Ambre Victoire - "I Just Want to be Free!" - Wavelength Surf Magazine - since 1981

2022-08-13 00:36:25 By : Ms. Andrea Yao

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Quixotic French longboarder and recently crowned champion of the Vans Duct Tape Invitational’s Cape Town leg, 29 year-old Ambre Victoire honestly moves and grooves to the bewitching beat of her own drum.  We sat down for a chat with Ambre, fresh off the release of her first film RAW, directed by ex-boyfriend Aljaz Babnik.  RAW’s wild adventure took them across the globe, set against both the backdrop of the global pandemic and an all-encompassing love that eventually imploded fantastically, à la Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, translating across their art with intoxicating fireworks. We discover Ambre’s world of wildness and weirdness and tumultuous wondrous happenings.  

The most-recently crowned champion of Joel Tudor’s revered and loved Vans Duct Tape Invitational series, Ambre Victoire, has an enigmatic aura akin to a jungle panther.  Her soulful, dark, almond eyes, tawny skin and infectious energy captivating even across the grainy screen of a Zoom call.  Laughing, Ambre tells me “maybe I’m enigmatic because you don’t know me, but I’m like I’m very open, I’m not scared to express myself…you can read me like an open book”.  Enigmatic seemingly, with few interviews yet globally or information about her back-story about, I’m keen to pry open Pandora’s box, and understand the background of this tornado and talent.  Ambre’s surfing captured the eye of the Duct Tape Invitational crew who invited her to her first Duct Tape event this July, which she won, despite landing in Cape Town “super unbalanced” after nursing an profound heart ache for 2 months having broken up with former lover and co-creator of her first film, RAW Director Aljaz Babnik.

Like torrid love stories of yesteryear’s twilight, the tangibly turbulent brilliance, passion and pain evoked through art, the Lindsey Buckingham/Stevie Nicks, Serge Gainsbourg/Jane Birkin style joining together of l’amour fou + art, has made for a potent oeuvre in RAW.  Ambre and Aljazs’s film was a 2 year project that began in Morocco, by-way of Sri Lanka, Mexico and Indonesia, set against the backdrop of the erupting COVID-19 pandemic.  Aljaz and Ambre met  “shooting in the water…he wanted to make a movie about me. And then we stopped our love story just before the premiere in Biarritz”.  As star-crossed lovers who make art together and then the relationship unquietly reaches its demise, it sometimes adds an extra element of fiery je-ne-sais-quoi to the art itself.  “Exactly” she agees, “it was quite an intense relationship, kind of a rollercoaster. And when you see the movie, it’s…his way of seeing me….so it’s like very light, very dark, very heavy sometimes, or very bright.  There’s a lot of emotions in this movie…”.

Ambre recounts “it (the movie) took a while because we were always moving, and weren’t very stable”.  Like many an intrepid surf traveller stopped short in their tracks by an infection abroad, a bad illness Ambre picked up proved a derailment to the anticipated filming plan.  The severity of her illness led to her “peeing blood…vomiting, losing my hair, having like, infection everywhere. But I was very stupid, you know. I was like no, I want to keep pushing. I’m very much like that.”  Ambre’s illness eventually landed her in dire-straits in a Sri Lankan hospital for 15 days during Ramadan, afterwhich she “wanted to keep surfing and shooting”, heading back to France by way of Bali.  

On the eve of the final period of bruising and freedom-limiting (remember the gendarmes chasing surfers out the water anyone? Sacre bleu) European lockdowns dawning upon France, Ambre and Aljaz de-camped to Mexico, high-tailing it Bonnie and Clyde style across the Spanish border, where they stayed for 7 months.  “I was like, there’s no fucking way” when describing whether she’d have ridden out the strict lockdown in France.  And so Mexico, with its soul-seeped longboard mecca sweetness, became her next home.  It feels like the backdrop to shooting RAW was a non-stop changeable wild-road, the passion-saturated backdrop starring 2 lovers providing ample inspiration? 

“I think there was a lot of inspiration, but there was also a lot of drama” she explains, “it was like up and down all the time and really hard to commit to.”  The content Ambre has put out which has slowly been entrancing audiences doesn’t feel de trop; no daily Instagram stories detailing her favourite surf wax + smoothie bowls…I wonder if that’s purposeful, a path of choosing select projects and the output of beautiful content leaving one wanting more?

“Yeah…” she starts. “I think I’ve been lucky with people that I met too…I’ve been very guided by meeting people.  I connect to the personalities I want to create with… If I connect to the person, I was up to create but I didn’t push any creation, like contacting people to shoot me. It was like more… letting it happen. Like oh yeah, we vibe, so let’s create.”  

