Les Parisiennes des Mamanset: A Sin of Pride

[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:

[[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FdQbdNEUpGqOyH2oqBQZBVsKISieRgxW_F67mgRLSrw/edit?usp=sharing Consignment shops, Vintage, an
d Restaurants]]

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Previous thread

I'm also just recovering from the shock of Flo not liking pizza!

I went into our fancy department store today for my favourite activity. Browsing the dregs of the sale. The policy seems to be to reduce everything to €195, €295 or €395. This can result in some very unexciting discounts - max mara studio trousers, and some great bargains - Dior at 92% off. I didn't buy anything but for your amusement I present..

The Row jumper. I picked it up and wondered how it had survived. Black cashmere v neck, gorgeous quality. I was sure it was a return which is often where I get lucky. I soon discovered why it was reduced. Sleeves looked kid of cool pushed up, but would drive me batty.

Dior skirt - absolutely beautifully made, but the smocking and pleating did nothing for me. It felt amazing in hand though.

Emilia Wickstead dress, gorgeous fabric though they could have tried harder to match the pattern a bit. It was a touch tight and I've nowhere to wear it, but I felt great in it

Roskanda dress - I liked this, but have absolutely nowhere to wear it. I couldn't even wear it to a wedding g because of the colour so it would be limited to a fancy christening or anniversary party or the races. I don't go to may of those.

Saint Laurent - it's a bit daring, but if the shoulders were lifted an inch (there was the length to do that) it became a bit more respectable. Again I've nowhere to wear it, but was a bit sorry leaving this one.

Emilia Wickstead dress, gorgeous fabric though they could have tried harder to match the pattern a bit.

Or made any attempt at all. That's not great for the price.

Wasn’t planning to trouble you on this thread, but nowhere else to sing the praises of Loulou studios, particularly as @ToEllewithIt has mentioned them.

I gave up on the required regime to get me into my planned festival outfit and decided to go for simplicity instead. Placed an order for a dress from Loulou studios at about 12.25 on Thursday. They dispatched it within a couple of hours, dispatch note says Paris. DHL delivered it to me at 12.40 on Friday! (I know Londoners can expect this as standard from all the smart stores, but I’m far from London - and generally expect to wait at least three days for deliveries.) I’m hugely impressed. And the dress fits perfectly. Was this one.

Lovely dress crkd, you'll get lots of wear out of that. I've a similar one and wear a jumper over it for work. Enjoy the festival!

Oooh bargains everywhere! That's a great dress Crkd, and it's funny how sexy a great fit, high neckline and bare arms can be. You'll be a wow at the festival.

I'd have been tempted to just chop those sleeves down Elle and then you'd have a jumper and some wrist warmers. Or those stretchy armband things that men used to use for keeping shirt sleeves rolled up. I didn't actually notice the unmatched pattern on the Emilia Wickstead dress at first but now I can't unsee it - cheeky fucker as Mumsnet would say.

Gracefully skirting around the pizza grenade you lobbed at us there, Flo 🧐

Well I must say, between the Saint Laurent dress and the fab Loulou studios one, you both look quite ready for an Italian adventure. I'm glad you like the LLS dress Crkd because they have the worst and illegal return policy on sales (basically, no returns allowed).

I'm trying to stay out of my inbox because it's getting to around that time where all the luxury etailers are getting desperate to sell you something and slashing the sale prices. I thought I was done shopping after Paris but then I was tipped off about a local consignment shop with suspiciously low prices and bought a pair of Lemaire silk trousers, a Raquel Allegra canvas blazer, and a Monica Cordera knit top. The first two needed a bit of TLC but I've managed to patch them up with some handsewing, a new button to replace a lost one, and some long soaks in vinegar baths to get rid of detergent build-up. Lovely items but the previous owner was absolutely clueless in looking after them.

I was reading about designing with print the other day as all my lovely Dries pattern fabrics still sit untouched since I'm always getting cutting anxiety around them when push comes to shove. The advice basically came down to small print can be treated like a solid but you have to keep the pattern as consistent as possible (so pattern match to best of your ability) and design with as large of individual pattern pieces as possible. Large print is best broken up a bit to moderate the overwhelming aspect of it on the body. I think the EW dress sort of tried to do both at once and it doesn't work, but it's a bit of an odd pattern to start with, usually when it's a large print they avoid it being so regimented to avoid it looking like this.

Sounds like some good buys. How does detergent build up show, and what does the vinegar do to get rid of it?

Ah, poor Jane 😞 and to top it off the Dutch version of the BBC managed to find the world's most unflattering pic of her to accompany the announcement. They've managed to put in a better one now, thankfully, a fairly recent one. I did notice most papers seem to be going with just pictures of her in her younger hey days, not sure what to make of that.

Poppy, aside from the really strong washing powder smell, detergent build-up in silk is very easy to spot, the white streaks, lack of lustre and it's stiffer than it should be. In the canvas blazer it was the stiffness of the fabric mostly.

Vinegar relaxes the fibres and breaks up the detergent, that's why I always am a fan of a vinegar rinse when washing delicate fabrics, even the right mild liquid detergent leaves behind some residue. I'm also known to dip dry clean only pieces just in some vinegar water and then leave it to dry after a gentle roll through a towel. You can definitely smell the vinegar as it dries but not when it's fully dry.

