WONDERS AND HORRORS OF LUXURY

"This fashion show is a critique of the world of luxury, which both horrifies and fascinates me". - Lanette

In our society there are many paths to experiencing of beauty, pleasure and luxury. As all other notions these words are mutable constructs. And all of them have often conflicting and uneasy emotions attached to them that create a lot of anxiety and sometimes resistance to experiencing them. It is not always clear why are those notions so triggering for many of us. We talked to Lanette (Camille Correas), an artist and pâtissière who has had many experiences across the industries of both visual beauty and gourmet indulgence. Together we touched upon both light and shadow aspects of these industries.

Lanette, you have a background in both Visual and Culinary Arts. Do taste and history of certain foods still matter to you or are you merely using food as props, playing with its shape, texture, size and colour?

For me, food as a media is a vector of symbols drawing on personal or collective history. I work with the history of a food and the way it is portrayed, and I am interested in the taste. In a new version of "Fraise" I flavoured my choux pastry with smoked rose by deliberately burning the bottom of the pan of my pastry cream, associating symbols of love and femininity with something more transgressive.

I like working with the idea of good and bad taste. Today, good taste is embodied by pastries that are not very sweet, sober, without colouring agents, without alcohol, etc. There is something elitist about good taste that bothers me. For example, I love artificial strawberry flavouring, runny glazes and vivid colours. I also like the aesthetics of pre-70's pastries, which is why I am interested in candied fruit.

Your works gives off a feeling of eroticism, sarcasm and magic. I look at the leightmotif

of a tongue in your works and it my mind wonders in the direction of intimacy,

comedy and prayer amongst other things. What does the imagery of tongue mean to you?

The tongue and mouth are organs that experience the senses of touch, taste, smell and hearing at the same time. After having been interested in taste as a pastry chef, and in touch as a sculptor, I am now interested in smell. This year I have developed a whole cycle of performances combining text and scent, which is good because toungue is also the tool of speech!

Also, I never imagine a tongue on its own. I love tongues, they are both very sexy and rather disgusting, and it is this paradox that attracts me. I like to push the erotic potential of an image because it can go to the side of disgust. The mouth is an open sexual organ, like flowers, I use it as a mirror of human genitals. The thing I like the most about the tounge is that it is not gendered and active.