To hell with the notion we should all aspire to look French anyway

[madforgreentea]

Ok ladies, this is part venting, part seeking views on appropriate attire for our regular summer visit to 'France to visit my French husband's family.

This thread has been sparked by an off hand comment my husband made the other day when he saw me trying on Brora's botanical skirt in bougainvillea.

I have coveted this skirt since seeing it gorgeously modelled in brora's 2014 spring summer catalogue. How do you like it? I asked him. "Very British" came the response, which, when uttered by the french, usually means frumpy, gaudy, unflattering and lacking in sartorial judgment.

I was incensed. Not because he didn't like it but because what belies this comment is a rigid dictatorial view that if you're not dressed a la francaise it must be because you don't know how and lack taste (according to my mother in law). The fact is, I am just ever so fed up of the suffocating way in which left right and centre we are told we are supposed to dress as the French, look like the French, behave like the French etc etc. I love my French husband and his family and they have lots of wonderful qualities. But I cannot for the life of me understand why adopting aloofness, feigning nonchalance and working so hard at being casual whilst looking down on others who don't meet that standard at the expense of improving one's character should be attributes to which I must aspire.

So your views please ladies. Should I return said skirt and limit the 'faute de gout' mutterings from my french family and wear the usual typical French uniform or should I don the 'frump' defiantly and subversively?

Those IRO Paris clothes look like cheap, nasty tat and not what I imagine as French Chic.

I long for an androgynous body - 5ft10'', v small boobs, no hips, no bum, long legs, long neck: elegance personified
However, seeing as I am blessed with 5f6'' 34G size 14 figure I tend to stick to quite structured clothes so I don't end up looking like some kind of fertility goddess IYSWIM.

I am sorry, all the florals don't do much for me either.
Could you not stick to bright colours and simple shapes?
Or geometric/monochrome prints?
Less boho, more skandi chic??

Just dress in a way that makes you comfortable and happy. You don't have to do that French capsule wardrobe thing- it's suits some women and others not. Hence the vast array of clothing available.

That skirt though mings. How about looking at how Alys FOwler dresses. She has that cool, artsy yet laid back vibe going on and uses a lot of colour and pattern.

[applause]

mad I think that's the most fabulous explanation for deliberate frumpiness that I've ever seen.

Having spent the last 5 months trying to dress my post-pregnancy body I couldn't agree more about the insidious impact of marketing and the underlying misogyny at play. Teens and androgynous bodies may provide more effective coat hangers but they're hardly the majority (and not where the disposable income is either).

I heard a clip on the radio today that colouring books are huge with the women of France since they put labels like 'stress reducing' etc on the cover. Apparently France also has one of the highest consumptions of anti-depressants in the world.

So they may all look chic but deep down are miserable, while you can skip about in your manky looking skirt with your head held high ; )

Good rant Greentea. I am sure there are a small minority of women who dress with great elegance, but I suspect the vast majority are far more worried about rising prices and record unemployment. The overwhelming fashion look here is called poverty.
I also think that a lot of the clothes on sale are not really very attractive; I actually think you see far more well dressed women in Spain and Italy.
So if anyone's French in-laws get snotty, please ask them about the clothes on the Four Weddings programme. Then please tell me why the frilly bits of lace, flowers and feathers in unlikely places and who on earth sells the shiny suits.
For the great past of French fashion I recommend a trip to the Dior museum in Granville; there were some very nice frocks once, if you could stand the corsets.

Sod the French.

I think their style is dull and they all look depressed. With pinched, sad faces delicately framed by a slightly silky lose top which floats over their protruding hip bones.

Give me floral cheer any day.

OP, if you like the skirt, wear the skirt.

There is an irony in refusing to be dictated to by your DH and his family, then meekly giving in a bunch of Internet strangers instead.

I agree with Select and others, please wear that skirt if you love it. So what if some people don't like it - no-one dies. They're just clothes.

I'm also a bit bemused by the idea that when you go to France you have to try and dress like the French. I don't see many foreign tourists adopting that approach in the UK

Have to say I have seen some appalling crimes against fashion on both sides of the channel. So those in glass houses and all that...

The French have the same attitude to food. And unfortunately their food isn't that great either, tis a bit on the dull side, but I'd been warned about that before we visited so it wasn't such a disappointment - you can eat much better food in London or New York.

I have various connections with France and go there a lot. This is a topic that makes me want to rant and rant.

They are dull dull dull in their appearance and style. Not only that but they are incredibly judgy pants about it. It makes me furious.

My adult DD lives there, is incredibly fashion concious and therefore has to tread a fine line between being herself,wearing things that suit her, and not appearing too crazy Brit. She nearly weeps when she gets back and sees the wonderful variety in the shops. She is curvy too and therefore not catered for in France.

