Les Parisiennes des Mamansnet: JesusFlo Superstar in a Back Lit Kaftan (Toyboy Not Included)

[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:

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Dix

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Dix-sept

I hope you make up in time for the holiday cancellation Bo 🌷
thank you for the Antwerp details , I will investigate if I can move one of the legs of my trip.

I like the blazer flo! very you .
Yesterday I purchased 3 silk scarves, a brooch and a ring in the vintage and antique fair. The brooch and ring not fancy metals just fairly old but I liked the design and very very inexpensive. I will show later some photos.
I also bought other non fashion items that I went there for, so overall very happy with my trip there.

That sounds like a great trip Red, I love a good antique fair and I particularly love an old brooch. My mum and all my aunties wore them

I thought being vague would avoid flowers, ah, well, appreciated regardless, my grandmother passed away, somewhat expected just a bit sooner than expected. I'm still trying to figure out if I want to buy something for the funeral or not.

Red, if you want to meet up, let me know, especially if you want to get to the Dries van Noten sale as it'll require tickets and they sell out pretty quick (they're free) so pretty much need to be booked as soon as they're available (on Eventbrite).

Leather blazer is a great find Flo, I guess this means you can now legitimately sell yourself as one of those The Secret/Manifestation/Law of Attraction gurus. Sounds like you had a great trip too Red.

Big hugs Bo I hope your grandmother has a restful send off. 💐

Sorry to hear about your grandmother botemp. Sympathies to you and your family. What would she have wanted you to wear?

Hi Flo, so you did. That was quite funny. I have looked at Vinted twice I think and backed out quickly.

That's the difficult bit, it would be something Stepford wife like, ring included. We never really saw eye to eye on clothes (or marriage) and my aunt already made a passive aggressive comment about me being a fashion dolly 😶 (it's her hangup, not mine, it doesn't even land).

I didn't have to overthink it with my mother or other grandmother's funeral, of course I went out and bought something they would love on me to celebrate that connection of a shared love of what clothes can do for you. But I also never wore those items again as they were too associated with the services. Other funerals where I was less close it didn't really matter what I wore, this feels somewhere in between that.

So my options feel like (but probably aren't, it's just useful preoccupation of the mind atm) buy something and get rid of it after, wear something I already own with the risk of it being associated and potentially not wanting to wear it for a while or ever (which feels really stupid, and unlikely, but from experience I know grief isn't all that rational so I can't just shrug it off). I've got a black office type dress on a pile of to be donated clothes which sort of solves all my problems at once but I'm getting rid of it because it feels very dated and it just doesn't feel good on. While that makes the most sense I think I need to be 'comfortable' in what I'm wearing.

Hi, I have been recommended this thread from the one on age and ageism on S&B. Clicked on the first page of this thread, found myself in the midst of a long discussion about tights and thought - I’m in!

I love clothes and the older I get the more I appreciate their tactile qualities. I scour The Outnet, especially their clearance sales and used to get a lot from Jigsaw (also in the sales), but the big splashy prints they currently major on don’t work for me. My aspirational label used to be Joseph but, like so many other labels recently, everything on there is HUGE these days and I am short. I’m in my early sixties and, although my weight hasn’t changed, nothing seems to fit quite like it used to. So I need a new direction and some new labels and am hoping I’ll pick up tips that here. I really like Parisian labels such as Maje, Sandro, Iro, Isabel Marant but they rarely work for me because I’m small (size 6-8) but big boned, if that makes sense.

if you have read all this, thank you for your patience!

Happy Easter to all!

And I have just spotted that my post has gatecrashed a discussion about funeral wear. That’s a bit insensitive of me - sorry!

Welcome Natasha and notwavingbutdrowning1 hope you both stick around. I've seen you both on other threads and Natasha as I remember, owns some fabulous coats among other things.

Yeah current topic is funeral wear for a family member whom you weren't - if I'm reading you correctly bo? - particularly close to? So do chip in.

I can see your dilemma bo. I've never bought an outfit specifically for a funeral. Normally I wear something I already own that's unobtrusive and 'officey' and that no-one will remember. They don't carry any funereal connotations afterwards because I'd worn them loads of times before. If it's someone I was close to, I try and pick something I know they liked or would have liked - not necessarily the whole outfit, maybe the shirt or the jacket or just a piece of jewellery or a scarf. As you say, it sounds like this falls somewhere in between.

No I wouldn't say we weren't close more of a traditional GM-GD relationship in adult life I guess, we just bonded over other things and didn't have much carryover from childhood. She probably would have pursued my profession if she had the option when younger (not something I was really aware of until I went to study).

I think I'm going to go into the city centre and see what's available, with Easter and going back and forth between cities, shopping online seems a bit tricky. Ideally I'd buy something secondhand which I can just sell back to the same shop, she was very frugal so spending a lot on this also feels wrong <enter headache>.

A detail was an idea I was musing on too, she loved a picture of me as a child that has pride of place where I was wearing a black velvet dress with a white Peter Pan collar, not my thing at all these days but I did think about something with a white detail that doesn't look cater waiter...

when is the funeral Bo? I assume from what you say it will be a traditional affair. I am afraid I don’t have a lot of input as the funerals I went to of family I was a kid or the other ones as a grown up were of not very close people. But I understand the dilemma and I agree that you have to wear something you feel comfortable in. Is there anything in the pile to donate that can be used? A skirt or blouse? Then you can complement it with something else you can pick up? But as I write this I am thinking that sometimes it is more difficult to try to ‘match’ something.

