Les Parisiennes des Mamanset: On the Advent of Newness

[botemp]

Lovers of Parisian style and fashion with a conscious mindset and lots of chatter in between.

Previous thread

(I've removed the usual links to recommended shops and other places guides from the OP because I suspect they're getting very out of date at this point)

Oh! Now I remember the trousers saga Flo , how can I forget! I was too tired yesterday to decipher anything.

poppy, I think they are most likely a variant of Scottish corrediale sheep. Most sheep in Patagonia is that variety, from what I read that wool is soft enough to wear against the skin. But I also learnt that how the sheep is breed also influences on the wool it produces (obvious but I never thought about it …), in Patagonia there are miles and miles of inhabited grassland, the area is massive and not many people, it is cool and also dry so the sheep have a lot of freedom. Also I noticed in the towns towards northern Patagonia the most amazing roses and other flowers all with no trace of black spots or other pests that you normally see here. Apparently the combination of cool, dry etc etc ensures that there are naturally very little pests, that is also good for the grasslands that do not need any treatment and the sheep that need minimal intervention.
I know you love plants and gardens poppy and you would have been blown away by some of the flowers in the north of Patagonia at this time of the year.

red Patagonia sounds so beautiful in your description! That makes sense that all those things would affect the wool.

flo, your grey, velvet flares inspired me last year to dig out my purple, velvet flares. I completely agree about time/trends determining how you view certain styles. For this reason, I have an "out of circulation" storage box of lovely clothes that I come back to as things circle in and out of fashion etc.

bo, I have finally finished Transatlantic (I had a break with family here over Christmas). I enjoyed it, it was somehow optimistic rather than grim. The clothes were great, I think I particularly liked the hats and leather jackets. Lisa had a great outfit of wide trousers, leather jacket and cap that I could easily wear now!

Thanks Red, and that's interesting. I'll have to get to Patagonia - sheep and flowers!

Keep rocking the flares quirky and MmePoppy- as I'm sure I've said many times before, I find trend cycles fascinating, and it's why I've grown so sceptical about style rules.

Like quirky I put unworn clothes away, sometimes for years and I've unearthed three more pairs of flares but none of them feel quite right yet. There are some Levis that might work in the summer but the flare's too extreme and the denim wash feels too light for a wet January, some Citizens of Humanity that are so threadbare I think they might have passed beyond the shabby chic stage. But the most distressing are some Gap Long n' Leans that used to be my absolute favourite. I love how they look again but the low waist (and it's not even outrageously low) just feels so uncomfortable, I don't think I can tolerate it. I really should move them on but I can't bring myself to do it yet.

But on the plus side, I retrieved some Christian Dior wide legs in a very fine wool and a Mui Mui tweed midi skirt with a distinctly Margaret Howell-ish vibe. Both from the early noughties I think. I would be feeling insufferably smug about them except I'm also really cross with myself for not spotting them before.

Heh! I re-wore a jacket I bought in 1980 last summer - boxy but not outrageous.

Bon après-midi mes chèries!

It's been pretty full on for me for some time now so I probably won't be very active, but I am sorry to have missed the advent calender as a live event so to speak. So well done Bo and so many inspiring photos. Ironically I'd never heard of Kusama until a week ago when her artwork was one of the questions on a very high-brow quiz type show on Swedish telly that my husband and I have belatedly gotten into (the type where the contestants are museum directors or composers and hum entire Mozart symphonies to answer a question). So I especially loved that because I understood it, but I wouldn't have understood it in December! Some sort of Life Lesson there but I don't know what.

Oh Bani I was just thinking of you earlier hoping your absence hadn't meant you had turned into an ice popsicle with the extreme weather you've got going on over there. Unless you're currently in the process of, I mean I'm honoured you'd check in here, but you know, energy best spent elsewhere... But hopefully you're just tucked up nice and warm.

This quiz sounds good, I'd probably be unable to answer even if I could understand Swedish so its probably worth a watch. I've always felt it a missed opportunity that Nobel prize winners don't get a quiz to compete against each other.

It is freezing for sure! But very pretty. And you have to be fit and healthy to navigate the terrible snow-clearing that isn’t being done. If you feel like navigating the swedish check out Kulturfrågan Kontrapunkt on SVT play (assuming you can).

love and adore this thread and you lot but the problem with long running threads is they can become a little bit social media-esque iyswim in that you have to engage more with everyone or feel bad/be perceived as rude? I’ve disengaged from social media I’m not up to virtual engagement any more and sadly i drop away from this thread too when things get too much because like you say, limited energy. I “plop” on some random threads here and there that’s all.

I have recently impulse bought a pair of trousers and regretted it after wearing them because the waist is just a tiny bit low. So those waists are definitely sneaking back in now 🥺

Yes I fear dark times ahead bani. I may even be driven back to wearing dresses again But always good to hear from you, however fleetingly.

I also thought of you the other day - which was very, very wrong because I know you're not in the same country - when Queen Badass of Denmark resigned.

❤️
Yes! Even thought about posting on the royal style thread then! But didn’t.

