Les Parisiennes des Mamansnet: "You gotta have style. It helps you get down the stairs." - Diana Vreeland

[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 Dix

Onze

Douze

Merch created in honour of our ten thread anniversary:

Les Parisiennes de Mamansnet shop

One of the supplements had an article about people who dressed in regency style as normal day wear. flo, is that you?

I'm trying really hard to imagine that pissed off model with a frilly bonnet now. Didn't think she could look more pissed off but pretty sure a frilly bonnet will do it. Mind you, if this lockdown lasts any longer I'm pretty sure there will be takers for attached in an adult size

Oh those exist Bo. Those exist.

Aaah don't tell me it's a sex thing 😱

(have some care for my innocence, already)

My Céline top arrived yesterday, btw, condition was definitely oversold, it has a weird pink hue to it that I think is from colours bleeding. I'll see if I can fix it but definitely glad I bought it for the label not the shirt.

Yes I understand it is a thing. I advise against googling.

Oh no quirky has outed me

I think these might have been the pouffy shirt people.

Urgh, babygrow porn, only on MN would I find this out 🤢

Ooh those shirts look like excellent nighties, and even to be worn out, I quite like this moss green number, I feel like Keira Knightley could have worn it in P&P. Prices are good too, provided you live in the UK and don't need to import them and pay lots of fees and taxes on top

Dirty feckers – I was only thinking of the fact that there are adult onesies for like pyjama/lounge purposes. Go away with your filthy minds.

How do we feel about the H&M/Simone Rocha collab?

Forgot - those shirts look so well made. I honed in on the trousers of course ... you lucky Brits, being able to find stuff like that.

We are indeed truly blessed bani.

I'm here, reading along, not contributing very much here because I am not one for historic clothing, much less flounces or big sleeves or collars.

I bought a new pair of red jeans, from Hiut, and an ecru pair too (which have been put away for a month or several as one outing with Xingdog will be her signal to roll in black river mud and leap all over me). The red ones have to be broken in through wear as they are ultra-stiff sturdy denim, no Lycra. Plus thermal underwear, and a beanie. The glamour!

There's not much going on here: trying to shed a couple of kg that have crept on during the lockdowns which is slow going. Weight doesn't fall off the way it once did.

Do I detect a note of sarcasm Xing? ;)

Well I took a long walk today and visited three charity shops and one vintage one, looking for wool trousers. Took a while because new restrictions on how many people can be inside meant I had to queue outside. I tried on three pairs of trousers in the charity shops. One was Mulberry size 16 but I was too fat which annoyed me. Also a pair from now defunct NL brand Turnover in a size 44 that fit oddly over the crotch. Super annoyed by that because I have a pair in that size from that brand that fit really well but are falling apart at the seams. Why did these not fit? Stupid clothes. In the vintage shop I ended up trying on men’s trousers but I didn’t love any of them. The owner kept telling me they all fit so well but they were only ok, and since prices were higher I didn’t go for anything. Might go back after a think, depending on how desperate I start feeling. No photos, sorry.

Truly, we are very well served for clothing here, bani, but if it's not what you want... then it might as well not exist. I wasn't being mean sarcastic.

My fingers are crossed that the perfect pair of wool trousers are just waiting to find you before it gets warm and you no longer need them. You win the [trophy] for persistence.

These any good Bani?

Bo those are lovely trousers it generally I find slim ankle length hard to pull off. The knees go pouchy, the stomach bulges and the proportions feel off. How do I keep my ankles warm etc. By now I’m desperate enough to give it a shot but MaxMara really don’t like giving size information so we’ll see - I see another parcel back and forth waiting to happen. It’s the top of my budget so I could only get one pair too.

I dislike those hip pockets too, they ruin those lovely wide trousers!

I’m back, sorry for sloping off, the dreaded B-work has been taking up a lot of my time. Happy New Year if it isn’t outrageously late to say that.

Those navy trousers are gorgeous.

