From four stunning and accomplished French women -- at last -- a fresh and spirited take on what it really means to be a Parisienne: how they dress, entertain, have fun and attempt to behave themselves.
In short, frisky
sections, these Parisian women give you their very original views on
style, beauty, culture, attitude and men. The authors--Anne Berest,
Audrey Diwan, Caroline de Maigret, and Sophie Mas -- unmarried but
attached, with children -- have been friends for years. Talented
bohemian iconoclasts with careers in the worlds of music, film,
fashion and publishing, they are untypically frank and outspoken as
they debunk the myths about what it means to be a French woman today.
Letting you in on their secrets and flaws, they also make fun of
their complicated, often contradictory feelings and behavior. They
admit to being snobs, a bit self-centered, unpredictable but not
unreliable. Bossy and opinionated, they are also tender and romantic.
You will be taken on
a first date, to a party, to some favorite haunts in Paris, to the
countryside, and to one of their dinners at home with recipes even
you could do -- but to be out with them is to be in for some mischief
and surprises. They will tell you how to be mysterious and sensual,
look natural, make your boyfriend jealous, and how they feel about
children, weddings and going to the gym. And they will share their
address book in Paris for where to go: At the End of the Night, for A
Birthday, for a Smart Date, A Hangover, for Vintage Finds and much
more.
How to Be Parisian
Wherever You Are will make you laugh as you slip into their shoes to
become bold and free and tap into your inner cool.
Caroline
de Maigret on Her New Book, How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are
Sarah Mower
SEPTEMBER 2, 2014
6:00 AM
by SARAH MOWER
De Maigret, in a Rag
& Bone T-shirt and Chanel trousers, at home in Paris’s Pigalle
neighborhood with her son, Anton.
Sittings Editor:
Azza Yousif
Hair: Tomoko Ohama;
Makeup: Alice Ghendrih
In an ideal world, I
would be Caroline de Maigret. During the hustle of the shows, she’s
one of the few women I bother to stare at—a 39-year-old loping
around in the sort of mannish clothes I love (jackets, shirts, and
pants galore). Karl Lagerfeld co-opted her as one of Chanel’s
ambassadors; Lancôme has just asked her to package her mystique into
a makeup line. Part aristocrat, part rock chick (she and her partner,
Yarol Poupaud, own Bonus Tracks Records, a music-production company),
she’s the living epitome of a Frenchwoman of substance—far more
riveting with age and experience than she was earlier in her career
as a model in New York in the nineties.
Now she’s authored
one of those snatch-uppable books of the “French secrets” genre:
How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are: Love, Style, and Bad Habits
(Doubleday), co-written with three of her girlfriends—writer Anne
Berest, journalist and screenwriter Audrey Diwan, and movie producer
Sophie Mas. It’s a compendium of essays on everything from dealing
with men and ignoring fashion to being melancholy, the art of
nakedness, and what to shut up about. I opened it, and two pearls of
wisdom smacked me in the eye on the first page alone. One: “Don’t
be afraid of aging.” And two: “Always be fuckable”—even when
you’re standing in line to buy a baguette. Oh, my goodness. We were
in for an interesting conversation.
I met de Maigret
during Paris Couture Week at the Hôtel Amour, not far from the place
she shares with Poupaud and their eight-year-old son. She arrived,
hair still slightly damp (Parisians never blow-dry—and like to
claim they cut their hair themselves), wearing a perfect navy velvet
blazer, a white shirt (three buttons undone), skinny blue jeans, and
Stan Smiths. The jacket, she said, was “Thomsen—she’s a young
Parisian designer who doesn’t have shows. It’s never too much,
but it always has this little twist.” The shirt? She shrugged.
“Céline, I think.” It’s a central tenet of Parisian dressing
that, although one looks impeccably on point, label-flashing is out.
Another first
principle, she advises me, is to grasp the essential idea that you
never know when something will happen to you. “I believe you should
always be ready to meet someone, whether it is your favorite writer
or the man of your life. I don’t mean just physically ready—you’ve
read, you’ve listened to music. You see—realistic, but still
romantic.”
