Les Parisiennes des Mamansnet: Too much good taste can be very boring. Independent style, on the other hand, can be very inspiring.

[botemp]

Lovers of Parisian style and fashion with a conscious mindset and lots of chatter in between.

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Favoured Parisian addresses:

Second Hand Shops

Outlets

Favoured London addresses:

Charity Shops, Dress Agencies, and Outlets

Favoured NYC addresses:

Consignment shops, Vintage, and Restaurants

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Previous threads:

Un

Deux

Trois

Quatre

Cinq

Six

Sept

Huit

Frumpy horrors and the Valentino show. Worth watching in movement as well unless you don't want to end up like me with thoughts about redesigning the whole house to accommodate indoor potted trees in travertine boxes

And since I'm on a posting roll and we're all posting daily outfits, weather is crap here, it's hardly been warmer than 20° since coming back from Paris. It's been a bit warmer without wind and somewhat humid the last few days which is mostly odd. I'm on the lookout for long sleeved dresses as a result but not found much. Tried on this Cecile Copenhagen one but I felt all of three years old in it... First pic is of a Ba&sh dress that I've had for a while, (please excuse the pageant pose, I've clearly lost it) it's one of the few long sleeve warmish weather dresses I have but it is a tad formal despite being quite low at the front. Yesterday I wore my new Christian Dior skirt with a silk blouse and ankle boots, which is excellent in movement and drew quite a few stares and compliments but was a bit too warm by midday unfortunately. Sorry no pics, today I'm in IRO silk trousers and a simple white tee but I'm fearing that's going to be a bit too warm soon as well with the humidity.

Elle have you tried 120lino? I have a white linen cover up that bought second hand a couple of years ago and is excellent. I have not seen their current pieces.
I can see why you want to return that dress, but I bet you look great on it!

Bo that Valentino ... what were they thinking?
And That Zara dress, I do not get it.

I would love to see a photo of the CD skirt next time you wear it Bo. I have not seen the whole video of the Valentino but I am failing to see the attraction of the models in the photos you shared. But glancing over the video there are some nice pieces 7 min in the video in green that I can see working.
Today I wore a pair of white emin & paul white trousers and tried to wear with a cami and open light blue maje shirt. I was trying to go for a summer version of the advent when you Bo did the man-spreading day, I cannot remember which day it was.
It was a day working from home but I had to go for a casual lunch.
Not sure how successful I was but I love the comfort of a shirt and trousers with a masculine touch, the cami was my attempt to soften the look.
Btw - I ended up wearing my red chunky sandals not those pumps in the photo.

Bloom/Elle- tried to purchase one linked and also sleeveless version but it won't allow me to add anything to my basket? Will try ringing customer services tomorrow.

Elle- dress looks beautiful but (for me) the shape of the sleeve towards the wrist makes it seem quite theatrical, though perhaps in the flesh it seems more bohemian (might just be the way the model is posed). Could it be used as occasion wear too if you would get more use from.it that way? Unfortunately can't really help with beach cover-ups as we are holidaying in the Lake District this year.

Went RL shopping today and bought:

1. Suede bag pictured, loved size but have already decided to return it as think it will age poorly.
2. Leather bag pictured- photo doesn't do it justice, it's a beautiful colour, a sort of deep brick red with a hint of really dark salmon. It will be the small-ish bag I wanted for just keys/ sunglasses/purse/phone.
3. Black suede M&S ball heeled shoes (think Xing bought them first- the ones in photo with ceiling rose?), love them but need to decide where I will wear them/ what I would wear them with outside of work.
4. Jacket- really want feedback on this in particular. It was the first thing I tried on and I loved it, colour is lovely (forest green?) and I don't have anything like it already, but when I tried it on at home I was less taken by it. Possibly as it was creased to hell from being scrunched in a bag, but would like your thoughts on if it's a keeper as I don't 'need' another jacket. Sorry photo is poor, realised the better one had a naked child in the background.

Leather jacket arrived- again sorry for poor photos (really can't find mirror we like so using one propped on desk in our room that was left when we bought the house).

It definitely wouldn't want to be any smaller, but think the fact it is so close fitting on the shoulders makes it quite flattering for my broad shoulders. Leather is quite nice too, not the buttery soft type but the thicker type that I associate more with vintage leather jackets. Colour is true to photos I originally posted, a really dark green that almost reads as a slate grey. Think I'll get lots of wear out of it so pleased with my bargain. I have taken a photo of it fastened so you can see the fit but would always wear it open.

Good find Methen. I much prefer old-school leather, I think it ages way better.

