La Coquette

Département Féminin -- Toulouse, France

Susan recently captured this picture of a little fashion posse in Paris, which is typical of the looks you see during fashion week, and it’s what I like to call X-treme chic.  There is something very French about this look, but there’s another quieter side to French fashion, too, a side that doesn’t call as much attention to itself and is less hard.  More romantic.  And as much as I like to pretend that my heart is harder than a canary yellow diamond, I have a little secret, which I will tell you right now: I love romantic clothes. 

I went down to Toulouse just before fashion week to check out a store called Département Féminin.

They sell Alaia, Balenciaga, Chloe, Lanvin -- you know, designers that none of us like very much at all. 

It’s all in the way you wear something of course, and it’s too bad the owner is so shy, because she is just a walking billboard for the reason why French women get it right.  It pains me to write such a cliché, and let's be honest, not all French women do, but the ones that get it right really get it right.

When I met the owner, Carole, she was wearing NDC derby shoes (they're like saddle shoes, but monochromatic), the most feminine and small Balenciaga bag (I’m kind of starting to get sick of big bags, personally), a navy blue jacket, and a blue and white striped oxford shirt.  What stands out to me about the store and her personal style is that, while there’s a lot of ribbon-y, satin-y Lanvin in the store (mmmm, Lanvin), she really incorporates menswear elements.  They are parlayed not in a hard and modern Calvin Klein way, but as a coquettish girl-in-chiffon-dress-with-boyfriend’s-jacket sort of way.  Think Charlotte Gainsbourg.  When you walk into a store in New York that has chandeliers and lots of lace (the touchstones of the America-doing-French look), those stores so often seems ersatz to me because they forget about the menswear side, such an important part of the French look.  Le Smoking, anyone?  Coco Chanel?

This is the Département Féminin inspiration wall, downstairs in the stockroom of the store.  I feel like these pictures alone are some of the most valuable images I’ve ever put on this blog.  It’s essentially a collection of the greatest hits of Jalouse, Paris Vogue, and French Elle in recent years.   I live to serve, people.

The store recently created an online shopping site which is still bold new territory in the luxury market, especially in France (neither Colette nor L’Eclaireur sell clothes online, nor do the big department stores here.  It’s very different from the US in that way, where you can shop Barneys, Neimans, Nordstom, etc, online). 

I think the site really transmits the feeling of the store and takes you into the owner's world, which is again, pretty rare in the online shopping world.  It’s done by a design firm called Spill, who created the much acclaimed site for Colette, among other brilliant sites. 

I’m over the moon that they have asked me to do some work for the Departement Feminin site, translating the item descriptions into English, and potentially writing a newsletter for them.  Because of this, I feel like I should stop talking before I go overboard, like before I say that I want to go into that black and white boudoir on the site and French kiss all of the silky, shiny Lanvin ballerina slippers.  That would be unprofessional of me. 

Glam.com Guest Edit

Guess what?  I wrote about some of my favorite Paris shops for sweet Susan over at Glam. 

I didn't realize until I was done that half of the stores are either thrift, vintage, surplus stock, or flea market.  I sure do like old stuff!

Ten French Stores That Make Me Happy

Inside French Trotters

French Trotters
This shop in the Bastille shares a similar concept with New York's Opening Ceremony in that each season the owners voyage to a city they're interested in, cherry-pick their favorite designers and local artists of that city, and bring it all back to Paris for your shopping pleasure.   Always an inspiring mix of fashion and art here.  30 rue de Charonne, 75011  www.frenchtrotters.fr

Another view of French Trotters

Chez Mamie
What I like about this vintage store is that it's full of the classic things you want to wear, thanks presumably, to the finely tuned aesthetic of its owners.  Most recent purchase?  A small black croc bag with two straps: a longer chain and a shorter leather clutch.  "Ca fait très Hermès Kelly," said the saleswoman.  Agreed.  73, rue de Rochechouart, 75009.  01 42 82 09 98

A.P.C. Surplus
If you had a store that sold a constantly changing stock of discounted A.P.C. in your neighborhood, wouldn't you visit all the time?  This shop is just next to the Jardin du Luxembourg, and I can't overstate how often I would lurk here when I lived in the area.  I stalk marked-down A.P.C., it's true.  4 rue de Fleurus, 75006.  01 45 49 19 15

Cadolle boutique

Alice Cadolle
What was Alice Cadolle the woman known for?  Inventing the bra.  What is Alice Cadolle the modern day shop known for?  Outlandishly priced made-to-measure lingerie.  What a lot of people don't know?  The shop also sells off-the-rack bras for under 100 euro.  Still not cheap, but these bras are so flattering and shape-changing that you won't mind.  14, Rue Cambon, 75001.  01 42 60 94 22