I had a relationship with a Brit who has lived in France for all his adult life. He felt compelled to comment on everything I wore that was remotely un French including such innocent garments as coloured jeans. WTF?!! I love getting back into London and seeing the variety, imagination and joy of the way all ages of women dress.

We are the ones with the bloody style! Go for it OP. Show 'em!

If you love that skirt then wear it with pride OP.

I find it crazy that you would change your style just because you're going to France. Who cares if the in laws blanch at the sight of your 'very British' style. The French are lovely but far too prone to thinking the rest of the world should do as they do.

Not everyone wants to be a study in grey and taupe.

Springy my DH would agree with every word you said. He spends lots of his time in Paris for work & always says he can't understand at all the reputation for chic the women there have. Says they look little different from women in any other big city apart from being rather samey & boring.

OP I appreciate your rant. I lived in France for a couple years with my very un-French figure and yes, it is annoying.

But I still don't understand how you get from that rant to 'I'm going to wear a hideous frumpy skirt that costs £125 -- that'll show them!'

There's a big middle ground between androgynous and frumpy. And women who take the time to get in shape and dress in Frenchy styles are still 'real women' who care about their children.

Anyway why does it have to be one or the other? Personally I think a mix of British and French style is lovely.

OP, you are letting yourself get bullied by your French family. They are probably lovely in many ways but one thing the French do very well is criticise everything and anything, and what they don't do so well is open their minds to other ways of doing things. You see, I feel sorry for them because they don't travel much and even when they do, they keep their French blinkers very much on. They are also victims of their own standards (see consumption of anti depressants), so if I were you I would laugh indulgently at their narrow mindedness and celebrate your own free spiritedness. I do find the skirt horrid but if it makes you happy, who cares...

OP - I think you probably need to think in terms of a "modern rustic" style that would IMO be a modernised and more stylish look that your French provincial Eric Bompard loving in-laws would approve of and would make you feel comfortable. Think of what people wear in Ars-en-Re or in Guethary in the summer.

I have lived in France for years and while I've seen a few women who dress like the clichés mentioned here, there are loads who don't, who have a personal style and who look great.

My friends all have their own individual "look" and they wear it well and are relaxed about their appearance, AFAIK. If they have hangups and prejudices they hide them well, though none has a supermodel's measurements.

I know no one who has an androgynous body; nor do I know anyone who dresses like the models in Bonsoir's link.

Most of my friends do a moderate amount of sport and are quite health-conscious, but they enjoy a drink and a good meal, too. They seem to have a good balance.

I don't know anyone who'd be rude enough to openly judge anyone else's appearance and make them feel uncomfortable about themselves. Teenagers and twenty somethings are more uniform and boring in their dress sense, but I don't have any direct experience of this fashion dictatorship others on this thread have referred to. There are, apparently, pockets of normality in this ocean of arrogant, dictatorial, rude people that is France viewed from the UK...

OP: one reason the skirt might not be appreciated in France is that the print and cut might be considered a bit unflattering for a young woman, but if you want the skirt and feel good in it, then you should wear it.

Think of what people wear in Ars-en-Re or in Guethary in the summer

pretentious, moi?

I still need a link to see how these glamorous French women dress.

I'd like the link too and Think of what people wear in Ars-en-Re or in Guethary in the summer straight for pseuds corner

I just googled Eric Bompard and found this

snigger at Arse en re

Oh dear, I fear I may have ruffled a few feathers. No offense was ever intended. And for the record, I like how the French dress. I just don't like the judgment which often accompanies it. Of course not all French women are like that but there are a significant number.

I too lived in France for years, am francophile and have friends there who aren't judgmental. I have heard French women commenting on other women pejoratively, even when they're not frumpy. And I've heard French men commenting on the size of a friend's 'thunder thighs' even though she was a mere size 10. But condescension is often more effectively delivered by 'le look' rather than through words.

The thrust of my thread is not really whether French women dress more smartly and better than British women. On average I think they do. But there are things that British w

...things which British women do better than French women, and vice versa.

Rather, the point of my thread was, why are we supposed to care if we dress frumpily or not? Why are we supposed to aspire to being 'chic'. There's seldom the same emphasis on character as there is on appearance. And of course it's nice to dress in a way that makes us feel good and look good. But that can be achieved through a number of avenues, even frump if it makes your eyes twinkle ;)

Also, sorry if I seemed to suggest that women wishing to keep in shape aren't real women. Not at all what I meant. Of course they are. But women who don't do that are just as real and just as valid as women who do. It's just I wish that mass media and popular culture would recognise that!