La Coquette

Merely Preparing Myself for Winter in a Highly Practical Fashion

Justification.

Justification.

Joke.

Enlightening observation.

Wry comment. 

Revelation. 

Self-deprecating closer.

Or I could just say:  Hi, I went to the Maria Luisa braderie yesterday, and I got new shoes.  Oh boy did I. 

My friend Rory told me about the clearance sale over drinks at l’Apparemment Cafe the night before, otherwise, I would have given you Parisians more warning.  But it goes until Saturday, there are Men’s and Women’s items, and it’s at a showroom in the Marais.  Email me if you want the address.  Manolo Blahnik and Georgina Goodman and Pierre Hardy at 75% off.

Flat Shooz

The guy I was to be seeing sent me an email which asked the question: “Flats or heels?”

It was followed with a “Just kidding,” but I later discovered that, like most French men, he treats fashion seriously, complementing me on my bag, and then my jacket at separate points in the evening.   

But it is even better that he seemed simultaneously in on the joke--the arbitrary hot-or-not, in-or-out, of each season.  Or at least this is better if you are me, if you sometimes find it impossible to treat the thing you love, fashion, with reverence.  (Clothes!  Have you ever noticed that they are silly?)

I had laughed appreciatively at his email.  “FLATS, DEFINITELY,” I typed, adding, “More Parisian.”

If this excellent International Herald Tribune article by Tara Mulholland had come out before Friday, I could simply have pointed him there.  She thinks about the question a little more carefully than “they’re more Parisian,” and she asked me to weigh in (my own self-conscious word choice), which I do.  Twice!

And for the sake of good impressions--because, yes, Friday was a first date--when I’m not thinking about shoes, I am reading Dostoevsky. 

Hey, it might be true.  You don’t really know, do you?