Free 'P' Star boutique

Free 'P' Star
This is my kind of thrift store.  There is minor editing by the proprietors (most of what you see is on trend), but it's still crowded, disorganized, and pretty darn cheap.  It's located in the heart of the Marais and open late by Paris standards (until 11 pm), so you can even go here to kill time before dinner.  8 rue Ste Croix la Bretonnerie, 75004.  01.42.76.03.72

Guerrisol
This is where I head for true, down and dirty thrift shopping.  At the beginning of the summer I stocked up on cotton dresses here, three euros each.  29-31, avenue de Clichy, 75017

Inside Monoprix

Monoprix
When I'm traveling back to the states, I buy French candy and crackers that aren't available stateside as gifts for my friends (lighter, cheaper, and more fun than jam).  My favorite grocery chain stocks Berlin pizza apéritif crackers, Smarties, and Lions bars.  All delicious.  www.monoprix.fr

Maje
There are a lot of stores in Paris doing seasonal trends in this price range: Et Vous, Les Prairies de Paris, and Sandro come to mind, but Maje seems to be particularly good at the moment.  www.maje-paris.fr

Le Marché aux Puces de Vanves
So much more doable than the famous Puces de Clignacourt, this particular flea market is very good for jewelry, tchotckes, and fabric.  I got a chandelier here at the end of a rainy day for  a steal.  Along avenue Marc Sangnier, between avenue de la Porte de Vanves and avenue Georges Lefenestre.  http://pucesdevanves.typepad.com/

Le Bon Marché department store

Le Bon Marché
In A Moveable Feast, Hemmingway talks about going to look at Cezanne paintings to feed his soul.  In the same way, I go to Le Bon Marché, the department store where all the brands I care about are under one roof.  Don't judge me!  24, rue de Sevres, 75007.  www.lebonmarche.fr

They are also very Bow Chika Bow Bow

Come on, these shoes are sooo "I work at Paris Vogue."

Omigod, I'm justifying myself to the Internet!

(The tags have been cut so don't try to talk me out of it, Internet. I've had enough of your lies.)

Guilty and stupid

Last night, I was sitting in a bar near 47th and 8th, where I had just seen the astonishingly brilliant musical Company (more on that later), and I get a voice message from my mother, who says, “I guess you made it to New York safely--your credit card company just called to report possible fraudulent charges.” (Note: My American credit card is attached to my parents' home phone, my only home phone in America.)

I told my friend that the Chloe shoes I'd purchased hours before at Century 21, the shoes that were tucked under our sticky pub table at that moment, had gotten me reported, that there were Mastercard employees on the case of my reckless worldwide shopping capers.

And suddenly, I was seized with a not unfamiliar feeling, a feeling which prompted me to blurt out the reasons why I needed these shoes. Blah blah blah...“I work in fashion and sometimes actually need to look it. Plus, I’m going to the shows this season--I’ll wear these every day to the shows!” Blah blah blah...“You’re only young once, and I want to have more fun with fashion in 2007 and not wear Converse sneakers so much and” -- this is where I get really rational-- “fun begins and ends with these shoes, like DUH! If you look up fun in the dictionary? You basically see these puppies.” (Editor’s note: And also maybe some scrumptious patent leather Derek Lam heels, mmmmm.)

“Is that what you're going to tell your parents? If they ask?” my friend said.

“Of course not. That's what I'm going to tell my mother. What I'm going to tell my father is that Century 21 is a place that sells warm, very practical clothing. And I bought many, many fleece and woolen things there--a whole wardrobe. A woolen wardrobe which will keep me warm next winter when I’m out on the street selling matches.”

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.

Introducing Mildred A. Wigglesworth

The Friendly Vintage Coat

From Beyond Retro (there's a video).  I was so impressed with the editing and prices at this store--the prices especially, for London.  Vintage shopping in Paris is good, and there's something to be said for working hard to unearth a treasure amongst so much terribly tasteful bourgeois schlock, but Beyond Retro is a thumping enterprise.  I get the strange impression, which I don't always in Paris vintage boutiques, that they actually want to sell stuff.  If I'm taking their A+ to an A-, it's only because the music was pumped up so loud it made my fillings ache. 

Beyond Retro
58-59 Great Marlborough Street or
112 Cheshire Street
London

Small World

I was typing in the address for Facehunter today and another website pops up:  Facebook.  Facebook on your computer screen can only of course mean one thing:  there’s been a college student lurking on your keypad. 

