The Renaissance Woman Behind Agnès B.

Heading up a retail empire would be enough to keep most people busy. Not Agnès Troublé, who is the creative director of the apparel and accessories brand Agnès B. While designing an ever-expanding line of wares sold in her stores, which span three continents, she has found time to produce films, write a screenplay, photograph cityscapes, and create a new line of uniforms for the staffers at the Château de Versailles.Ms. Troublé, 67, said the secret to her multifarious success is twofold: She trusts her instincts and she works fast.In New York recently to promote director Harmony Korine’s latest film, “Mr. Lonely” — co-produced by her Love Streams Agnès B. Productions — the designer explained that she creates clothing for people who, like her, have myriad passions. “My customers are interested in other things, not just fashion,” Ms. Troublé, a petite blonde who embraces a tousled brand of chic, said during an interview at Manhattan’s Norwood Club. “They’re interested in cinema; they’re interested in art.”The designer opened her first boutique in Paris’s Les Halles shopping district in 1975; her second store opened, eight years later, in Manhattan. Today, the brand — best known for its signature snap cardigans and artist-designed T-shirts — has more than 100 stores in America, Europe, and Asia, as well as an art gallery and movie theater in Hong Kong. Although Ms. Troublé said she plans to diversify the label’s offerings (with additions such as a forthcoming line of stretch jeans), she doesn’t want Agnès B. to get much bigger than it is today. “With 100 stores, it’s still human,” she said.Besides, the not-too-grand size of the fashion company allows her to focus on her other endeavors. The Versailles collection of uniforms will be unveiled in June; a photography exhibit of her work opens this fall in Berlin; a movie based on her first screenplay goes into production next year, and a book, featuring the pieces in her personal art collection, is now in the works. Meanwhile, she’s planning to start a charitable foundation to support the arts, as well as humanitarian and environmental causes.And just to keep her plate full, several times a year, Ms. Troublé publishes Point d’Ironie, a magazine available at Agnès B. boutiques. It’s named after an obscure punctuation mark — it looks much like a backward question mark — denoting that a sentence may have an underlying, ironical meaning. “I want to bring it back,” she said. “I want it on the computer keyboard.”

The Renaissance Woman Behind Agnès B.

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