The eminent stylist explains the coded communication behind her inspired Instagram feed
Scrolling through Camille Bidault-Waddington's Instagram feed is like flicking through the ultimate fashion scrapbook, charting everything from 70s psychedelia to contemporary Japanese design; dream make-up references to snapshots from Bidault-Waddington's immense styling career. In a world now saturated with highly-organised social media streams – complete with strategic posting times and choreographed hashtagging – hers is a breath of fresh air: there's no colour theme uniting images, no distinct organising principle. Moodboards and references can be closely-guarded secrets, but Bidault-Waddington offers a journey into her mind for those who choose to follow – still, her feed is more than that; it is what she describes as a coded way of communicating to her friends around the world, a series of digital postcards sent out to be deciphered by those who know her. Here, she reveals what it is about fashion's favourite social media app that she loves...
On digital postcards...
"It was Olivier Zahm [Founder of the French fashion title, Purple] who first told me about Instagram. At the time, I was very much against Facebook – but I discovered that Instagram was a fun way of sending postcards to friends. It was like sending a message out that people could read if they knew me – and for others, it was just pictures to look at. I like that coded way of communicating."
On the humanity of books...
"I use images that I find in my books... I have a lot. I don't like searching on the internet because it's too inhuman and it can't represent an emotion in the same way. I also like to crop into other people's images; it shows my thoughts – but I don't use them as references because otherwise everybody would have the same ideas!"
On creating a magazine through social media...
"I don't think before I post, it's very free: it takes me five minutes a day, without any analysis. I also post jobs that I've worked on but not very understandable ones – the ones with weird styling. My agent works with the commercial ones, but I like to show the more personal work. Fashion changes all the time and now I think that people can see what they like; they can create their own magazine with the contributors of their choice."
