Les Parisiennes de Mamansnet: Be More Aunt Larry

[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 Neuf

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We’re ten threads old! To celebrate we’ve got thread merch.

Les Parisiennes de Mamansnet shop

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Thanks quirky. I need to declutter clothing as I can't seem to find even the basics ( I did a sort out last summer and think I found a clever but impossible to find place to store some winter basics).

That burgundy scarf sounds great. Today I'm wearing a burgundy uniqlo heattech dress/tunic over faux leather leggings (slightly dressy for home but can't find those basics to slob in).

Bobbing back in to say that tomorrow I shall look properly at those links, but tonight I'm off to watch the final of Masterchef Professional. I've been away on a family visit, during which DS has applied to university for Film and Television Production. So it's fingers crossed for his application succeeding.

I have loved LOVED some of the AC pictures. Just not spent long enough looking to know which ideas I might take forward yet.

Hope your son gets on his course. Have fun at the final. Would love to hear what the behind the scenes stuff is like, how the shoot works.

Bloomed, we have an early Victorian house with not great storage (attic and basement are both proper rooms in use) so I'm clearing out the cupboard and under the bed. I hope that I can then put out of season stuff under the bed, the cupboards will become fitted wardrobes for current clothes etc. and I can get rid of the big but not very attractive wardrobe that we use atm and free up some drawer space. Hopefully, I won't lose anything, either.

Quirky that sounds like a plan. I have a large wardrobe but it seems to have become a space for the rarely-worn. I need someone to sort my life out.

Looking forward to hearing from xing’s backstage adventures 😀

Just been reading an article on the times about being the decade of dresses. The other day I was thinking how in the past dresses used to be saved for best and now there are so many versatile options
here

Where are you all reading that Xing went to the MCP final with backstage access? I just read it as she's off to watch the TV (no spoilers please, I have yet to see it). I'm not even sure there is an audience on that show, nor is it live

DAY 20 - DAY 20 - DAY 20

Switching themes again

Avant Minimal

I Make Myself Rich By Making My Wants Few -Henry David Thoreau

As we are ever inching closer to the day we wish for peace on earth followed by a period of reflection of the year and decade previous it is only natural to ponder on changes and moving forward, tempering and paying penance for the excess of the moment.

While minimalism has certainly seen a rise in popularity this past decade in the aftermath of the global financial crisis a lot of the original meaning got lost along the way. Essentialism and minimalism aren’t one and the same but have been used interchangeably. Whether the misinterpretation happened with the followers or the peddlers of the faith, it doesn’t really matter as the saturation point has probably passed at this point. While ‘minimalism’ can be an effective method of virtue signalling, you do need to be rather shouty about it and you can only really declutter once with great dramatics and applause.

Selfish as we are, our goodness only feels good if it’s acknowledged somehow, this sense of acknowledgement of self is where luxury has always derived its capital. It will find it now in that desolate group of minimalist seekers where luxury can once again be an expression of the highest form of craft, rather than an exclusive expression of brand recognition linked to status. An illusion of restraint and balance that doesn't quite erase a suggestion of exclusive knowledge, of quietly showing off.

This, I stress, is not a bad thing. Luxury has tied its fate with aspiration for far too long and devolved some of its intrinsic value. Luxury goods only survive when there’s an audience with an appetite for it and appetites are changing. If this leads to a re-establishment of luxury goods and their price tag equating to valuable skill, design, and quality that are built to last that is an encouraging thing.

Sarah Linh Tran

Every movement needs a poster girl and Sarah Linh Tran (probably unknowingly) is set to be the muse of the Avant Minimal. She is the design director and partner of Lemaire. Arguably a bit of a dude.

Also does couple dressing really well. There isn’t really much to know about Sarah Linh Tran. I mean I‘ve met her a couple of times at the Lemaire shop in the Marais and while reserved she’s very captivating and brings a sensibility to dressing that feels intuitive.

She possesses an ease and gentle grace that feels like a soothing antidote to the overwrought styling that we have been bombarded with in visual imagery through the proliferation of Instagram over the past decade.

She’s been around all this time, occasionally stealthily snapped or posing like a normal person for the brand in her function for a media feature but she is neither the brand Lemaire, nor is the brand her. She could probably have made a killing on Instagram selling the aesthetic, herself, her private life, but chose not to.

Deliberate choice is key here. It is what narrows the gaze and gives meaning to something, rather than hacking away at the extraneous in afterthought. It’s not something that is easy to copy, to commodify and pass on. It’s a training of the gaze that is undisturbed by others unless it opens it up to another avenue of potential while never rejecting anything outright.

