We’ll admit it: as the months (and years...) pass, we look in the mirror and start to get the whole, “You look like sisters!” when you’re with your mother. It’s in the face and the hair… But it’s also in the clothes. We look in the mirror and see a knubbly sweater and mom jeans. (Of course, it doesn’t help that your maternal figure’s early motherhood uniform is now the height of normcore.) It can be, well, a little prophesy fulfilling and the teeniest bit depressing. Then again, it’s not so bad for all mother-daughter pairs—especially when the mother in question is most commonly known for wearing Givenchy pencil skirts and Alaïa lace-up stilettos and how you spent your childhood as the professional counterpart and muse to Tom Ford. We mean, if all women eventually turn into their mothers, Julia Restoin Roitfeld doesn’t exactly have the worst outlook ever. (Okay, if you’re still wondering, Google image search Carine Roitfeld. See?!)
Let’s just say that when Restoin Roitfeld invited us over to play with a season’s worth of Bloomingdale's goodies, we prepared ourselves for the ultimate lesson in urban, Paris-inflected dressing. “My daughter calls me Maleficent because I dress all in black,” she laughed as we pawed through her decidedly neutral selection. Then again, when it comes to an affinity for neutrals, we’re guessing baby Romy won’t be far behind mom—like mother, like daughter, remember?
If we’ve been watching Restoin Roitfeld’s choice public outing looks over the years via the likes of Style.com and BFA (read: we have), we kind of already knew that girl knows how to wear an LBD—it’s her uniform, she admitted to us. Yet, every time, she manages to make it cool and unabashedly sexy every time. And that whole vibe? It obviously comes completely naturally to the New York-transplant, because, whether wearing a cropped faux fur jacket and skinny jeans, or a mannish shirt with a short leather skirt and thigh-high boots, that uniquely French joie de vivre and straight up seduction came through every time. Carine would totally approve.