Am I the only person on S&B who hasn’t seen That Zara Dress in real life? It doesn’t look like my thing at all but I actually quite like it from the pics. It’s pretty and I’m pleased to see a change of silhouette taking hold at last. I did like the body-con trend to begin with but it went on for far too long for me.

Can promise that the Zara dress would not make me look lean. I’d look like a grown woman pathetically playing child’s dress up.

Am on a train now en route to Berlin. The tgv window has a sticker on the window encouraging me to let myself dream. So on that note let me say that the Valentino pictures look gorgeous. I have a think for red and sweeping silhouettes.

The linen dress is beautiful Red. But I can see why it wouldn’t be a great lifestyle fit. If you’ll love it for years though you’d get the wear out of it anyway so could be a keeper!

Methen, your green jacket is a lovely colour, and personally I might be inclined to keep it based on that alone because it’s so hard to find jackets in colours. It does however seem like an ordinary utilitarian jacket so if you have twenty already it’s hard to justify keeping?

I have to say I didn’t get much of a feel for Paris this trip, but that might be because of the season ie amount of tourists. The Parisians I saw where mostly working class I’d say, and “ethnic” for lack of better word. So I’ve seen lots of African style dresses and headdresses, Indian saris and shalwar khamis, teens in more banlieu fashions with Adidas leggings and runners. I do think I noticed a propensity for carrying fabric tote bags though and not so many “real” bags, and that made me laugh because my younger daughter who works in fashion (= a shop) was saying the other week how annoying it is to have to carry a shopping plastic tote or bag and it’s impossible to look good carrying one. Well they do in Paris When we shopped in Stockholm she bought stuff in Uniqlo and had to carry their pokemon paper bag the rest of the day and was really annoyed haha.

Yesterday I saw a sign in the metro for an exhibition somewhere on “fashion from the back” which looked interesting. Had I been more prepared I might’ve gone to that but no point with either mr bani or minimus in tow.

Oh I seem to have missed a page of pics and trips Off to catch up.

Red I love the cami&shirt- that's on of the reasons I love this thread: if you said cami/shirt to me, I would wear it with shirt almost done up with cami peeking out but I LOVE the way you wear it here, it would never have occurred to me to style it like that.

Flo I haven't seen the Zara dress either and imagine it would be too ubiquitous now to consider purchasing even if it made me look like Cindy Crawford.

Ban Berlin is my favourite European city that I've visited so far, I spent 5 nights there and am pitching to go back as still lots I didn't fit in. I have been thinking about the jacket and I am still tempted to keep it, it's not lined and therefore could be worn in place of a cardigan which would be helpful as I have several but they all feel really stale at the moment. Living in the north of England makes a thin layer pretty essential though even in the height of summer.

Interesting point about the cloth bags, I nearly always have one draped over my shoulder as so useful when shopping or carrying etc bits. Were they the reusable shopper type or something more elaborate?

Bo Not going to lie, your complaint pretty much made my day as I see you (even though I've never met you) as a style guru.

Really appreciate all of your daily outfit photos, I think these (along with the advent calendar) are where I find most inspiration. When I look at catwalk/ collection shots, I can admire them and identify what I like/dislike, but other than four combinations I find it hard to translate them into something I would wear. I am similar with design, when people might discuss how a house layout might change/used to be, I really struggle to put the image in my mind. So thank you.

Type- other than colour combinations. Sorry. There are other typos/autocorrect but hopefully original meaning mot list. Dubious to preview as it has wiped my post the past few times and left me cursing.

Argh! The irony. meaning not lost

I think even Cindy Crawford would look dowdy in that dress. I still have yet to see it on anyone else in the flesh but it has left me wondering if perhaps it looks better on certain figures? I know Zara favours pear shapes quite a bit and they're quite narrow at the top so perhaps it's all pear shaped people that love it? Thick thighs disappear and even heavy bottom legs and cankles wouldn't be that apparent. I'm on the fence with the 'it's a more progressive silhouette than body con' it seems to be more a pronouncement of 'modest fashion' which I'm not all that convinced is all that progressive at all. It's the 'man repelling' stuff that feels more forward to me. Though that Zara dress is probably efficiently repelling as well.

Methen, I probably could have worded it better, it wasn't a complaint merely something that left me wondering. I think you have great natural intuition with an amazing sourcing ability (like the Zara jacket which looks to be a fab find) so I'm genuinely left baffled that you don't recognise it for yourself. You have an ease to your style that I struggle to achieve.