Of course, I know who the culprit is.  About two weeks ago, I was visiting my sister Jennifer in London, where she is studying abroad.  Jennifer has swiftly learned to call herself a “third year” and to call that thing you use in the bathroom “toilet roll.”  I am praying each night that Jen doesn’t veer astray, in the direction of Insufferable American Who Doth Adopt Thy English Accent.  I plan to someday warn my children about deceivers like that.  “Stay away from people who affect accents, kids!   They strangle puppies!”

I’ll have you know she’s an excellent host, my sister, sharing her hummus, carrot, and popcorn dinners, her Scrubs DVD’s, and her twin-sized bed.   (Yes, we both slept in one twin-sized bed.  Okay, that part is, perhaps, not the rosiest memory of the trip.)

What was very good was the cultural programming.  We decided to see, in this order:  The Seagull, Cryptogram, and Waiting for Godot.  (Chekhov and Mamet and Beckett, oh my!)  If this sounds like a depression-fest of existential angst, my response is I AM AWARE.  What can I say?  It made me feel nice and tingly in the belly. 

The only other thing that you need to know about my trip to London is that I BOUGHT SOMETHING.

No, no my friends, don’t roll your eyes!  Imagine not that I am merely indulging in my American, consumer-girl urges.  This was no hedonistic pleasure ride, a whim to love and then cast aside, oh no no.  This something was cheap (okay, cheap-ish), and most importantly, this was no Zara dress.  It was something special. 

It was a sunny Tuesday, Jen and I were wandering Soho trying to find a certain vintage store....

“Excuse me.  We’re looking for Beyond Retro.  We know it’s around here, but we don’t have the address.  Sorry, you just... looked like you might know where it was,”  I said, smiling so this girl would take my assessment as the compliment intended. 

“Oh, my mate works there!  Actually, I could take you!” 

That was Coincidence #1.

10 minutes later, we had been led to the store by this adorable sprite of a vintage fairy, 20 minutes later, I had the bounty on my back:  a coat from the 50’s that I’d scoped out a few days earlier.  It had a soft, creamy fur collar, and on the inside left breast, the initials MAW.

“Feel it,” I told my sister.  “It’s special.”

I did a quick Mary Tyler Moore before the mirror.  And then zip, one swipe of the credit card and Mildred was mine. 

(Oh, this coat is such a Mildred.  Just wait till you see.)

Coincidence #2:  A few days later, my sister emails me:  “Look at Facehunter from October 17th.” 

Posing on my screen was the vintage enabler, the girl who’d showed us the way, (second from bottom), and oddly enough, she’d helped us on the very day that picture was taken. 

Mad about it

I found this gray plaid dress at Zara on Tuesday. 

Right away, I got sort of annoyed at it for being that color.  Of all the shades a plaid dress could be, green or blue or red for instance, shades which actually do nice things to most people's skin, Zara had to go with “She-put-a-hose-in-his-tailpipe Gray.”  (Don’t steal that, I’m looking at you J.Crew.)

But since it seems a shame not to take advantage of the Venn diagram months where plaid is both trendy and seasonally appropriate, I went in for a closer look at the dress.  Tight bodice, big belt, pencil skirt with little pleats at the top, but you know, in the right place.  If you put it with flats, delightfully casual and hip.  Damn if it wasn’t the best shape a dress could ever be!

Then I got distracted by the capes--Can you believe it's cape season, already?  How time flies--and wandered over to the the Wall of Navy to try one on. (Every Fall I check with myself to see if I’ve grown the cahoonas for a cape.  Not yet.)

And then, I got the most..interesting idea in my head:  this gray plaid dress which was not only the best shape in the world was also the most perfect dress in the world to wear with these shoes!

The more I began to think about it, with the exception of jeans, those shoes are almost limited to being worn with a gray dress.  Black?  Too baroque.  Blue?  Too Dorothy.  White would be awesome, but I’m always getting chocolate on me so, No.  And floral patterns, well, I’m not going to rule them out, but you have to be pretty damn careful mixing a floral pattern with a statement shoe, as I’m sure you’ve experienced.

Then, then!  I realized the dress would also be great with my emerald green YSL knockoff belt!  Which I don’t think you’ve seen, unless you were at my friend Noelle’s wedding in Texas in December, or my cousin Claire’s wedding in Saint-Céré last February.  This is a picture from Saint-Céré:

Close up, rawr.

