If you appreciate french women and Isabel Marant as much as I do then you will enjoy learning about the designers day-to-day life which includes 35 laps in the pool and 15 outfit changes:

7:00 A.M. I use the alarm of my husband [accessories designer Jérôme Dreyfuss], but we almost don’t need any clock to wake up—we have inner timers. The first thing I do is boil water for my tea. Right now I’m having chai with rice milk. Sometimes I’m into coffee, but my tastes are changing; I’m not very loyal.

7:10 A.M. I wake up my 11-year-old son, Tal, and pick out his clothes. If I leave it to him, he’ll wear only joggings. He likes the sweatshirts and sweaters from my H&M collaboration, and if my husband’s sweaters shrink they go to Tal—he has a hundred Comme des Garçons sweaters with the little heart logo.

7:15 A.M. I always wear the same thing because during the day I change 10 or 15 times, trying on the clothes for my collections. I have a fit model, but I like to try on the clothes first. I have flat shoes, a tight pair of jeans, a cashmere sweater, and a jacket. I carry a leather-and-suede bag from the old collection, with red lipstick inside—always Chanel—L’Oréal Million Lashes mascara, and samples of face cream and Chanel No. 19 perfume.

7:30 A.M. During the week I drive my scooter to the swimming pool in St.-Germain every morning. I need this to breathe and to handle my stressful days. It’s a pool from the beginning of the last century. I love that you get your own cabine, so you don’t have to go into a locker room. I wear an Adidas one-piece, and I often use small fins and do about 35 laps.

8:30 A.M. I almost never wash at home, always at the pool. I use Weleda lavender soap, and Moroccanoil shampoo and hair oil because the pool makes my hair dry. I always tie it up; I don’t have very nice hair—it’s quite thin—and I don’t feel comfortable having it in my face. I have a lot of gray hairs, and I just leave them. I don’t have time to go to the hairdresser, and I’m afraid I’m not going to be myself anymore if I do.

8:40 A.M. I stop at a juice bar and get a carrot-and-ginger juice. You always have a good tan when you drink carrot juice.

8:45 A.M. When I get to the office, I have a black coffee—American-style, not espresso. It’s more like a big mug of watery coffee. It’s not very French. Then I check my e-mail and letters, organize my schedule and interview requests, and answer questions from my team.

10:00 A.M. I start to work on my designs and do fittings. My studio is a big, open space with high ceilings. We’ve all worked together for a long time, so it’s quite peaceful and cozy.

1:00 P.M. Everyone goes out for lunch, but most of the time I’m doing interviews or appointments. If not, I stay in the office and have food delivered: yakitori or sandwiches or Chinese or Japanese food, sometimes a baguette with ham and butter, and more coffee. I think I drink four a day, all watery. I eat in about 15 minutes, then do things like research or choosing colors. I’m always surrounded by people, so I need to be alone and reset my mind, you know?

2:00 P.M. My design team comes back, and we start again with fittings or prints. I always wear tight jeans or leather leggings because I’m on my knees pinning things a lot, so I’m not going to wear a nice dress. I wear very normal, comfortable things. And I drink water, a lot of Perrier, I must say. In the afternoon, after my fourth coffee, I’m very into it. I roll my own cigarettes to try to smoke less, but I still smoke a lot.

7:00 P.M. I play music after everyone leaves—the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Lou Doillon, PJ Harvey, Arcade Fire, and the Arctic Monkeys, or I listen to old-school rap like Run DMC. If I’m alone, I listen to it really loud—I like the energy. When I’m working I’m not very hungry, because I’m into the rush of everything, and I don’t really enjoy eating when I’m stressed. It’s not a good habit, but at night when I get home is when I really eat.

8:00 P.M. Either my husband or I go home early to be with my son. Tuesdays and Thursdays are my days to help him with his homework and eat dinner with him. I actually never have dinner with my husband during the week; we start to see each other again on Friday. I love to cook, but I come home too late, so the nanny prepares recipes I’ve taught her. I like simple quality things. We always have a salad with meat, fish, or chicken. In the wintertime, we often have vegetable soup and beetroots, cabbage—and carrots are never far away. None of us are into dessert, and I never drink during the week—on the weekends, yes. We live in a loft that has high ceilings; it’s minimalist but warm. I like to have the right things, but not too many. We love designers from the ’50s, American and French, like the Eameses and Charlotte Perriand and Jean Prouvé, and I collect antique Native American kachina dolls I get from the flea markets and galleries.

10:00 P.M. I put Tal to bed, and we read the books he has for school. When my husband gets home, we chat and watch TV—always the same news program. It helps me empty my mind. I read the paper only on the weekends: Le Mondeand Courrier International. I rarely read books during the week because I’m too tired. I like [Haruki] Murakami, social and economic books, and ones on architecture and art. I’m very bad with social media and the Internet. I’ve got a cat called Marge, like Marge Simpson. My son gave her the name. She loves my husband, not really me. Tal also has two fish. Marge and the fish get along very well—it’s quite funny. She loves to drink the water from the fishbowl, and the fish come up and almost kiss her nose. We have a two-room cabin in the woods that we go to on the weekends when the weather is not too cold—there’s no electricity or water. We have a huge military tent where guests can stay. I don’t have a car in Paris anymore, just an old Volkswagen that I keep at the train station in the village. We have friends come and barbecue, and it’s by a river, so we swim a lot, kayak, play badminton, and go on the trampoline. I just jump, do stupid things. I’m not very acrobatic. We have a lot of savage animals around—deer, foxes, and wild pigs that mess up the garden. I love gardening and often exchange plants with my family. I also love welding—we bought a new place that will have a workshop for welding and ceramics and making furniture. If we stay in Paris on the weekend, we go to art galleries and flea markets and have brunch and dinner with friends. Last Friday we saw the amazing Olafur Eliasson exposition. I love cinema, but it’s difficult to schedule it. I recently saw Django Unchained, and I love Jim Jarmusch, Wim Wenders, and Fellini.

11:00 P.M. Eating a lot helps me calm down at the end of the day—it fills up my stomach, and then I’m knocked out. And looking at stupid things on television, I fall asleep like that; otherwise, my brain just runs like hell. I can look at The Voice or reality TV or a good documentary. I use colored sheets, and I made the table and some little wooden boxes in my room.

12:00 A.M. My son usually wants the cat to sleep with him, but in the morning she comes into our room and starts to chew on my husband. Most of the time I sleep like a baby, but when I’m stressed with the collection I wake up during the night. I try to fall asleep again thinking about nice things—my cabin, holidays—to erase from my mind all of the problems I know I’m not going to solve in my bed. I calm myself by thinking that I’m lucky to have this nice husband and a nice son. I don’t have anything to complain about.

Source: Harper’s Bazaar