Diane Pernet is a Paris-based American-born international fashion blogger and critic and founder of the international ASVOFF (A Shaded View on Fashion Film) festival.
Education and early career
Pernet was born in Washington, D.C., on October 8, 1946, and received a degree in documentary filmmaking from Temple University. In addition to creating several films of her own, she has maintained a love for cinema ever since. Becoming a New York City fashion designer in the 1980s, she maintained a label of her own for 13 years.
Relocating to Paris in 1990, Diane Pernet's first job there was as a costume designer for director Amos Gitai and his film Golem, l'Esprit d'Exile. Her work for the CBC's Fashion File programme led to an appointment at Hong Kong Joyce magazine, where she was the women's fashion editor for five years.
Fashion blog pioneer
Embracing fully the late-1990s internet revolution, Diane took on a "Dr. Diane" fashion-advice column at Elle, and covered the runways for Vogue Paris. Success in these endeavours led to the creation of one of the internet's first fashion blogs in 2005, A Shaded View on Fashion (ASVOF), an online fashion platform whose early success led The New York Times to anoint her "the original style blogger". Also prolific on other social media platforms, she influences thousands with her daily fashion news and updates. Vogue Business called her a "genuinfluencer," meaning an influencer who is genuine and has nothing to sell.
Fashion film
In September 2006, to promote the launch of his brand's menswear line, Mark Eley of Eley Kishimoto commissioned her to make a documentary around a "Gumball 3000" (or "Gumball Rally") road-trip between London and Monte Carlo. It was this project and the interest that it generated that rekindled her love for cinema and motivated her to invent the 'fashion film' genre. Rather than exploring the idea through actual film-making, she decided to make it an open celebration in which anyone who shared her interest could participate. This was the genesis of her first "You Wear it Well" fashion-film festival that she, with photographer Dino Dinco, curated at the Los Angeles CineSpace from August 1, 2006.