Intuition is a funny thing though, and we probably don't give it the credit it's due most of the time. That Carine Roitfield interview that Catherine posted a few weeks ago, where CR claimed chic was inate -so don't even bother trying- has left me wondering. My blind spot is that I don't consider myself chic at all but it's what most people would describe my style as first with a little breathy sound as if it's something highly unachievable that's always somewhat unnerving. I'm not really convinced it's inate but more what you've been exposed to in terms of aesthetics and whether it's encouraged or not. But then I was a ridiculous discerning child with very fine motor skills from the get go, so perhaps CR had a point?

Back to the clothes, the green rain(?) coat, I sort of get why it's not the most exciting thing in the world but I do like the way it hangs from your body when open, that's what I mean with an easy grace on you, it looks like it has good movement despite being a very ordinary school run type coat at first glance. Have you tried it with a light weight scarf, something with a pattern and a bit of green in could be nice.

Bani, interesting thing about the textile bags, there's a fancy supermarket here (sort of a Dean and Deluca in NYC, I'm not sure what the UK equivalent would be, more specialised than Waitrose but not as fancy as the Harrod's food hall but in that direction) and the Parisians that visit Amsterdam are obsessed with it for whatever reason and subsequently the brown fold away bags with their logo are somewhat of a hipster holy grail of textile bags in Paris. It was really bizarre spotting them everywhere and I always have at least one squirrelled away in all my bags (even the impractical Rokh) and once was asked by someone in Paris if I would please sell it to them as theirs had broken down and they'd been inconsolable ever since. I happily gave mine away but I'm still baffled at the popularity of such an 'in the know bag'. There's a secret nod of recognition and everything

That’s so funny about the bag, Bo! Imagine. I’d have expected that kind of desperation from maybe Japanese #prejudice Yes Methen, it’s just shopping bags, the kind with longish straps that can go over the shoulder. I just noticed after the first day because i was on the look out for fancy handbags, and saw so few of them. My husband has a love affair with Shakespeare and Co and was considering buying their tote bag. I said he would have got right in then ( but in the end he didn’t).

In bed in Berlin now. What an immensely more livable city this is! So much greenery and open spaces (and not of the empirical
Napoleonic kind). We sauntered out from our Airbnb flat and there was a little pizza place with tattooed people eating and serving tables. A young mother at the next table with a one year old in a sling. Quiet streets. God we swedes aren’t really cut out for the bustle of Paris at all, haha.

Bo I'm sorry it's too late, you can't say it wasn't a compliment, I'd already taken it as one and will be dining out on it for weeks!

Interesting pondering about style being innate. I certainly think exposure must help, I can't remember which French blog it was, but I remember a Parisian woman recalling that she would observe those around her paying attention to fabric, seams, cut turning away what was not quite right etc. I think such things must help, but then there are some people who seem to have a natural eye and then those who wear less conventionally chic clothes but have such a manner/ attitude, je ne sais quois that they just exude natural style. I'm not sure if it's a self confidence that manages to be totally unarrogant, perhaps that's why I find it more with older people, the sort of self assurance that comes with age/ knowing yourself/ comfortable in your own skin etc?

I can't say I grew up around people who I would say were especially interested or notable in terms of fashion with the exception of one aunty. She had the sort of presence I alluded to above, she was stylish yet her clothes aren't what was memorable about her if that makes sense? When I try to think of her style, she didn't really look 'high fashion' but she would look current, jewellery and accessories were beautiful, unusual but always interesting (they often had an intriguing back story of a little vintage shop or market in a far flung land where she had stumbled across them). She always wore a subtle but notable scent. Her house was similar, stunning but still homely, yet hard to pin down why. Original artwork, big squishy sofas; she believed in the ethos of buying once well which was probably not the prevalent attitude of the 80s (which is when I was a child around her).

She sadly died of cancer when I was 18, in life though from difficult situations to clothes choices I often ask myself 'what would Aunty Larry do'?

Bani when in Berlin we took the train (cheap as chips) out to Charlottenburg Palace and it's stunning, a lovely excursion if you have the time.

We also went to a funky nightclub, no idea of name (probably 9 years ago and inebriated), it was in a sort of derelict building with DJs in the basement and ground floor, a sort of ramshackle art gallery/shop upstairs, lots of bonfires graffiti etc. Too grungy to be hipster but loved it. I am actually convinced it's the one from the first series of 'Killing Eve' where Bob was stabbed.

Talking of 'Killing Eve', I remember there being much discussion of it in previous threads but I hadn't started it then. Thought they were all stylish in their own rite but it was Carolyn who had me captivated- both the character and her wardrobe. My friend was telling me about the actor's life and she sound equally mesmerising in RL.

