Les Parisiennes des Mamansnet: For the Love of Well Dressed Women in Repose

[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

Treize

So funny with that pale green blazer - I went into a second hand commission shop in the town we visited now and saw an 80s mint green linen blazer in the vintage section sleeves slightly rolled up of course. I’ve been bitten by your bug there and kept a look out for linen blazers but saw nothing. Am very pleased for Bo that the Arket blazer worked out.

The dress is same as attached. I look decidedly less cool but am very pleased with having used it. The fabric feels lovely to wear.

That is a great dress bani , you definitely cannot say I have Nothing to Wear. ok, you can… I say it sometimes … although funnily enough, this year I have thought it a lot less …

Lol , what is happening to me? Basically I was ‘tempted’ by a mint green blazer and didn’t even realise. Thank you bani for bringing me back to reality.

It is a lovely dress but if I’m being honest it doesn’t really suit me. But I loved it when it came out and am so happy just to own it … i saw someone online style it with a shirt so since I now am a person Who Wears A White Shirt I decided fuck it.

Oi oi oi in defence of the vintage blazer I saw it was from Marco Polo and a very tasteful mint, verging on pistachio. Which is still difficult to wear mind. And I think the new pale green is much less mint and more pistachio? Which is still difficult to wear …

I saw your Marni dress on eBay at £60 new on my size. I wasn’t even searching marni dresses …
Ah ok, so now we like pistachio blazers I am still searching for the perfect blazer . I don’t even know anymore what I am looking for…

Oh I remember that dress bani - yes it's great It's a great.

I nearly added further to my linen blazer collection with a Baird McNutt yesterday but it was huge on me and not in an insouciant Vogue model way. Also very beige. But I did get a 36'' men's (probly teenage boy's) blazer, all wool and fully lined for £6.99 - sleeves slightly too long - and another silk shirt in a nice mulled wine red for the same price - sorry 2nd pic won't post for some reason,

So great I said it twice!

Speaking of models, and now that I've admitted my problematic weakness for men who can dance, I'll make another confession: Vogue irritates the hell out of me these days.

I celebrated the end of isolation in my coffee shop with the September edition, and came away with burnt retinas from all the colour and feeling like you do when you pinch your child's sweets and travel from 'Mmmm' to 'What did I do that for?'

I like a bit of bonkers fashion but this just felt like scattergun 'I'm mad, me!' topped by an editorial of epic windbaggery by Edward Enninful.
I left it in the coffee shop and I never do that.

I remember you dithering over that lovely Marni dress, Bani, about time you wore it

Nice new blazer, Flo, I remain forever jealous of your access to cheap charity shops with nice things.

It's been a very long time since I picked up a fashion magazine, they're so crap now bar a few exceptions but those serious ones no good for vacuous gazing and the occasional amusing fluff article alternated with a thoughtful one. Vogue isn't what it used to be for a long time.

For more entertaining fashion content, I've recently fallen down a rabbit hole with this Japanese couple's lookbooks. They even did one especially for rainy weather (and I'm mightily miffed that the lovely trapezium shaped raincoats are only available in Japan) but they showed up on my recommendations for their . Subsequently I'm getting all these recommendations for Japanese couple vloggers, and am now down a rabbit hole of Japanese couples that live in Paris and make it look like a Ghibli production it's all so aesthetically pleasing to watch even if all they're doing is eating lovely patisserie and visiting brocante markets and little cutesy shops. They don't talk much (major plus in my book) but there's English subtitles when they do.

I know and I rarely buy it now because it seems to be getting both sillier and more pompous in equal measure, but I made an exception cos it was the September issue and I was seeking a treat. Such a disappointment. Can Japanese-Parisian couples fill a void like that? I'll see.

Oh and while I've been isolating, all the young women round here have gone from looking like clones of their mothers to dressing like they're on the Olympic Beach Volleyball team. I'm feeling like Rip Van Winkle.

Gorgeous dress, bani.

I'm loving all the blazer talk, but even more flo's description of a louche blazer. I think we all need some louche clothes in our life!

No new clothes here, mostly busy in school holiday mode. I am wearing a jigsaw, silk blouse, that I repaired by removing the sleeves due to holes under the arms. I need to either wear it with a cami or sports bra under, as the armholes are huge now. But I quite like the look.

Maddening sun/cloud/downpour weather that makes it hard to plan anything or wear anything that isn't either too hot, cool or just gets waterlogged.

Red, you should have shouted! Yes, Cornwall is lovely but sadly, you've not had a fine weather week. And, let me whisper it, the place is much nicer when it's a bit quieter. For some reason, August has been a washout for the last three summers. And no, it ain't a fashion parade here. The bar is set low.

I am now the proud owner of four new soft bras in readiness for my redesign, but haven't bought any clothes except some socks since the diagnosis. I am optimistic that all the nearly successful buys from the last few years are suddenly going to come good.

Volleyball players although I must confess I am secretly on the look out for a cashmere bralette (or similar material) to wear with high waisted trousers in this idiosyncratic weather even though I heavily mocked them at first sighting. Not that far off a volleyball player really I was initially resilient against paying any serious money for them but I figured even though the fashion of them will pass really quickly they will be nice to wear come winter as a functional item. Have yet to see one that is right though

You Brits must be using the word Louche differently, in Dutch (and French as far as I'm aware) it's not something I'd tie any form of aspiration to, it just means someone of very ill repute. I get the sense it leans more into rakish in the UK use of the word.