It’s the sort of
thing passed down to her by her mother, a former French swimming
champion. “It’s the best advice I’ve ever had: always to be
proud.” I nodded weakly. Where I come from, just across the English
Channel, mothers instruct us never to be caught out without “decent”
underwear—“in case you get knocked down in the street.”
De Maigret, who
spends one week each month in New York, is also a sharp observer of
cultural differences. “Looking for perfection, as Americans do, is
a lack of self-confidence,” she said. “I’m always surprised how
guilty women feel not to be perfect. It must be hard to live every
day.”
Still, there was a
glint in her eye as she continued: “There is no woman in Paris who
has ever had surgery. Not one.” And then: “There is no guilt in
lying about little things. Like dieting, like surgery. We just don’t
talk about these things.” She shrugged. “It’s boring.” In the
view of de Maigret and her circle of friends, “We don’t want
people to think we have spent an hour doing our hair when we should
be reading.”
I liked her even
more as she delivered some parting words about French sexual
politics: “Let the man be a man and the woman be a woman,” she
said. “We have to understand rights, but at the same time we want
gallantry. It’s manners, but he also makes you feel like this
desirable woman, and he feels like a man.” Then she leaned forward.
“There’s also something about not pleasing men. It’s about
doing whatever you want, and he has to follow.”
Caroline de
Maigret's book
La Ville Lumière
An excerpt from How
to Be Parisian Wherever You Are: Love, Style, and Bad Habits
1:00 p.m.: First
Date at the Café de Flore
She picks up the
menu. Each time, the same thought crosses her mind: In her hands,
this is more of a geographical map, an intimate and chaotic path
through the jungle of her culinary neuroses, than a restaurant menu.
She will have to battle her way without stumbling, and without
looking like she’s asking herself too many questions.
Smoked salmon
No, wrong choice.
She’ll just end up using the salmon as a pretext for eating all the
blinis and crème fraîche. Her greed could end up on her hips.
Does this man
sitting across from her realize how difficult it is to be a woman in
this city? Probably not. But she doesn’t want to judge him too
quickly.
Haricots verts salad
The problem with a
first date is that her every gesture will take on a particular
meaning. He’s watching her as if he’s filming her, recording her
movements forever: the way in which she loses her phone in her large
handbag, and that message on her voice mail she can’t help
listening to in front of him. He is analyzing her. Disorganized, a
tad nervous, compulsively sociable. One day, later on, he will find
out that she weighs herself every morning, but for now, he must
believe that her figure is simply nature’s gift. Better to choose a
real dish, giving him the hackneyed image of a bon vivant and letting
him believe that this is her approach to all the great pleasures of
life.
Warm duck confit?
Her finger, somewhat
nervously, scrawls down several lines on this damned menu. The waiter
is coming over, and she knows she will have to come to a decision.
And so she figures she will brave the danger with an act of courage.
She will choose something adventurous:
“Welsh rarebit,”
she says.
She reads out the
foreign words so casually you’d think she’d done it a hundred
times before. The man opposite her looks up, surprised, and she
savors the effect. Of course, she has no idea what she’s just
ordered. On the menu, in small print, it says: “a specialty made
from cheddar, beer, and toast.” Inwardly she smiles: inedible. No
matter, she will talk enough for him not to notice that she’s
ignoring her plate. The waiter then turns to the man.
“I’ll have the
same, please,” he says.
In a flash, the
whole scene crumbles. A sheep, a follower. Suddenly she realizes that
his conversation has been peppered with banalities for the past half
hour. She now knows she’ll eat two bites, then find a reason to
leave before the hour is up. And she will never see him again. Adieu.
Adapted from the
book How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are: Love, Style, and Bad Habits
© Anne Berest, Audrey Diwan, Caroline de Maigret, and Sophie Mas.
Published by Doubleday, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing
Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.
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