This is taken from The Times Guide to Paris Fashion and Style
"As the birthplace of haute couture, the New Look and Chanel, Paris has always had a legendary status as the centre of the fashion world. The British tend to view French women with a mixture of fear and admiration; as perfectly groomed femmes fatales who are about as likely to be caught in a tracksuit as they are to serve McDonald's for Sunday lunch. But is there any truth in this enduring reputation?
"The cliche is true," says Katya Foreman, an English fashion writer for
Women's Wear Daily in Paris. "French women are always immaculately dressed, but in a low-key way." One reason they have retained this reputation is that their more cautious approach creates less scope for fashion faux pas. British girls will embrace a tricky trend such as skinny jeans faster, while
les filles francaises will wait to see if it takes off. Their worst fear is looking vulgar, so if their shape doesn't suit a trend, they won't wear it.
As Coco Chanel said, "elegance is refusal". This restraint explains why there are no equivalent French phrases for bingo wings and the muffin top, despite much of our style vocabulary being borrowed from the French.
Unlike the WAG wannabees, who try to outdo each other by being the most blonde or the most tanned, French women aim to be the best by playing by the style rules. Dressing appropriately in terms of class, occassion and age is more important than standing out.
Looking individual is where the British trump the French. We may be constantly assailed by the WAG look, the Sienna Miller look and the Kate Moss look via magazines, but we manage to give them a unique twist. We might own clothing in a quintessentially English fabric, such as tweed, but only Madonna and Toad of Toad Hall will actually wear it from head to toe, whereas French women really do have a
de facto uniform. "When I think of a French woman I think of a mac, Tod's moccasins or Repetto ballet shoes, well-cut trousers and a cashmere sweater", says Foreman. This chic ensemble is typical of the BCBG (Bon Chic Bon Genre) French woman, the equivalent of a Sloane, who will patriotically team her uniform with French accessories, such as the Hermes Birkin and a Cartier Tank Francaise. "French women may look polished but their idea of being daring is to wear an Isabel Marant necklace with big beads." she adds.
Isabel Marant, worn by Vanessa Paradis, is one of the understated labels loved by the BoBo or
Bourgeois Boheme woman, along with Vanessa Bruno, and Maje. Typically discerning customers, who are left wing and Left Bank, BoBo's favour a more relaxed look - say a dark grey jersey top, boiled wool jacket, smart jeans and pristine Converse trainers, with a slouchy leather bag from Jerome Dreyfuss - but with an eye to looking elegant and feminine.
Even in La Perle cafe in the hip Marais district of Paris, where you will find a concentration of stylists and models in Eighties-influenced Sonia Rykiel jersey dresses and pixie boots, femininity is rarely sacrificied on the altar of unflattering trends.
Loulou de la Falaise, muse of Yves Saint Laurent, believes not only that femininity is important to French women but that they dress for men, whilre British girls dress for each other.
"In our boutique on rue Cambon, where we have a lot of English clients, the women shop with their girlfriends," she says, "At our store on rue de Bourgogne, however, which has a Parisian client base, they buy with their husbands, even if it is their lovers that they have in mind". Perhaps they agree with the French author Francoise Sagan that "a dress makes no sense unless it inspires a man to take it off you."
The French penchant for investment pieces requires a considered shopping method, and the different ways the two nations shop has a parallel in their attitudes to alcohol. The British are known as binge drinkers, more interested in quantity than quality, and we consume cheap clothes faster than you can say alcopops. Meanwhile French women have a reputation for savouring high-end, native brands like a vintage champagne. They would rather save up for one well-made items from a premium chain such as Agnes b, Zadig & Voltaire or Paul & Joe, than buy four fast fashion finds from Topshop. Although if they French high-street shops offered such impressive interpretations of designer clothes as ours do, they might be more open to experimentation.
Foreman believes that French women are "just as addicted to shopping as the Brits, but they don't hunger as much after what celebrities are wearing." While the younger generation watch Big Brother, they would never imitate its participants' dress sense. Their icons are actresses such as Lou Doillon, Elodie Bouchez, Carole Bouquet and Catherine Deneuve, as well as politicians such as Segolene Royal, who was recently voted the sixth sexiest women in the world by French FHM.
You can't imagine Margaret Beckett being a lad's mag favourite here, but over there older women are seen as alluring sources of inspiration. Rather than panic about turning into their mothers, French girls seek their advice. Some items, such as the classic Chanel suit, can age a young girl faster than a blue rinse, but much of French fashion comes into its own on older women.
So while the French deserve their chic reputation, it is worth noting that two icons of French style, Jane Birking and francophile Kristin Scott Thomas, are actually British. Their clothes combine our flair and individuality with classic French elegance. It is when you have a fashion entente-cordiale between the two nations that the real magic happens.
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I like this article a lot, it spoke about my style and reinforced my beliefs such as buying quality over quantity, the simplicity of French style, and elegance at all times. This is from a great booklet with today's Times (UK). There are also articles about French women at different ages living in England and their style, shopping advice for French style in London and the different arrondisements in Paris, differentiating between Left and Right bank style, and the top ten iconic French women. If anyone wants me to put up anymore stuff, let me know!