Anyway, I don’t have much more to say about buying this dress.  It was actually a pretty exhausting experience, to tell you the truth.  I've sort of blocked out the whole part involving the credit card.  But in the end, you know, it was definitely positive.  I see good things ahead for Old Gray and I.   

And just think how it will make my mustard yellow suede ballet slippers* pop!  And with red lipstick!  It’ll be like Pleasantville! 

God, I’m so happy you guys understand.

*Do not, at the moment, actually own mustard yellow suede ballet slippers, but I have a dream. 

Sunday Telegraph interview

On a pretty regular basis, I get emails asking how not to look like the dread Study Abroad Student.

I get a little funny when asked outright for advice.  I know how I feel personally, but I think, who am I to judge if they want to look like gypsies on the way to the state fair?  It makes my life more interesting, allowing me to spot them on the bus and quiet my iPod so that I may get a dose of American Valley Girl voice.  Tell us again how that class is SO not worth your time!  OH, HOW IT DOTH BRING BACK MEMORIES.

But I’ve never talked about the other Americans I spy on: the 40-something Alpha moms I see in Saint Germain de Pres, shopping with their teenage daughters in identical trendy outfits purchased at Scoop NYC (or the nearest big city equivalent).

Because the age thing gets decidedly more hairy.  I can understand that a day will come when the skimpy camisoles or ingenue dresses that I so love will be entirely inappropriate.  But like most Americans, I am quite capable of self-denial, so I try not to think about it.  Maybe I can buy a self help book?

But here’s the neat thing about France: dressing your age is not checking out on your sexuality.  You can still have fun shopping and find interesting things to wear.  You don't have to compete with the teenagers wearing camisoles and flip flops to seem vital.  Older women don’t become invisible here.

The trade-off is that you can't leave your house in your favorite sweatpants from college that are sagging (just a little) in the bottom.  Yes, even for five minutes to buy milk.  Trust me, IT'S WORTH WEIGHING YOUR OPTIONS. 

I am quoted in this article in The Sunday Telegraph's fashion magazine Stella, trying to get that idea across and a few other ideas, too.  (I'm on the bottom of the first page and top of the second page.)

Also, there are street photographs of French girls in the article.  You know you love the street photos. 

p.s.  Another great read in the same issue?  The article by Le Divorce author Diane Johnson (fun DJ fact:  did you know she wrote the screen adaptation for The Shining?).  I love this because it is full of things you don’t hear in your typical article on French women.  She gets in the love of McDonalds and the weird color of red hair dye that only French women think is attractive.

[Warning: she does open up by mentioning the scarf.  My feeling on the scarf?  Word has gotten out: THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD KNOW ABOUT THE SCARF.  But she doesn’t use the phrase “Bien dans sa peau,” not even once.  It has to be a first.]

That Topher Show

Sometimes I literally can’t sleep because I’m so excited that I get to go back to Paris.  It’s a strange feeling for a nice (much needed) vacation to come to an end and here I am with nothing to dread.  I always wonder how many minutes until I get hit by a bus like Rachel McAdams in Mean Girls, a cinematic moment that says SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU GET TOO SATISFIED?    

It’s in those mid-nightiest, I-bet-I-get-hit-by-a-bus moments that I start to think about all the ways my life could be better.  I could use a little Topher Grace, for starters.  I bet you’re thinking we all could all use a little Topher Grace, but have you ever stopped for a moment at 3 am to think why?  Have YOU ever thought about how his humor and boyish charm belie his emotional depth at 3 am in the morning?  I’m just saying I could probably use a little Topher Grace more than you could, that’s all. 

In my favorite Topher Grace fantasy, in between riding our tandem bicycle through the streets of Paris and eating tacos while watching Project Runway (we share our time between Paris and New York), he leans over and says, “Do you know what would really make me happy?  Even happier than that time we went ice skating at Hotel de Ville in nubby wool scarves and matching mittens?  Let me take you shopping Au Bon Marché.” 

For those of you who don’t speak French, you just missed a REALLY sexy pronunciation of Bon Marché.  Topher’s got such a natural ear for dialect. 

Another thing I’d like to see in my life is the spring line from Claudie Pierlot.  I went online at 3 am last night expressly to see if the spring line was up and by the time I had finished clicking through the lookbook, there was a spider web trail of drool connecting my mouth to the keyboard.  Forget the newest collections from Fashion Week on style.com!  Gimme stuff I can wear on my dates with Topher!

This is a very simple Claudie Pierlot shirt combo of mine that got a lot of play this winter.  The sweater is one of those longer, 60s-style cardigans that looked very good with my straight-legged Notify jeans.  Topher just loved it.