“The name “The Fashion Bandit” was perfect: I never liked the fashion police. I wanted to do my own thing; creating outfits from my own head and heart, not from their rules and regulations. So what better than to be a Bandit?”
– Benedikte St.Pierre
THE FASHION BANDIT
Benedikte Saint-Pierre
TV Presenter
Fashion Art Director & Stylist
Visual Designer
Actress
Background – in my own words
Acting, TV and design
Having discovered at 19 that following the academic career staked out for me was actually extremely boring, I made a complete U-turn, moved from my home town of Narvik in the north of Norway, and trained as an actress in London. After years of acting in both Norway and abroad I moved into the realm of TV as a TV presenter. Alongside this, with a lifelong interest in graphic design, I also studied Mac design – and threw in a bit of web design for good measure.
Presenter for TV8 Norge
For several years I was one of TV8 Norge’s profiled presenters and reporters. I presented TV8’s main program Studio8, a daily studio infotainment program with guests raging from Norway’s top celebrities, politicians and party leaders to experts in various fields, some 500 interviews in all. As part of Studio8 I ran two series of in depth studio topics; Health and Exercise. I later also presented TV8’s Friday show Weekend, as well as presenting the sports competition Mestermøtet and cookery shows.
As I worked in TV8 it was a delight to realize my TV audience truly enjoyed my work, knowing me for my bubbly enthusiasm, feel-good humour, curiosity and ability to connect with guests and interviewees as well as to engage my viewers. My style and not least signature hairstyle – which I thought would have alienated the more conservative viewers – turned out to be a hit with both young and old . So much so that my hair soon came to be synonymous with the name of TV8, and I was often referred to simply as “that TV8 presenter with the hair.”
Myself AND FASHION
Fashion – my great passion
As a child I was that nerdy-geeky-head-in-the-books-child branded “very boring” by my peers. And in the brutal world and regime of schoolchildren, geeky-nerdy-head-in-the-books boring children are not supposed to dress the way they want. At all. So having “suffered” all through childhood by not being allowed to wear my own choice of clothes, say all the rococo dresses I really felt like wearing, and then, scared off by bad experience, not quite having the courage to face further sneers from my peers by wearing what I really wanted to wear, that all changed as I moved to London. All of a sudden, because of London’s vast number of different styles and people, and because of the wonderful London tolerance and appreciation of this diversity, I felt free to be myself and freely show the world, through my clothes and style, who I was, and this shaped my philosophy and approach to fashion and style.
Why The Fashion Bandit and all our photos?
For years I wondered – and I’m still wondering – why wearing clothes and sporting styles not even hugely differing from everyday styles should prove to be such a thing of disapproval from people. Even more puzzling do I find the whole concept of “The Fashion Police”: experts telling us what’s acceptable and what’s not in terms of what to wear. Also I was bored by bored-looking models in predictable fashion photography.
So I decided to do something about it, showing the world you could play around with different styles, leave out the self-consciousness, just be yourself, add some humour, some laughter and have fun – and create fashion photography along the same lines. So this is my “something” – this is my way of telling my story.
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