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Blake Lively, very vintage
Point of View

Blake Lively, very vintage

Tuesday, 06 December 2016
By Frank Rousseau
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Frank Rousseau

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4 min read

She’s in the pages and on the covers of every women’s magazine. She? Blake Lively of course, aka Serena Van der Woodsen, the seriously on-trend, ex-student in the hit television series “Gossip Girl”.

Blake is her own woman. A talented actress with that Californian glow who dazzled in Woody Allen’s Café Society then had us breaking into a cold sweat in shark-attack thriller The Shallows. A versatile star, modern icon and incorrigible fashionista, Blake Lively tells us about her passion for footwear and wristwear.

A lot of people first saw you in Gossip Girl. The series is set in New York's Upper East Side, which is said to have the highest concentration of luxury watch stores anywhere in the world. Is that true?

I have no idea! Although I wouldn’t be surprised, as this is where the biggest fortunes in America live. The dollar does the talking! The guys drive around in luxury cars and the gals have a purse full of credit cards for when they hit the fashion and jewellery stores. Some are so wealthy they can convince prestigious brands to open outside their usual times, just for them. I imagine it’s the same with watch stores!

What about you? What grabs you in a watch?

The form. The first impression is almost always right. It’s the same with clothes. When I buy a watch, I look for a form that will go through the decades without going out of style. Although recently I’ve been more and more attracted to vintage watches. The great thing about a vintage watch is that it can so easily become a classic, in which case you needn’t worry about the fashion aspect at all. It’s funny to think that an object whose purpose is to measure time, and which should theoretically give you the precise time, can become something completely timeless!

Blake Lively
Blake Lively
So vintage watches are one way to always be on-trend…

Absolutely! When you buy a vintage watch, you don’t ask yourself, am I making a mistake? Will it just sit in a drawer at home? Although in the past I have bought watches and got tired of them pretty quickly. Years would go by without ever wearing them, then suddenly I’d be sorting through some old things and fall in love with them all over again! Fashion is the same, you know. There’s this dress or pair of shoes that you absolutely love, then one morning you go into your wardrobe and decide to completely change your style. As a kid, I was always going into my sisters’ cupboards and taking their new clothes, just because I enjoyed having something different. They were pretty easygoing, except when I “borrowed” their watch or some other accessory. They they’d hit the roof!

I'll admit to owning 300 pairs of shoes! I own significantly fewer watches, but probably a lot more than most people.
Blake Lively
Is a watch a useful object or a fashion item?

Both! Why can’t the two go together? Ask someone about their watch, and very often they’ll tell you a moving story. A watch their mother gave them when she was still alive. A watch they bought themselves with their first pay cheque. The watch their parents gave them for their graduation…

Do you own a lot of watches?

Not as many as I have pairs of shoes! [laughs]. I’ll admit to owning 300 pairs! I own significantly fewer watches, but probably a lot more than most people. Even if I knew how many I had, I doubt I would tell you. Let’s not tempt any burglars!

Blake Lively
Blake Lively
In The Age of Adaline, you play a young woman who is immortal. Would you like to have a watch that "freezes" its owner in time?

Never grow old? Stop the hands of time? My first answer would be, yes please! Women everywhere are in a constant battle to defy the affronts of time. We spend a fortune on creams, we’re careful about what we eat, we work out, some of us have recourse to surgery to appear younger than we are. But when you look closely, you realise all you’re doing is going round in circles. It’s a battle you can never win. I wouldn’t want to go through what Adaline experienced. It may seem exciting at first, but when you really think about it, it’s actually terrifying. Especially when you consider what’s happened in the world these past hundred years: war, conflict, disaster… no thanks! On a more personal level, it would tear me apart to see my daughter celebrate her 80th birthday when I’m still 20. So no, I don’t want a watch that stops time. On the other hand, collecting all kinds of watches over the decades, now that would be tempting. Then when I’d finished, I could open a museum! [laughs].

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