My Skin Remembers

Sculptor of stretch leather, passionate about Yourcenar and a curious therapist attuned to women: there are many lives within the life of Jean-Claude Jitrois. At the parties he hosts on Rue de Rivoli, he gathers everyone who is both chic and shady in Paris. The public can't get enough of it. After all, "the Jitrois's" know a lot of people. The designer of the stars, simultaneously a faithful husband, a fickle lover, a strict patriarch and a captain at the helm, has seen it all through the century.
Illustrated with numerous photo archives, this story—his own, that of his tribe, and of a blazing end of the millennium—blends moments of rising passions and plunging desires. From the arms of Mike Tyson or Brigitte Nielsen to the corridors of the University of Nice, My Skin Remembers reflects the sentimental education of a man resistant to bourgeois conventions, the baroque effervescence of the global jet set, and the dark hours of the AIDS years. In the wake of his 80th birthday, it reads as the journey of a visionary designer driven by the love of leather and freedom. French fashion designer Jean-Claude Coste, known as Jitrois, was born in 1944. He opened his first boutique in Nice in 1976 after a notable career as a psychomotor therapist. He revolutionized the fashion industry by elevating stretch leather, which propelled him to the status of an international icon. In 2002, he was awarded the Légion d'Honneur for his contributions to the clothing industry.