Hmm, all this talk of Cornwall and crappy weather is putting me in the mood for scones and clotted cream and a big pot of tea. I'll have to see if I can find a decent recipe for wheat and lactose free scones and if Brexit is still allowing clotted cream through, I could make my own CC if it comes to it though.

I am not sure if I have been too long here but I thought the weather was good ! , it was dry, which is All I was hoping for.
We had pockets of sunshine and did many watersports, ate pasties, fish, mousses, cream teas, drank gin, bitter .
And the sea was blue
Good to hear you have chosen some bras xing
I am aiming for women skateboarders, the ones in the park event. such cool kids.
I will look at those Japanese videos bo , you will get me right into a rabbit hole there.

Clotted cream is da bizniz bo. If you struggle to get some, I could get it sent chilled.

@XingMing

Clotted cream is da bizniz bo. If you struggle to get some, I could get it sent chilled.

That's very kind to offer Xing but I suspect it would be a customs nightmare. The EU is very strict about dairy, I think all the poor lorry drivers coming from the UK into France all have to dump their sandwiches before entering. The supermarket usually has an expensive one in a jar (it says it's from Devon but it's a brand I've never seen in the UK and it has a ridiculously long expiration date so I've always treated it as a bit suspect) and I can get Rodda's from a restaurant supply shop but it's a bit out of the way and they don't always have the small tubs. There's always the expat shops but I know they've been struggling a lot with supply chains. The supermarket one is sold out online though so it may just come down to making it myself.

Thank you for complimenting my dress I do love it. Spent a good half hour looking at 40 momme silk crepe de chine fabrics on Etsy this morning because I think that is what makes it feel so good. Found a picture on pinterest of some lucky sod who got hold of leftover fabric from the collection (I assume) and made a dress herself completely to her taste.

Japanese Youtube can be so addicting. I esp loved the man's clothes in that lookbook you posted. Such a refreshing variety of silhouettes compared to European/US clothes. Didn't it say that the raincoats were from North Face? V surprising that they're not available outside Japan!

I've never had clotted cream and can't get it now I don't think. We used to have an English shop but it's gone. But I see it as something to look forward to if I ever get to travel through Britain!

Flo, you're having luck with your blazer collection! YY to kids looking very sporty all of a sudden but I've esp noticed this with tweens. I've seen several 11-year-olds wearing bike shorts or leggings and cropped sweatshirts.

Bo, can you talk me through how you altered the blazer sleeves? I got that wool coat last year that's going to need major altering in a way that googling tells me might not be possible, but I'd like to see what's def possible sleeve-wise.

I may have a lead on some artisanal Irish clotted cream, hurray.

I essentially put a dart in the sleeve along the length of it, so tapering off at the ends where it meets the arm scye and where the buttons are placed and pinching material in between. It was quite easy, I used for men's clothing (interestingly very little in comparison to the wealth of tutorials for women's). I watched a few others about what you can and can't alter on a men's tailored blazer, it was quite interesting but pretty much came down to being able to take in sleeves and waist and everything else was different levels of complicated to not advisable.

Men's trousers though, can be altered a ridiculous amount of inches to accommodate their growing waist size, I guess it makes sense as thighs don't grow at the same rate as they do in women.

Thank you! Yes, I've noticed the same re: tutorials for men/women - my searching found me a lot of "influencer" tutorials that are completely pointless, first they ruined blogging and now this. Men's are still "cleaner".

All my Swedish vintage sewing books and booklets make a point of pointing out that all trousers should be sewn like men's trousers in the waist to facilitate alterations. I remember this being the case when I was little but fast fashion ruined that.

What is the brand of artisanal Irish cream?

Glenilen Farm, they're from County Cork, apparently they have nice butter with sea salt flakes too but under a different brand name. I can't tell from the packaging if it has the characteristic crust on top though, so maybe it's not as artisanal as claimed.

Men's tutorials may be "cleaner" but the quality of filming and properly showing things step by step is a bit shit. Sigh.

Will check them out! If I get a visit from Ireland in the nearish future I can ask for a tub maybe ...

I really need super clear instructions. So agreed, many "tutorials" are lost on me.

I didn’t realise that there is no clotted cream in Europe …
An eBay purchase has just arrived , a dress from apiece apart, which is a new brand to me. It is in a cotton and silk mix a batik fabric.
Now I want it to be sunny hot so I can wear it.

Mmm, clotted cream...

Nice dress, red, you might be able to wear it for the 10 mins it's sunny today.

This is the definition I found for louche:
'Louche is an adjective that describes something “of questionable taste or morality" but is also kind of attractive"' so a bit more insouciant than seedy.

That off the shoulder thing feels very you Red. Let's hope for some sun!

The French definition is how we use it in Dutch (aside from meaning slightly opaque too), quirky. It's interesting to me how in English it has an attractive quality too, we use the English word shabby in Dutch pretty much exclusively as a positive word, which is just derived from shabby chic.

There aren't a lot of scones either in Europe, well none that actually resemble a true scone, they're quite often a bit doughy, too sweet and sit like a brick in your stomach. I've always wondered why clotted cream never got the EU regional protection thing.

Tbh, I'm not all that eager for hot weather if it means extreme heat and forest fires. I wouldn't mind a bit of an Indian summer in September though.

I've decided on my next sewing project, an oversized silk t-shirt dress similar to attached. I figure it'll be good for this "not really summer" summer weather and I have a huge piece of silk that was meant for lining but when it arrived I realised it's far too nice a fabric for lining.

The Thread Line Assembly have 20% off pdf patterns today, if anyone is interested. Code on Instagram.

Bo I love that t-shirt dress. Are you planning white?