Why fashion's fairy grandmother Agnes b. is a true believer

French designer Agnes b. really doesn't like the fashion world of which she is one of the great survivors.

"I don't like fashion. I have nothing to do with that world where everyone is in a bubble," said the veteran creator, a lifelong activist for progressive causes.

"Some people like to go out and be seen," said the 78-year-old who dressed her friend David Bowie for decades and who made the famous black jacket with the leather collar that John Travolta wore in the movie "Pulp Fiction".

Like her, Bowie would run a mile from the "celebrity scene", she told AFP.

Agnes b. sees herself more as a motherly custodian than a collector of artists who can fall rapidly out of favour.

Both, however, shared a passion for all kinds of modern art. And now Agnes b. -- whose real name is Agnes Trouble -- is opening her own gallery in an up-and-coming corner of the French capital.

Fab will not only house her eclectic private collection of more than 5,000 works -- half of them photographs -- but will also, she promised, be a "factory of culture and social solidarity".

Art and activism

Indeed, Fab's first show is called "La hardiesse", or "The Audacious One", a nod to the self-taught designer who started out in fashion as a penniless young single mother with twin boys to look after.

Back then, after marrying a much older man straight from school, the young Agnes Bourgois (hence Agnes b.) dreamed of being a museum curator.

French designer Agnes b. really doesn't like the fashion world of which she is one of the great survivors.

Now, she has a collection of Basquiats, Warhols, Nan Goldins, Martin Parrs and paintings by Gilbert and George all of her own that many institutions would mortgage themselves for.

But Agnes b. sees herself more as a motherly custodian than a collector of artists who can fall rapidly out of favour.

The art world can be just as ruthless and as capricious as fashion.

"Suddenly, no one cares about what these artists have done, and they drop them. I don't like that," she told AFP.

'78-year-old Greta Thunberg'

"After I had my twins at 19, I left Christian at 21 without a penny. I was lucky to be very poor without being very unhappy. I would buy ham from the shop with the money they gave me for bring them empty bottles.

Agnes B. -- whose real name is Agnes Trouble -- is opening her own gallery.

"One day, one of the twins said to me: 'Aren't you lucky Mammy to to have us!'"

The experience helped forge her social conscience that has seen her support innumerable liberal causes in France and beyond.

"I really feel for the Rohingyas, the Uyghurs and the climate," the designer declared, adding that she is "very afraid of Trump".

With France hit by strikes sparked by government pension reforms, she worried for those who have been "forgotten".

"Nobody talks about the cleaners or the artists who have nothing. Who is defending them?

Agence France-Presse