Perched on the edge of her chair in the screening room for “Mademoiselle C,” the new documentary about her life, former French Vogue editrix Carine Roitfeld’s eye makeup is perfectly smudged, her hair expertly mussed. She’s wearing her signature pencil skirt (this time, a denim Miu Miu), with a white Celine top with kimono sleeves and green suede stilettos.
“I broke a bone this summer on flat shoes. Can you imagine?” Roitfeld purrs in her thick French accent. “So now I can’t wear a very high heel,” she adds, pointing to her very high heel. “It was this or a cane.”
For decades, Roitfeld has been as well-known for her sky-high heels as for her boundary-pushing photo shoots. She helmed Vogue Paris from 2001 to 2011 before jumping ship to launch her own biannual magazine, CR Fashion Book. Last October, the industry muse was tapped to be the first global fashion director of Harper’s Bazaar.
Now, Roitfeld is taking on yet another role: reality star. “It was a bit scary in the beginning,” Roitfeld, 58, tells The Post. “I don’t know why I said yes. I am a bit crazy.”
“Mademoiselle C,” out Wednesday, tracks Roitfeld as she launches CR, moves to New York and hangs with designer pals like Karl Lagerfeld, Riccardo Tisci and Tom Ford.
The film includes all the glamourous trappings of the high-end magazine life: helicopter rides, parties straight out of a “Gossip Girl” episode and moments like Tom Ford asking his own housekeeper to pose as Snow White’s distressed, possibly- lesbian-lover maid in the fairytale-inspired shoot for CR’s debut issue.
Viewers also get a peek as Roitfeld primps for the Met Ball — “the fanciest night of the year,” she says, taking a sip from her makeup artist’s glass of vodka before he reprimands her.
“All the girls, unlike me, have been ready since 10 a.m,” Roitfeld says.
In the midst of all the glitz, glamour and celeb cameos (including Beyoncé and Donatella Versace), filmmaker Fabien Constant captures Roitfeld’s more humanizing moments, too.
He sits on the sidelines while a sweaty Roitfeld finally masters the split she’s been trying to perfect for a year during a private, at-home ballet lesson, and films Roitfeld — sans makeup and with unfashionable barrettes in her hair — at the hospital after her daughter, Julia, gives birth to a baby girl, Romy.
Then there’s the scene, during the Bruce Weber cover shoot with Kate Upton for CR’s inaugural issue, when a baby pees on a young model as Weber continues to shoot enthusiastically. Or when Roitfeld asks a photographer in Cannes if she can see the photo he just snapped of her and bestie Lagerfeld (famous fashion editors — they’re just like us!).
“I always try to be nice to the paparazzi because finally, maybe one day, they won’t ask for me and I will regret it,” Roitfeld tells The Post.
Viewers even get to see the famously buttoned-up Lagerfeld in a rather paternal light: pushing a baby carriage, bending down on his knees to converse with his godson and discussing the merits of breast-feeding.
“My mother married a milkman so as to not ruin the bosom,” he quips in the film.
“Karl Lagerfeld looks very tough because of the glasses, and he has all these rings and the leather gloves, and he’s so smart,” says Roitfeld. “But he’s a very nice person … when he comes into a room or studio, he is going to say hello to each person, and the same when he leaves.”
Indeed, to Roitfeld, it’s important that “Mademoiselle C” shows the nicer side of fashion.
“You can be different-looking. You can be a black boy with a beard. You can be anything you like,” she says. “You can have a heart and fit in, and I think it’s very important in fashion to show people we’re not just monsters — we’re people who have friendship and family and people who know how to work together. It’s not just about egos. It’s not ‘Star Wars.’”