Beauty heiresses Virginie and Claire
Courtin – Clarins are becoming hugely fêted in fashion circles. But at home
they keep a low profile, discovers Sarash Harris
Virginie
and Claire in the 16th arrondissement.
The penthouse apartment of a smart
residential block on Avenue Foch, in Paris’s most prestigious neighborhood –
Claire and Virginie Courtin-Clarins, all blonde with perfect posture on red
canvas Clarins-branded director’s chairs being tended to by a hair and make-up
team. The chairs are a nice touch, and I can’t help but wonder if they are a
permanent fixture. “No!” laughs Claire, “Although, if you like, you can spread
the rumor that we have make-up artists living with us-like how Karl Lagerfeld
has someone to carry his Diet Coke.”
The
Clarins girls on the fashion circuit with their cousins, Jenna and Prisca
The Courtin-Clarins girls are the
granddaughters of Clarins founder Jacques Courtin-Clarins, and fashion’s latest
crush. The sister, along with their cousins-slash-best friends, Jenna and
Prisca, are heiresses to the skincare company’s multimillion-pound fortune, and
there isn’t much that designers like more than an heiress – especially when
they looks as good as these two.
Claire, dressed in a Stella McCartney
jumpsuit suspended by the tiniest of spaghetti straps, and Virginie, wearing
Acne skinny Jeans and an Isabel Marant T-shirt, are very tall and very blonde.
(I ask if they are natural blondes. “Yes,” they smile. “Well,” Claire, 24, is a
timeless beauty who looks like she has been carved out of Lalique frosted
glass. Blessed with a soft, oval-shaped face and a long, graceful neck, hers is
a look of Modigliani-style serenity. By comparison, older sister Virginie, 26,
has one of those fashion faces of the moment: strikingly dark eyebrows, pale
blue eyes and the sort of tousled hair that looks as if she’s spent her entire
life on a beach. Of course, their dewy complexions primed on a life time of
Clarins quickly lay that idea to rest. (Clarie admits to dabbing in other
brands, but since anything other than Clarins gives her a rash – yes, really -
she’s now given up.)
Virginie and Claire are part of a new breed
of modern heiresses who do more than sit front row at the ready-to-wear
Collections and hop about between the various family homes. These days, an
heiress must multi-task like the rest of us, albeit probably dressed in better
clothes. As well as charity projects (the pair recently hooked up with Lauren
Bush for her Feed Foundation) there are their advisory roles for Clarins (as
shareholders and members of the board), plus ambassadorial gigs for Louis
Vuitton, all in addition to their day jobs.
Two
soeurs, with love: Virginie (top) and trained architect Claire (right), and
their extensive collection of Clarins products
Claire works as an artist and recently set
up her own design company. (Should anyone question her dedication to her
profession, one need look no further than her living room, where she recently
replaced her corner sofa and coffee table with three draughts man’s desks.)
Virginie, on the other hand, is regarded as the more entrepreneurial one. After
completing a degree in business, she worked at the French department store
Printemps for 18 months before launching her own swimwear label, Luz, which she
co-owns with a friend. She is also in the process of setting up her own beauty
business, the details of which are under wraps, for now. Whatever it is, it’s
unlikely to rival Clarins but will be a project that will hone her skills,
making her an even worthier candidate to helm the company, as she hops she
will. “I know for sure that I will end up working at Clarins; I want to follow
in my grandfather’s footsteps,” says Virginie. “He always said that he never
worked a day in his life, because his work was his passion. I love that
sentiment.”
The only daughters of Clarins chairman
Christian Courtin-Clarins and model Corinne Maine de Biran, Virginie and Claire
grew up in Paris, a stone’s throw from their doting grandfather, who passed
away in 2007 and whom they adored. Since they were four years old, every week
without fail their grandfather would host Sunday lunches of exams or
boyfriends. “He was our mentor and the head of the family. We loved him dearly
and miss him every day,” says Claire, who, in addition to four other tattoos,
has her grandfather’s initials stamped on the back of her neck. “Mostly I remember
his hands,” she recalls. “He tested creams his whole life, so he had the
softest hands in the world,” explains Virginie. “To look at them you would
think he was 30 years old – no wrinkles, no dark spots they were incredible.”
The first time the sisters had any real
awareness of the dynasty they were born into was as young children on the beach
one year in the South of France. “We grew up with beauty samples everywhere, so
when I was a child, I always thought my father and grandfather were making
products just for us,” says Virginie. “Then one year on holiday I noticed
Clarins sun cream everywhere on the beach and I was like, ‘Wait, that’s our
cream! That person stole our cream!’ I had no idea until then, because you
never see inside people’s bathroom cabinets, do you? But on the beach, I saw
for the first time. My father had to take me aside and explain that they make
products for some other people, too...”
Now, with fashion bloggers and street-style
snappers chronicling their every move, the sisters are beginning to get
recognized, more so in America, and it isn’t something either of them is
entirely at ease with (although Claire will probably have to grow accustomed to
it if she moves to New York later this year, as she plans to). They’ve chosen
to live a fairly normal life in Paris (they don’t have drivers or bodyguards),
made possible by the fact that they refuse to give interviews to the French
press. “We don’t want to go into a restaurant here and be recognized. I want to
be able to go to my local supermarket and do normal things,” says Virginie,
before Claire adds, “We have to be careful with comparisons to It-girls – we’re
not like that. Yes, we’re lucky to go to some beautiful events, but we don’t
want to go to every single party every single night, and we don’t.” With so
much else going on, a fuzzy head just doesn’t factor in to this cool sister
act’s game plan.
