If you haven’t yet, you should definitely get your hands on Gypset Style, by Julia Chaplin. Completely coffee-table worthy, the pages of this book allow you to enter into the world of the Gypset – and the images (some posted below) leave you lusting for more.
But first, what exactly is a Gypset?
Chaplin explains, “Gypset (Gypsy + jet set) is about an emerging group of artists, musicians, fashion designers, surfers, and bon vivants– who lead semi-nomadic, unconventional lives… They are people I’ve met–or been inspired by– in my travels who have perfected a high-low approach to life that fuses the freelance and nomadic wile of a gypsy with the sophistication and global references of the jet set. It’s an alternative way of traveling and living that’s based more on creativity then money.”
Chaplin writes, “a surfer who is also a fashion designer, an artist who traded the go-go New York City art world for Bali’s low-key tropical shores, a jewelry designer who would rather work out of a town in Mexico than in Paris’ über-chic Saint-Germain-des-Prés.”
Money, the right clothes and even location, Chaplin explains, doesn’t make you a Gypsetter. “Buying a luxury condo on an exclusive beach or checking into a five-star hotel is not in itself glamorous,” she writes. “Glamour – as confirmed when I stayed with Nathalie and Sophie Laurence Mignot, a pair of French sisters in Sayulita, Mexico - is about turning a rooftop into a supercool compound by painting the walls fuchsia, and firing up some votive candles for light.”
It’s no coincidence, Chaplin points out, that “those who are defining the Gypset aesthetic are artists, fashion designers, photographers, musicians, and surfers whose work is based on their lifestyle and whose lifestyle is based on their work.” Gypsetters, she says, “are freethinkers who have made the choice to set themselves up far away – even if it’s only for part of the year – proposing an alternative solution to life.”
