Many years ago when I was a 3 rd year university student, I had the chance to be Paco Rabanne’s interpreter during his visit to the Ukraine. It was my first professional experience, my first press conference, my first radio recording with a famous journalist…
I remember the whole thing as if it happened yesterday. That morning phone call, a moment’s hesitation thinking I didn’t have enough experience to do the job, that I didn’t really know anything about Paco Rabanne, and then a minute later, I knew that I would do it and I would do it well.
Why was I suddenly so sure of myself? “Yes, yes, yes!” I said over the phone before hanging up and jumping for joy in my living room. Then, excited and feverish, I dove into his life, Spain, his mother who was the head seamstress at Balenciaga, his first drawings at the age of 6, the birth of his passion, his fantasy dresses…
It is with a smile that I relive the moment when I translated his sentence, “The first time I saw God”…the journalists began to look at each other wondering perhaps: “What on earth is she saying, she’s totally crazy!” But when I repeated this same sentence at least three times during the translation, they understood that he was the crazy one!
There is a proverb in my country: “He who doesn’t take risks never drinks champagne (which means you don’t get a chance to celebrate the victory).
Even if I don’t drink, I’m always eager to take risks.