Methen, is this an autocorrect mess up? I did mean it as a compliment originally not a complaint but I read you read it as a complaint initially? Dine out on it all you like regardless, it was always meant as a compliment.

Your Aunt Larry sounds fab, the name alone already conjures up a lot. I do think people who happily walk uncharted paths tend to (at least appear) to do it with an ease that's difficult to replicate. It's the ones seeking to make sense of it all or create a system around it is where it can often feel contrived IMO. When I was in Paris all the couture shows were on so all those street shots of the attendants you see flooding the internet are suddenly all around you randomly, and it does look impressive at first glance, but look closer and you realise it's all new, and it's all so deliberately thought out that it loses a lot of its magic. Meanwhile the models who are rushed from one venue to the next on the back of a scooter still wearing the crazy hair and makeup from the previous show in their comfy hastily thrown on clothes make for more interesting sights.

Exposure I see broader as well, I mean fabric, cut, etc. it helps to have knowledge of those and with the internet that's easier accessible than before but I think it's also the things you've been surrounded with, the museums you've visited, how someone taught you to look or appreciate art, how much of the world you've seen, etc. I'm definitely an advocate of buy once buy right, but I'm also aware I need to shake it off now and then and embrace a bit of recklessness.

Last post for now (I would say 'I promise' but I'd be lying), you can tell I've missed the thread! Just wanted to say that these are the desired shoulder bags in these parts from Boothes (a Cumbrian based supermarket, very similar to Waitrose). I have several and can see the appeal, they are about £3, come in lovely colours, have a perfect strap length and last really well- plus the phrases tickle me.

I've always struggled to grasp the breadth of Berlin, it's all these little pockets everywhere and trying to find the place with the really good Thai restaurant you went to last time becomes almost impossible. Granted there was a wall running through it once so it's not that odd that it feels disjointed. Definitely a better destination with teenagers in tow than Paris where you're more likely to do all the expected sights and get caught up in that tourist stream. Much prefer the museums in Berlin as well and they've got some interesting architecture too. All the WWII related sights do get me down though, so I always have mixed feelings about Berlin. Did really enjoy a day out in Potsdam against expectation as I assumed it would be like Versailles and that's always been a bit of a let down. Weirdly, also had some of the nicest falafel ever in Potsdam.

Ooh the Parisian hipsters would surely pay a premium for those shopping bags. I'm half inclined to set up a pop up shop in Paris with high status grocery bags.

Bo I think the compliment/ compliant confusion lies at my end, I took your original comment as a lovely compliment and then (mis) read it that you'd said it wasn't intended as that.

We'll be in the Lakes in a couple of weeks so happy to purchase bags for anyone who would like one posting out.

Ebay top arrived today, not what I expected: thought it would be a thin cotton type fabric but it's actually a thick polyester, almost like scuba diving suit fabric. The joy of a £4 Ebay purchase is that I can wear it today and if I don't feel comfortable, pop it in the charity shop bag. I mentioned I'd been enjoying getting back to costume jewellery (after a couple of years of minimal, delicate gold pieces), especially earrings so pairing it with these bright blue earrings. Let me know if you think charity shop bag is the best home for it. Excuse eldest child's confiscated PS controllers in shot!

compliment/ complaint

Someone tried to buy my hessian Fortnum and Mason bag in New York a couple of years ago, so add that to the stock list for the popup.
I do like Booths but I'm too far south.
I think we should all be more Aunt Larry Methen!
Today I'm going through my long coats and seeing what fits and what needs repair and dry cleaning. I have two white, two camel and one black (and a battered navy Chloe). I suspect that's one white coat too many.
I've made an appointment to discuss hair loss treatment with derm next week, may I ask what percentage minoxidil you use Bo?

I don't always get on with scuba fabric Methen but it does give some structure to those sleeves which is rather nice. I'd see how it wears. Love the earrings. Unfortunately I have obstinate ears allergic to everything and often end up in titanium studs, but I keep saving images of baroque costume jewellery.

I'm so glad I checked back on the thread as I'd completely missed the Valentino haute couture video. Not had time to watch it all yet but it was worth it just for that dress made of yellow mop heads with the matching hair - marvellous! I think I'm missing colour.

The main thing I remember about Berlin was that everyone we spoke to seemed to be an artist or musician and I came back with raging lifestyle envy. This was several years ago though when rents were cheap and I imagine it's probably changed now. I also remember going to a near derelict building that was a kind of gallery/artists' squat - not sure if it was the same place you mentioned Methen? (It also stank of piss.)