Understand that well, have the ability to express that in a legible way, and really, the necessity to know all that sits behind that gaze becomes insignificant. Only those that fear intimacy would expose all so flagrantly and easily without thought. To that, an antidote in the form of Sarah Linh Tran is a welcome thing.

No, no... I just watched MCP final on TV. It wasn't a great series this year (IMHO) but it's fun to watch the car crashes in the first few weeks, and then to see who improves through to finals week. DS watched the first few with his head in his hands!

I think I have developed an instant crush on Sarah Linh Tran. Sadly their Uniqlo collabs are as close as I'm likely to get to Lemaire, but I am looking forward to the end of my (almost) no shop year, and to adding some new elements.

I'm kind of dreading watching the final, the professional one is the only one I can still stand to watch -because Gregg, only available in small doses- but it's always the same. One token woman (since Monica joined) who is always really impressive and constantly praised but will never win. One cheeky chappy who starts out a diamond in the rough and despite polishing up brilliantly will make an elementary mistake and disqualify himself at the most inopportune moment. Boring but steady who bumbles along all this time is suddenly announced as the most amazing inventive blah blah (basically what makes the other contestants worth rooting for) and I'm left with this face

I've spoiled it for myself already, haven't I?

Oh sorry XingMing. I'm clearly losing the plot these days! I was surprised MCTP had a live final and audience
Love avant minimal. Sarah Linh Tran gives good trouser.

Actually Bo, I think two or three women have won MCP since it started. This year's woman was a little too focused on pastry to dominate across the board and only 24 years old, but I would bet she has her own marquee in two or three years. She was very accomplished. The patissiers do well in the heats because they are precision chefs, but don't often win outright.

I looked it up, two female winners but from the days when it was still with MR jr. One was a shared win so don't know how that one counts. I do think technically accomplished chefs can sort of sanitise the soul out of dishes in their perfectionist tendencies. And, yes, you see that a lot in pastry (and Japanese cuisine), some of the big French patisserie names are not my favourite, like Laduree, it just tastes of technique and consistency to me, which is obviously impressive but there's also something quite dull about having bite after bite of the exact same thing.

Since Monica came on board they've definitely singled out plucky young women to champion forward and they're often strong on technique because they probably wouldn't remain standing in a male dominated environment without it (they have to be as faultless as possible) but I think not having a dramatically upward curve like the other contestants do works against them in the end as there's less measurable growth. It's difficult though as a viewer, you can't taste it so you don't really know.

What does XingSon make of it as someone with actual restaurant experience? I'm always quite surprised how well they can cook restaurant dishes but lack a lot of basics like prepping an artichoke or the classic sauces. I consider myself a good cook but no MasterChef material (and definitely not the professional series) and aside from anything requiring butchery (don't eat meat) those things wouldn't phase me that much. The given time would trip me up, but time is usually not the stumbling block with the professionals.

XingSon thinks that one of the failings is that too many of the contestants really don't know (or weren't trained in) the basics, especially in this year's early rounds. In his view, there isn't a short cut to acquiring the speed you need to succeed, or to getting the knowledge of the classic kitchen repertoire. Plating is a knack, but knowing how to develop flavours and finesse textures are learned through hands on time at the pass.

Lack of basics is my observation as well but they're not all self-taught, it's the ones who went to catering colleges who often lack the traditional fine dining fundamentals. I do suspect that they put in a few that'll just make for schadenfreude TV, the formula could probably use with a bit of a shakeup starting with getting rid of Mr Double GG.

DAY 21 - DAY 21 - DAY 21

Stuff The Vegans

If we’re to make deliberate choices, leather will have to be the material of choice for its versatility and endurance. Jean Paul Gaultier at Hermes started off the decade with a love letter to the material in his final collection for the brand. While the material has certainly been embraced in the years between, it really hasn’t diverted from form all that much until recently.

Enter a variety of colours that are not black and actually makes the material come to life. Figuratively, obviously. It’s all about the lustre, you see, it can’t be imitated. The lustre is something we’ve long been deprived of in favour of cheap Amazonian leather and environmentally and human health destructive tanning in third world countries which we didn’t really care about until we saw the Amazone region burning up.

Leather is reverting to its old luxury roots as a result but it doesn’t mean it’s all rock and roll or equestrian either. Instead, it’s being utilised to create modern shapes that play with notions of the utilitarian in both its stiff and soft qualities.