Just be like me Bani and claim your rudeness is cultural, not disinterest 😉

Must admit I've been avoiding MN lately, it's either an influx of trolls, hangry new year dieters and their grumpy dry January equivalent, is Veganuary still a thing? Probably a combination thereof. It all seems a bit negative Nancy on here and that's coming from someone who's not exactly the glass half full type.

Speaking of Q Margarethe, there was a fab picture of her shared with one of the articles that I had to save. Bit miffed you have to be an octogenarian royal to pull this off.

I don't think all octogenarian royals could pull it off to be fair! I wanted to post one of those lists of "best outfits", she's had a lot of great ones. :)

Looked through the last thread and wanted to send a hearty congratulation to Micro re: the gaiter boots by the way, very pleased for you!

She gets away with it because she’s tall. I can’t imagine QE2 sporting a long ball gown and fur shrug.

Yes, she'd run the risk of looking like Queen Victoria ;)

I've come to the conclusion that I need to lean into my desire for a uniform and try to find more of my basic pieces so I don't have to think. I leave the fashion to you! My uniform is definitely wide-legged trousers and a top - tighter if I'm staying true to my 90s youth and a shirt if I'm being almost 50 years old about it.

So do not forget to but all recommendations/sightings of wide-legged trousers up here for me. Natural materials please, but blends are ok. Also tops - isn't it surprisingly hard to just find a top?

So hard to find a top! I want nice smart, but not boring tops for work. Not button up blouses - v neck not t-shirt tops. I need to get the sewing machine out but time, time, time.

Hmm, who is lurking here from the FT, there's a whole article on teamlLab's digital art (from the advent) which led to the Kusama chat 🧐 mm fess up already, and share your meagre wages with me iirc you were the one asking after it specifically.

sorry it's paywalled and I'm too lazy to plug into archive

Bani as it so happens on my fruitless search for the perfect mock turtle neck I came across a new (to me anyhow) Swedish DTC brand of basics. The women's stuff is fairly limited (no trees) at the moment but lots of tops and I do appreciate the jeans come in normal and curvy fit (but only up to size 34" which doesn't seem particularly big but I lose track of sizing conversions in jeans). And to appease you, they have actual shops, albeit in Stockholm. But why they've called themselves Asket, when it looks very much like Arket is beyond me...

There's also a very similar Dutch one Teym but your have to come to Amsterdam for their shop.

Oh my Bo, what have you done!

I've seen Asket and they look right up my alley except for the boring "Scandi fashion" colours. I don't want black, I don't wear white (except for white linen shirts, now, in the summer when I have a bit of a tan, and only because the linen texture is needed to offset the fact that white doesn't suit me), I don't wear beige, I don't wear grey. That is 98% of Swedish clothes ruled out, and Asket for sure. But they're on my watch list if they change, and I might try out the denim, that was a good reminder to me, thank you! Incidentally the accent on Asket is on the second syllable with a long E so completely different ;) (but I agree, visually too similar but I can see why they didn't want to use Ascetic instead but wanted to stick with the Swedish word). Teym look much better colour-wise!

I decided not to be lazy and shared the archive link to the FT article after all. I know, very naughty. I guess MNHQ is cracking down harder on them this year.

I think Asket caters to men much better than women. I assume over time they'll get out of their boring scandi colour palette, but considering other Swedish brands, maybe not...

Ah well, I suppose it's good of them to be stringent...

Everything caters to men. :(

For me, part of the issue with tops ( apologies, I know this has been commented on to death on mumsnet and elsewhere) is the lack of quality, affordable cotton. I don’t want a shiny polyester top, or even viscose. My go-to used to be Borden’s button down brushed cotton shirts ( I know, not very Parisienne). They don’t do them anymore.

Thank you for your trouble bo, especially if you get your wrist slapped for doing it.

I'm with you on colours bani. I'm going to try and hold off from T shirt ranting until the first Crocus is out, but it's not much better in the UK: white, black, pale grey, beige, a navy so dark it might as well be black, and sometimes a cobalt blue so bright it burns the retina. Even worse if you want long sleeves.

In Sweden it's a certain type of blue, like this one: https://www.lindex.com/se/p/3000124-6791-bla-topp-med-puffarmar

Also a pale blush pink. That's all.

I suppose it's two fold, the whole capsule wardrobe tyranny that's sort of coopted the basics market would explain the very limited colour palettes atm.

Added to that, I suspect the days of cheap cotton are over, when sustainability demands became more mainstream I think it was the first and easiest thing for big companies to sign up with things like Better Cotton Initiative or committing to completely switching to organic cotton. The cheap cotton bits seem to now be backfilled by cheap viscose. I'm not a viscose hater but cheap and moderately priced viscose is often crappier than their former cotton equivalents.

I still rate Majestic Filatures and American Vintage for basics, but they don't really qualify as moderately priced. Though, comparatively, they haven't hiked prices much so they don't seem as outrageously priced anymore, especially in the sales. In Euros anyhow, may be different in GBP.

I'm down to my last two T shirts in colours I actively like. One is a deep green from Cos and the other is a kind of mauve from Gap. I used to have another from Gap in purple but it fell off the washing line and was eaten by foxes or something. So now I'm nursing these last two like they're made of antique lace because once they're gone, it's going to be death by navy.