Welcome notwaving! We are friendly and hope you like our company 😀 . Just a word of warning… but I am not sure how substantiated it is, I read (in a thread possibly) that the outnet service has been shocking lately (sending stuff very late etc).
While we all appreciate ‘French fashion’ not even sure I can describe what that is as I write it but we all have distinctive styles (I will do sometimes frills and flower prints for example but most here probably not) but I suppose we all seem to appreciate clothes that fit well, good materials, and so on.
WRT brands, is a tricky one but I tend to pick up maje or Sandro preloved as I don’t like paying full price (I don’t think is worth full price for most of it). Do you work or are you mainly at home? City / countryside? Just asking as that will drive a lot of the outfit selections.

Cross post with Bo. It sounds like you have a good idea there and I have my fingers crossed that you find it.

A bit of white detail sounds good and appropriate. A white silk handkerchief in the breast pocket of a black blazer??

I've never bought an outfit specially for a funeral. I've always had, until recently, a choice of tailored black skirt suits or dresses. (The Mrs Danvers #2 look)

Alternative was an Edina Ronay very dark green lace dress lined with black silk, with a black coat and black patent shoes. The Edina Ronay dress was kept as sort of "best dress" for occasions needing smarter and dressier than work but not evening wear. I wore it to several funerals including my mother's but it doesn't have funeral connotations.

The only outfit that ended up with funeral connotations for me was a dark red dress that I wore for my mum's funeral, because she'd always liked it. I did feel weird wearing it after that. In the end I donated it, which also felt weird but I liked the idea of someone else buying it and giving it a whole new lease of (unfunereal) life.

No it won't be overly traditional, Red, not a thing here tbh. I will undoubtedly be overdressed but that's nothing new.

I did the same with my other funeral dresses Flo, I didn't want reminders of their end in my closet, much prefer to remember their lives at their fullest instead. I definitely want a dress, something to slip on and off as soon as it's done, a jumpsuit at a push. I'll see what the shops will have to offer, and worst case scenario, I'll wear the donations pile dress.

Thank you, Floisme and RedandBlue11. Yes, RedandBlue, the Outnet has dipped recently. They’ve put up their delivery prices, switched from DHL to UPS for standard delivery and everything takes much longer.

I am currently home based, writing up my thesis, so really have no justification for new clothes. But I find that what I put on in the morning very much affects my sense of who I am and therefore how well I work, so I usually make the effort to look presentable. Once a friend dropped round and I was wearing an Agnes B dress and strappy sandals. She said, ‘is this how you dress when NO ONE’S AROUND?’ Apparently I should have been wearing joggers, but that would have depressed me a bit.

Sorry I have been a bit shit about greeting new people hello 👋

I still don't own joggers, unless you count leather ones (I don't). Do some people not care about answering the door wearing whatever, even if I'm unlikely to leave the house I wouldn't want to answer the door in home wear (too close to PJ's in my mind), but then again on MN no one seems to answer the door or take in packages for neighbours...

The Outnet has been absolutely fine for me, btw, but that's probably because I'm in the EU so it never changed. It was always UPS and coming out of Italy and took a couple of days to get here. I like Yoox (same concept and parent company) better though, they randomly gave me ten free shipping codes, appreciated but felt a little excessive to get ten.

Ha! I have answered the doorbell to the postman in a towel. He didn't blink. But no, I'd not leave the house in anything I didn't want to be seen wearing, even if it's waterproof overtrousers, wellies and top half waterproofs too. Sometimes, the rule to remember is "there's no such thing as the wrong weather, only the wrong clothes". When you live in the rural SW, even fashion fiends eventually succumb to practicality.

Welcome to the new friends.

Sorry bo, my condolences on your GMs demise.

I have a funeral on Wednesday, and will be wearing a black wrap knit work dress that I’ve already actually listed on Vinted. I’m having a big clear out at the moment.

I'm looking at black dresses on Vinted in a whole new light Volte 🧐

I did contemplate this Maison Rabih Kayrouz shirt that has been on my Vinted saved list for some time, as a white layer, but it just randomly sold, so not meant to be. I did just randomly remember my GM loved my graduation dress, not sure if it was about the dress or that it was a very expensive dress that I picked up for a fraction of the price. Possibly both, it's black and dark green but not sure how funeral appropriate it is and it's probably too big. I'll have to have a dig for it and see.

You've reminded me Desmond of the time I was severely jetlagged and half awake opened the door to a pair of Mormons wearing just a very transparent white t-shirt that left nothing to the imagination. They didn't know where to look 🙈

That shirt is lush Bo!
shame that it wasn’t meant to be, I assume the trip into the city did not produce any results.
I fully agree that one needs to be presentable, even if at home. Having said that I own a couple of joggers and I consider my pastel lilac ones with the right top to be quite presentable.
But only once I recall opening the door in my robe and the postman looked quite shocked / worried as he normally sees me reasonably dressed.