Too remove long term build-up you need to soak it overnight with a more generous amount of vinegar and agitate it a bit every now and then.

Just make sure we are on same page
20 oct meet up
privately we will agree the timings and place

News - Jane Birkin: Artist and style icon's life in pictures www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66216663 Jane Birkin

I think the BBC could have dropped/ substituted the last picture. I do find Jane and Charlotte a bit annoying but she was very beautiful and stylish. 76 isn't really that old.

Oh I'm very sad to hear that. I loved Jane Birkin's style.

Re the Pizza grenade - I just think it's one of the most overrated meals on the planet. Except for a few rare occasions when it's the best.

Out of respect for Jane I shall not fight you on this tonight, Flo you heathen

I'm also very sad to hear about Jane Birkin. Dd1 declared it on her phone, accompanied with a "I have no idea who that is" ( 😳I have obviously failed as a mother).

I know, really sad to hear the news. This article popped up https://www.vogue.com/article/jane-birkin-birthday-style-lessons-fashion-icon and Rule number 6 - I'll quote it to avoid doing that click-baity thing "There’s no such thing as a too-deep V-neck" is making me think that I should go back and see about that black dress!

That's interesting about the pattern matching @botemp I didn't like the way the fabric on the centre panels is running one way and on the panels adjacent has been turned 180 degrees, but maybe that actually makes the placement look more random and had they been running the same way the effect might have been even more jarring, like wallpaper out of sync.

Coverage of her death is a bit odd, Dutch nedia outlets seem to focus on her singing career (Je t'aime, mostly). Americans seem to only know her in relation to the bag, despite that, this NYT piece is a good read. The French coverage seems to depend on the outlet, either a transgressive trailblazer or national institution depending on political slant. I'm surprised there isn't an S&B thread about her. She does seem to be the OG of effortless chic and to this day I'm still unsure whether she was really into clothes or just wore what she liked.

WRT the deep-v, I wonder if she is wearing that back to front, it does look to fit a bit odd at the sleeve/shoulder. Would the Saint Laurent dress be able to be worn back to front, that would give it a bit more range?

Is it possible to buy from French Vinted if you're based in the UK?

I imagine this has come up before but I can't find anything on search. Thanks.

No, you can't unless you know someone in Europe that has access to the French Vinted (it's quite a lot of countries) who will buy it and forward it to you. I'm not sure if you can contact the seller, but if you can, you could ask them to list it elsewhere like depop or Vestiaire.

Many thanks, @botemp.

As I am as flat chested as Jane Birkin, she was always my style heroine when I was growing up - I'd forgotten just how stylish she was.

I remember a supply teacher playing the music to Je t'aime in a gym lesson, for us to dance to. No singing, no panting; just the music.

The single had been released a year or so before, and we'd all heard it despite the BBC ban, so when the introductory music started we were very surprised.

I remember she did a collection for La Redoute in the early noughties (I think) and I wanted everything.

But I think she'd been out of the public eye for quite a few years - poor health and a personal tragedy I believe - so maybe it's not totally surprising if there hasn't been much response on S&B to her death, especially as I sense the general demographic on here has got younger since the pandemic.

Ha, I'm just trying to imagine it Poppy, must have been a lot of open mouths.

She did seem to be active in France singing in recent years, Flo, had just postponed some dates citing health. There was also a film/documentary a year or so ago, made by her daughter (Charlotte) about her. So not entirely invisible, but probably not so noticeable outside France. I do remember some threads in recent years debating her style in old age.

It's weird, I have the opposite impression in that S&B demographic is really getting on in age, I often feel like the youngest person around when I'm not that young.

The only young people that seem to stick around tend to be conservative/modest dressers. I get the sense a lot are chased off, I made the mistake of clicking on a nail polish thread, I thought the stupid fights only happened on fashion threads...

The choir of wear whatever you like tend to cite age as their newfound wisdom of not caring, and there's an awful lot of those around. But we're probably just seeing what we want to see since we have such opposite takes.

Well us regulars are clearly getting older but I'd say the newer influx of posters (this last 3 years or so) were mostly younger. Not quite sure why I think that but there seem to be far more 'Where do you shop at 30?' type discussions now. There's a thread currently about TV / film style and so many of the examples are about shows made in the last 10 years. And the reluctance to try different jeans, that strikes me as a grown-up-with-and-only-ever-known-skinnies thing - older women have seen it all before.

But I could be wrong and it sounds like I was about Jane Birkin, I thought she'd pretty much withdrawn from public life.

Ha, I always assume the skinny jeans or death crowd are older as it's so tied in with the flattering mentality (which I'm quite glad the younger crowd are not ruled by in the same way) and/or just really short, there tend to be a lot of 5ft-ish and under posters on here as well.

I think there's always been a constant of 30s dilemmas on here, usually tied in with having recently had several young ones and just woke up one day and decided the leggings and spit up covered jumpers are just not cutting it anymore, but the old clothes don't fit so what now? I tend to treat those as perennials of a parenting site as opposed to an influx of new posters.

I can't speak for the TV/film show thread as I only made a quick peek and realised I know none of these shows. Not sure it has to do with age or more that MNers seem to consume a lot of tv/films.