by someone who had fun in it, and not kept it like a museum artefact.

For this real estate and equities investor, fashion is like “wearable, interactive art that serves as our canvas for individual expressionism”.

Last year, she picked up another LBD with lusciously parted lips on the chest after seeing it on the brand’s website. She wore this to another Saint Laurent presentation, again in Paris. “I knew it was what I wanted!” She believes it was inspired by a long lip dress from Saint Laurent’s archives, of which she keeps a photo and whipped it out to show us during the shoot.

“I love the exaggerated silhouette; it’s refreshing, youthful and edgy all at once!”

Long also finds room in her heart for another Parisian label, Celine. For her 40th birthday luncheon at Spago restaurant with her chums, she wore the polka-dotted opener-piece from Hedi Slimane’s debut for SS19. “I love the exaggerated silhouette; it’s refreshing, youthful and edgy all at once!”

This feature first appeared in the September 2020 issue of A Magazine.

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