Bani – I’m not generally a big Simone Rocha fan, it just doesn’t meet the “Would I wear it” test and I don’t love the embellishments. That said, I have been lusting over the attached skirt from the main line. I could add it to my papal wardrobe and it’s a tribute to St Malachy, who was noted for his predictions, bit like you botemp. If I buy the skirt do I become a fully signed up cult member? On the H&M collab I see that there is a fair bit of ire being thrown at both H&M and SR as the sizing only goes up to a UK 14/ EU 42. To be honest that does seem like a total cop out as the promotions videos make a big song and dance about inclusivity and it being a collection for “everyone”. I’m sympathetic to indie retailers who don’t produce a fully inclusive range, but for H&M it feels lazy and also economically not a great move. I'm interested to see what the actual pieces look like.

I will be back later with a more thorough catch up, but I wanted to post quickly when I had 5 minutes to get back into the conversation.

Bani if you usually fit a 44 in vintage Turnover you'll fit (potentially with a bit of room taking in account size changes with time) a German 44 in Max Mara (which is an Italian 48 iirc but check).

On Simone Rocha, I'm a bit like Elle, I like it as a runway spectacle but in RL I'm always left wondering if they let some tweens go mad with a glue gun and bejazzeling the hell out of it all. Bit infant Blair Waldorf gone wild.

I do like the occasional thing, I've been eyeing attached by SR mainline (secondhand) but while I could imagine wearing that at a Christmas party it really would be a once a year outing type of dress so it drastically needs to drop in price. I've not seen enough of the h&m collection to know what it's like (just saw some overembelished things on models sitting behind a table ).

The sizing outrage, I'm on the fence, the PR I read kept going on how detail oriented and perfectionist SR was during the process ie. quite demanding of the quality and finishes, refusing to settle for less and realistically you can't do that and go past size 42. It's a pattern thing, you basically need a new pattern for one or two extra sizes or accept they look like shit, which is a disservice too. But I think they should have made the investment and just had a whole plus size (if necessary limited) range, the silhouettes suit larger women and it would have been good marketing as it's something high end fashion never does and given a dimension of yet another designer collab.

If the shops are open by then (I doubt it, tbh) I might have a look in store but I don't anticipate torturing myself with trying to score something online unless there's something that really stands out.

But I've been in a mood lately, I just want to go into a shop, see something amazing and then dither about it for weeks with the occasional visit before committing in contented bliss. Internet shopping sucks, never thought I'd be the one saying that

I mean I know it's not as simple as just adding inches to the garment, but H&M have the experience and manpower to draft plus size patterns and as you say the styles are generally good for larger bodies, so it feels like a really odd choice.

Weird - I post on this thread and immediately get an email from The Outnet with a cut price brown Carice coat on it. Manifestation in action.

On the update side:

70sduvet that sounds really tough for both you and DS. I think this whole situation has been really hard on kids and while I know they’re resilient screens, home schooling and parental attention doesn’t compensate for actual school and interacting with their peers. I watched some of the sopranos too recently and it’s funny to see how the cycling shorts, ankle-length sports socks and a loser shirt have been near enough directly translated to today’s fashion.

Bani - how are you feeling now?

Red and xing hope you're doing well too.

But I've been in a mood lately, I just want to go into a shop, see something amazing and then dither about it for weeks with the occasional visit before committing in contented bliss. Internet shopping sucks, never thought I'd be the one saying that

Quoting this in case you try to get your post deleted and deny it was ever said. EXACTLY.

They say something about "tulle skirts" in the blurb about the SR collaboration so I personally lost interest quite fast, I'm done with tulle skirts being the only design we're permitted to have.

Elle, I have to say that skirt is a look alright. I don't think SR is the one for me at all! I also think sizing it only up to a 42 is bullshit if you are talking inclusivity. It doesn't take much to be a little bigger than that actually (yes yes, I am personally attacked by this). But I agree that it means they have to actually do the pattern work, something H&M do not do. I think there is money to be made from putting in some effort there, as well as branching out into petite and tall lines, and look at more hourglassy clothes since the big backside trend is going nowhere.

Btw, forgot to tell yiz, saw a fella in a kilt down town. Full casual kilt getup, a jumper on top. But knee-high socks, sporran, the works. It was -5 or so.

