Michèle Lamy Cooks Up a Storm With Matchesfashion During Frieze Week
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LONDON — Breakfast is being served by Michèle Lamy.
The cofounder of Owenscorp and artist has collaborated with Matchesfashion’s London town house 5 Carlos Place on Michmatch Cafe, a breakfast event running until Thursday as part of Frieze Art Fair.
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A bespoke menu including lunch and afternoon tea has been designed by Lamy’s close collaborator and friend Isis Neal, formerly third executive chef at Les Deux Cafes, the Los Angeles restaurant that hosted the likes of Madonna, Lenny Kravitz, Sofia Coppola, Tom Ford and more.
The menu is printed onto a cotton napkin featuring Lamy’s jeweled mouth open.
The food list includes sourdough toast with butter, blackberry jam and honey from Palais Bourbon; finger sandwiches of anchovy with tarragon aioli and smoked salmon with creme fraiche, and scrambled eggs with a choice of spinach, herbs, sauteed mushrooms, gruyere, chive and truffle.
“There was nothing to make a statement with, but I felt it was in the spirit of people understanding each other. It has been absolutely nice to be part of the fair without being in the fair, but I think my art is to get people together,” she said.
Lamy, who is based between Venice, Paris and Los Angeles with her fashion designer husband Rick Owens, hasn’t visited London since the pandemic.
“It’s making a comeback and it’s the same feeling as when I did my first bar here,” she said of the city, reminiscing about when she set up a boxing gym in The Corner Shop of Selfridges.
“London is about standing up for your ideas with a mix of art and life,” said Lamy, adding that being here “is more about being a great human being than just selling clothes. London has this spirit and that’s why I’m trying to do a British accent.”
Lamy has also been working with Loïc Le Gaillard and Julien Lombrail, cofounders of Carpenters Workshop Gallery, on their London flagship that will open in spring 2023. She’s working on the bar-lounge and recording studio, which is dubbed Lamyland.
“I’ve been doing something special for System magazine that’s coming out in perhaps a month or so,” she revealed about the secret project that’s centered around beauty.
Joining Lamy at the Michmatch Cafe residency is Berlin-based visual artist Matt Lambert.
“We’ve been collaborating for five years and we first did ‘Butt Muscle’ [a sexually graphic music video] which WWD covered, which was wild because it’s literally p—ing, f–ting and f–king in Women’s Wear Daily, but as soon as Michèle and Rick attach to it, it somehow just transcends,” said Lambert.
He’s been working on a film with Lamy called “Infinite,” which was shot four years ago and shelved, but now it’s been reedited featuring songs from Lamy’s musical project “Lavascar” remixed by Arca and with the poetry of Lebanese-American poet Etel Adnan. The film will be released “very soon.”
Lambert and Lamy just presented a performance piece in Berlin at the Julia Stoschek Collection that’s a sequel to “Infinite” titled “Infinite 2,” with the film version in postproduction.
“We’re now in this position where everything we do we’re going to call it ‘Infinite’ as a sequalization,” he said, adding that he and Lamy are focusing on performances and films in different cities and to work locally — right now he has Tokyo, Miami and London on his wish list.
Lambert started his career in London at the age of 21, but he finds working in Berlin is better for him “because it’s so much less distraction and so much calmer and a slower pace, but everything has always been through the lens of a London aesthetic.”
Alongside Michmatch Cafe, Matchesfashion will be hosting Frieze-related events all week long, including a fine jewelry pop-up by Brazilian-Lebanese designer Nadine Ghosn; the launch of “The River Cafe Look Book” by Ruthie Rogers, and a brunch panel talk with fashion designer Christopher Kane, creative director Tammy Kane, A Vibe Called Tech founder Charlene Prempeh and creative director Lewis Gilbert.
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