STEP BY STEP: The evening of Dec. 11, 2021, was one like any other for fashion and culture executive Guillaume Robic, bar for a hideous migraine.
But the 42-year-old, at the time director of development, communication and events at the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, was having a stroke.
What happens next is chronicled in “Un AVC et devoir tout recommencer, le temps de l’autre,” which translates to “A Stroke and Having to Start Over, a Time for Another” in English, a 144-page book published in French by L’Harmattan. The book has yet to be translated into English.
From being at the height of a career that included stints at the Louvre, Chaumet, the Paris Mint and the Centre Pompidou, Robic became just another patient in the French health care system.
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Initially hospitalized in Paris and not expected to recover after a series of delays in initial diagnosis, he was transferred to a recovery center in Brittany, France, called Kerpape, where he says an “inexorable slide toward death” was stopped short.
“The difference is that in Paris they treat an illness, at Kerpape they treat a patient,” he said.
Beyond his own ordeal, Robic hopes the book will shine a light on the plight of overstretched hospital staff and patients’ experiences.
There’s no shortage of humor in his retelling, a way of divesting dire moments of his emotional charge to let facts and circumstances come through.
Beyond the story of his recovery — nothing short of a miracle, in the words of his doctors — Robic hopes readers will take away three lessons.
“The first one is you’re the one who decides how good life is, whatever your circumstances,” he told WWD.
“Then there’s perseverance. If I had thrown in the towel when walking was too hard, I would have never been able to cycle or drive again,” he continued. “Relearning the basics was undoubtedly one of the greatest challenges of my life, along with organizing Paris Fashion Week online during the pandemic.”
What has helped him throughout is a sense of rigor instilled in him by fruitful experiences in fashion. “Excellence is the key principle in this world,” he said.
And the final lesson is a counterintuitive one in fashion and luxury, particularly with today’s rapid-fire cycle. “It’s that time is on our side,” he said. “It is a wonderful ally that solves many things.”
Robic credits the staff at Kerpape, as well as his fellow patients, for encouraging him as he relearned to bike, swim and even drive a car.
“[Their contribution] is why I wanted to title the book ‘A Time for Another,’ because my time in Brittany was suffused with altruism,” he said.
Now a consultant in communication, influence and cultural engineering, Robic splits his time between Brittany and Paris, working with luxury and hospitality groups, cultural institutions and players in the contemporary art world.
He also serves as vice president of Art of Change 21, a nonprofit organization that builds bridges between art and major environmental issues. In addition to artist-led actions at international events including the annual COP climate summit, it offers training and support to artists who seek to be more sustainable into their practice.
But closest to his heart is Diwall, a new company he has created, which means “take care” in the Breton language. Its platform will help seniors with limited means find co-living arrangements in hopes to delay their entry into medicalized elderly care facilities.