Bo thank for the sizing info by the way! I think I'm going to use my lunchtime walk tomorrow to go back to the charity shop and see if the Turnover trousers are still there. They won't be that expensive and I can afford to see if I can tinker a bit with the fit - if it doesn't work they can just be more casual nobody-is-seeing-my-clothes-under-my-coat-anyway trousers. Am considering ordering the MaxMaras to try, it'd do me good to try to branch out my silhouette but I do anticipate just looking tubby.

I don't have much, if any, sway with MNHQ, Bani, no need to archive it for prosperity do you have the secondhand market on Zalando in Sweden too? They have a fair bit of odd obscure defunct brands like Turnover on there and I think you can return things.

Ah, diversity, at this point it's pretty much eroded any meaning beyond commercial appeasement these days. Plus ça change.

They've definitely missed an opportunity, and they have the data to back it up, I'm sure they do, they hired Cambridge analytica guy. Average size of women is around 14-16, depending on where you are, so they really should have known.

There is an issue though that woman over a certain size spend as minimally as possible on clothes with the idea of why bother due to extreme low self esteem and societal attitudes or thinking they'll buy something nice when they finally slim down. It's going to take a lot more than inserting token model that's a poor representation of said group as fairly close to standard beauty ideals and crying, yay diversity. A plus size designer collab would have meant something.

I must admit I knew very little about Simone Rocha, so little in fact that I read it as Simon Rocha and my first thought was, isn't his name John? Ahem.

Having had a google, I think it's a bit decorative for my taste - at least at the moment, I'd have loved it at one time and may do so again. And yes I am aware of the irony of saying this when I've just been banging on about pouffy shirts but hey, that's me.

I thought a lot of mainstream H&M didn't go over size 14 or am I confusing them with somewhere else? I get it as a business decision, but as far as I'm concerned, anyone who does that and then starts pontificating on inclusivity should never be taken seriously again.

I know absolutely feck all about Simone, and the sum total of my knowledge about her father is from a UK programme from prob early 90s where couples getting married did it on the telly and got an assigned designer for the dress (I remember the groom got to go shoe shopping with the male presenter who used to do a lot of clothes programmes at the time what was his name ... anyway pro tip was remember to remove the price tag) and one episode had John Rocha as the designer and he did a coat and dress combo (winter wedding) and there were "celtic spirals" on it. I remember thinking it was lovely, and being surprised that he was Irish because Ireland was still so monocultural at the time.

That's it. Oh and I agree with Flo's last sentence there.

Swedish Zalando has no pre-loved section, alas. They do have about two models of wool trousers I might consider trying, but they are about 1700 SEK. I dislike this.

bani, I think I watched that too with the Celtic spirals. I remember John Rocha did some good collabs with Debenhams in the day.

I saw this documentary on her a while back, her dad features in it a lot. I thought it was much longer but it's still an enjoyable watch (dad lasted longer in my memory though, sorry Simone ). Although I doubt that if you don't really buy into the brand you'll not be convinced much more by this. I do remember a lot of emphasis at the time was that it was a predominantly or all female team, none of that PR on the H&M collab now 🤔

The designers at Debenham collabs were a bit hit and miss, but when they were good they were excellent. Betsy Jackson's ranges were among my favourites. A black embroidered midi skirt was a goodie, and might have been perfect -- if it had had pockets! Still gets worn, even without though.

That's true, Xing, your skirt sounds lovely. I had a John Rocha at Debenhams raincoat that I wore until it died, also a Jasper Conran cocktail dress that got worn to lots of events.

I am falling behind!
These last two weeks have been silly busy, we are having our front driveway done. It wasn’t in our top priority, more like nr 3 but at the moment we cannot do the other 2 as would mean workers inside the house, so we decided to go ahead with the driveway, it also means that the economy and local workers get some work, although they were pretty busy and only managed to fit us in as another family is isolated.
Good to see you Elle. Yes I can see that skirt being the type of thing to daydream in the current climate.
I am sending back all the tops I got from monki, I am very disappointed. The fit is outrageous. I am keeping the joggers , they are ok just plain thick cotton joggers . Nothing to rave about here.