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CULTIVATE YOUR ALLURE

Hour look

THE ESSENTIALS

Jeans, anytime, anywhere, and any way. Take a Parisienne’s jeans out of her closet and she feels stark naked.

Men’s shoes. Simply because everyone says that these chic, flat shoes aren’t meant for women but you’re a contrarian by nature. In fact, that’s the very essence of your style.

The bag. It’s not an accessory, it’s your home. It’s an indispensable shambles, where you’re just as likely to find a shriveled up four-leaf clover as an old electricity bill. If it’s beautiful on the outside, that’s just to keep up appearances. And so that no one ever wonders what’s inside.

The little black blazer. It smartens up a scruffy pair of jeans (the ones you wear all the time) and you wear it on days when you don’t want to make it look too obvious that you don’t feel like making an effort.

Ballet flats. Your equivalent of slippers. You don’t choose between comfort and elegance; for you, it’s all or nothing. Nobody ever saw Audrey Hepburn wearing carpet slippers.

A small silk scarf. It has more than one function. First, it adds a touch of color to a dark outfit without running the risk of a fashion faux pas. Then, when it rains, you wear it over your head like Romy Schneider. And, on occasion, you can even use it to wipe your child’s nose when you’ve run out of tissues.

The white shirt. It’s iconic and timeless.

A long trench, of course, for warmer weather. You know it doesn’t keep you as warm as a down jacket. But when you put on a down jacket, you feel like you’re voluntarily adding extra love handles.

A thick scarf. Precisely because you don’t own a parka. And despite pretending otherwise, sometimes you get cold.

The oversized sweater that slips off your shoulder. You wear it the day after a party, as if you’re snuggled up in a quilt. It’s as soft as a teddy bear, as calming as a Xanax, as wide as a screen, perfect for days when you can feel your hips too much.

Basic oversized sunglasses. Every day, even when it’s raining, because you always have a reason to wear them: too bright out, a hangover, tears running down your face, a desire to be mysterious …

An oversized shirt. You always undo one extra button so it doesn’t look too serious. In general, you borrow your boyfriend’s. You’ll never return it and you may even one day wear it in somebody else’s arms. Love can fade, but some fashion lasts forever.

The very simple, but very expensive T-shirt. This contradiction guides your life like Liberty Leading the People; you’re perfectly happy to give in to the most common trends, as long as you can add a mark of luxury. As a result you spend hours searching for the perfect T–shirt, whose finely woven and slightly transparent thread make it feel like cashmere.

LESS IS MORE

Zsa Zsa Gabor used to say: “The only place men want depth in their women is in their décolletage.”

She may have been right, but too much cleavage leaves too little to the imagination. It’s like serving dessert before anyone has even touched their appetizer. It tries too hard, shows its hand too quickly, and betrays a certain lack of self-confidence. Like a girl who talks so incessantly there’s nothing left to ask.



The Parisienne never gives too much away. When it comes to revealing herself, she follows one golden rule: less is definitely more.

A skirt that rides ever so slightly up her thigh when she sits down in a café; a wide-necked tee that slips down her shoulder as she waves for the waiter; the surreptitious hint of her breasts when she leans down to pick up her bag.

Just an inch, a small dose.

This small dose fires up the imagination of the beholder. It makes him desperate to find out what comes next, to hear the woman’s story, to break through her silences, to tear off her shirt … This woman deals out her mystery with restraint, and only gives access to the enigma of her body in gradual increments. And many are those who are desperate to throw themselves at her feet, for a chance to slip off her heels. One inch. No more.

On a Parisienne’s Bookshelf

THERE ARE MANY BOOKS ON A PARISIENNE’S BOOKSHELF:

The books you so often claim you’ve read that you actually believe you have.

The books you read in school from which you remember only the main character’s name.

The crime novels that your boyfriend devours, which you’ll never admit to owning.

The art books your parents give you each Christmas so you can get some “culture.”

The art books that you bought yourself and which you really love.

The books that you’ve been promising yourself you’ll read next summer … for the past ten years.

The books you bought only because you liked the title.

The books that you think make you cool.

The books you read over and over again, and that evolve along with your life.

The books that remind you of someone you loved.

The books you keep for your children, just in case you ever have any.

The books whose first ten pages you’ve read so many times you know them by heart.

The books you own simply because you must and, taken together, form intangible proof that you are well read.

AND THEN THERE ARE THE BOOKS YOU HAVE READ, LOVED, AND WHICH ARE A PART OF YOUR IDENTITY:

The Stranger, Albert Camus

The Elementary Particles, Michel Houellebecq

Belle du Seigneur, Albert Cohen

Bonjour Tristesse, Françoise Sagan

Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert

Foam of the Daze, Boris Vian

Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov

The Flowers of Evil, Charles Baudelaire

Journey to the End of the Night, Louis-Ferdinand Céline

Swann’s Way, Marcel Proust

THE MINISKIRT

Whether you’re pairing it with a white tee or a patterned blouse, you must never wear a miniskirt with any hint of décolletage or vulgarity. Keep your heels low and your makeup invisible. To be worthy of the name, a miniskirt must be perfectly cut. Whether it is denim, cotton, or leather, it should be straight and classically simple.

In France, the miniskirt is not about wanting to seduce. Instead it’s a symbol of freedom. The miniskirt was born in Paris, long before London’s swinging sixties (at least that’s what the Parisiennes like to believe). The first was commissioned from fashion designer Jean Patou in the early 1920s, when French tennis champion Suzanne Lenglen asked him to design a skirt for her to wear in the Olympics. It set a new standard, of strong women competing in a man’s world, without relinquishing their femininity.

Ever since, the miniskirt has held a pivotal position in the back-and-forth between hide and show … It captures that perfect moment between dressed and undressed—neither naked, nor concealed, that sweet spot between the two.

“Women’s legs are like compass points, circling the globe and providing its balance and harmony.”

—from François Truffaut’s The Man Who Loved Women
(L’Homme qui aimait les femmes, 1977)

SAVE YOUR SKIN

What wouldn’t you do for your skin? Of all the precious fabrics you love, your skin is without a doubt the one that fascinates you most of all. The one that you care for and cherish. You can read its every wrinkle like lines on parchment. The relationship that binds you to your skin is the fruit of a lifelong education.

Beauty in France is epidermal—nobody cares that much about makeup, it’s what’s underneath that matters. Early on, your mother gave you a magnifying mirror: a window on aging and the passage of time. She didn’t repeatedly warn you not to smoke, not to drink too much, she simply invited you to view their side effects in your reflection. Your skin retains the memory of every party you ever went to, under your eyes and at the corners of your lips. That is how she taught you to be wary of your penchant for excess.

In Paris, the rules are clear: you anticipate, you prepare for the future, but you never totally correct. Play with what nature gave you. Make the most of it. This is what your mother passed on to you. Along with her science of creams that verge on witchcraft. You’ve never counted the number of jars in your bathroom but you know there is one for every inch of your face and then some: from your neck and your breasts all the way to the soles of your feet.

Your first few hangovers aside—now you never go to bed without taking off your makeup, so you fall asleep not smelling like the party. Yes, you climb into bed more tired from this care. But that’s the price we pay to save our skin.


Date: 2016-01-14; view: 1329


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