Ambre grew up in Bordeaux, France, to a “city-woman” style mother who was “trying to raise me as like a good kid…Good education, doing ballet, anything like, very conventional little-girl”.  Surfing hadn’t really formed a large part of Ambre’s life until later on.  Ambre’s dad was actually a shaper, but “the shaper of performance shortboards ….he was making boards for really good surfers that were doing contests.”  Though her shaping Père was a passionate surfer, “my mom didn’t really want me to grow up surfing. They put my little brother in the surf, but not me. I tried surfing a little bit as a kid, but once my dad wanted to make me a short board and I hated it. I was already liking more longboards… more inertia…an alternative approach… like longboarding, fish or mid length or single fin…”.

After finishing High School, Ambre decided upon studying medicine, which she quickly realised she didn’t enjoy, and changed to study “sciences of physical activity” and to “discover new sports”.  Her studies took her to one surf mecca of the globe, though one at the time with a historic surfing ban.  So still, Ambre wasn’t yet heavily into surfing, especially when living in La Reunion it was illegal after a few too many surfers met an unfortunate and unanticipated end at the jaws of the local marine life, and went into rock climbing instead.  

It was to be a life-changing trip to Australia’s East Coast where the stars aligned and dots connected, Ambre following her nose upon the advice of a friend who proposed that “I think you would really love longboarding” after some time back in Guethary, France, playing around on different shaped boards but not yet finding her groove.  And so, off she went to Australia on a one-way ticket at age 23, not speaking a word of English.  “I was really shit” she laughs telling me, “I wanted to learn English, it was my main target, and to start surfing…”. A serendipitous moment and instantaneous reaction at a one Byron Bay had a life-changing impact on Ambre. “I remember I was like…crying, just watching people longboarding in Byron. I was like why I didn’t grow up here. This is what I should have done all my life”.  Byron’s soulful bay of talented longboarders and consistent swell became a natural home and classroom for Ambre, who eventually found herself working with a local shaper who crafted her own log, and added her to the team as a rider.  “I was really stoked I got that, and I got some wetsuits from Atmosea. I was super happy because I was living like a backpacker, you know, struggling a bit financially.”  After pouring her time into surfing and yoga, she then headed to Bali, draining the remains of her bank account before heading back to France “I didn’t want to work” she laughs, “I just wanted to surf and have fun!”.  Back in SW France, she began immersing herself in the European log communities, scraping together cash in order to keep surfing, and began being invited to events like Portugal’s Gliding Barnacles.  

This takes us close to the life-changing events of this summer, where it feels Ambre’s life stepped up 60 gears. The Vans Duct Tape is clearly a huge moment for Ambre, who screams when recalling receiving her invite “Oh my God, that was so unbelievable for me already to just be invited to the Duct Tape!”  As her preparation was happening, so too was her break-up with Aljaz, which was dominating her life.  “I had this crazy, crazy time for two months. It was really intense, because we broke up and I actually had so much energy, not sleeping… I didn’t surf much….I stopped yoga. I stopped everything…I moved my stuff out of the apartment where we were living. Just threw myself in different places of my friends. It was super unbalanced.  I couldn’t chill out.” 

Arriving in Cape Town on her birthday beaten down, emotionally and physically exhausted and with a hardcore flu developing, Ambre found herself linking up with like-minded souls Karina Rozunko and Lola Mignot, “they were a bit more wild, you know, they’re a bit more like, badass! We ended up going to a party …then an after party in a dark techno cave.”

Making it to the finals, lurgie-riddled, exhausted, and with zero expectations of victory, Ambre rocked up to the cold event location, one wetsuit in tow, no shoes, “super fucked up. Full grippe, pain everywhere, a really big fever…I was like oh no….and then I remembered when I had grippe as a kid, I was still going to my ballet class. And sometimes, I would dance better…I would be really tired, so I would be more smooth and have to save a bit of my energy…I was like… that can be beneficial for me, you know, because sometimes I have too much energy and I just go too crazy… I was like OK…you’re OK, let’s just have fun.”

After a performance by which just 2 waves was all it took to seal victory, Ambre attests “I couldn’t believe I won the Duct Tape!…winning it had seemed impossible in my head. But then while I was in the water, there was something inside me that was like, you can do it. Nothing is impossible.  You’re here so why not do your best?”

With the starry-dust settling from the torrid and brilliant ride of the start of the summer’s happenings, recovering from her flu and breakup, enjoying her movie release, the Duct Tape, and more, I wonder what could be coming next for Ambre?  “This is a really crazy question for me, as I’m in a big transition and I don’t know what the fuck is happening in my life right now. I feel like a full tornado…full of excitement…It’s a bit too intense for everyone! And in Biarritz, people are not that intense. They are quite chill, it’s a little bit of a scene.  The people can be a litte judgmental and I’m like I don’t give a fuck”, she laughs, telling me she is also seeking grounding energy, flat-hunting in the increasingly difficult to-find populated shores of SW France.  “I just want to be free… super wild, super free…I just want to live my life how I want. And I’m glad we are freaking out some people. People are freaking out with us!  I just want to dance and release everything. Yeah, I don’t know, this is a bit weird”.

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