Les Parisiennes des Mamansnet: It's French charm, you know, beheaded people, red wine and blood all over the place - it's romantic, it's normal.

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

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I'm with @flo I use cloth totes. I wash them until they die.

If anyone mentions a bag for life on here I will scream 😑 (S&B handbag thread PTSD in case anyone doesn't understand that reference).

I lied, there apparently are some brands still using old fashioned cotton velvet (tiny bit of polyester in the mix though). Stumbled across this dress in the Bite Studios sale that's already oos but they have this one in the new collection which I'd probably be into if I were six feet tall. It definitely photographs differently than the newer stuff, only in the close ups do you get a good idea of it, I wonder if that has something to do with why you see so little of it.

Our posh frock shop, now with a new owner/buyer, has been trying out some different brands, including Pret Pour Partir rainwear. I might have bought a (reversible) waterproof coat tweed coat.

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I really like that kind of waterproof tweed fabric, @Papyrophile. I have a Barbour puffa in similar. It's warm and waterproof, I've been living in it in the current schizophrenic wet or cold weather.

Those are a nice find Papyro, I quite like the look of the cotton Vanessa but I really don't need another coat 🤔 I'll try and remember to peruse their shop when I'm next in Paris though...

I'm not convinced I needed another waterproof bo but once I had seen it, I was seduced. I loved it instantly for ticking both practical and glamorous boxes. It looks great as a waterproof and as a woollen coat, but given that I live in a wet temperate zone, I am guessing the rather lovely tweed will mostly perform as a warm lining.

The Vanessa style is lovely, but the fabric is very light. I tried it on, and it's an easy style to wear. In Northern Europe you would need a warm layer underneath. There's space for it. I thought about it but in any wind the coat would wind around your legs and be annoying. I bought a bronze Thelma, because it will usually be worn over trousers/jeans.

Was it the cotton version of Vanessa you saw Papyro? The polyamide version definitely looks on the piddly thin side but the cotton looks like it would be more substantial and potentially okay in cooler spring and autumn weather, in a city anyhow.

I think it was the polyamide version, as the shop owner also stocks a reversible faux fur gilet specifically to make it warmer. (I might also have bought one of those, but it's going to be my Christmas present from DH!) It was a very extravagant five days... but I waited to see if the coat haunted me, and it did, so it counts as a considered buy.

@Papyrophile I love your definition of a considered buy. I have gone back and bought expensive items in the past when they have haunted me. Lovely coat, it's an investment.

I agree is a considered investment. Well done papyrophile. Looks like a great coat.

It does indeed: it's good to see you can still buy stylish clothes made with that quality of cloth for a reasonable price.

Enjoying all the approving nods!

Nothing new bought here, but I have dug out some old maxi skirts that I had stopped wearing as not very practical with dcs. Today, I've got on a navy bouclé/boiled wool one that was from a Scandi label, I think. It's nice and toasty with heattech underneath, as it's very cold here today. I'm enjoying wearing things I stayed away from with dd2.

Great revisiting old clothes quirky. I know flo and I bang on about keeping old stuff, but you will be grateful if it can be stored well. I'll never be as slender as I was in the 70s, but my 80s jackets are getting regular airings again.

It's an interesting question for me. Some here are actually nearer 70 than 60. Obviously none of us is ever going to stop loving beautiful clothes or wanting to present our most stylish version of ourselves. I can manage every hook, button, fastening and zip now, but I really really dont want to be dressed by anyone paid to do that for me. I would feel diminished.

@Papyrophile I completely agree! These are from 00s, but I have stuff from 90s and maybe earlier. I have a storage box with out of circulation clothes that I check out every so often. Maxi skirts were not very practical with dd2, but I used to wear them quite a bit for work.

I recently bought a couple of maxi skirts, one corduroy and one thick navy cotton. I'm so used to wearing trousers now that I have to force myself to remember my skirts. I wear them with thick tights, and flat lace up boots. They are so comfortable, but need a bit more thought. I don't have any of my original ones, sadly.

I wish I'd kept more clothes from the 80s. I moved house too many times that decade and never had any space so it can't be helped. But what is annoying is that the 70s/80s stuff I did save was mainly for sentimental reasons and of little use to me now, whereas I let go things like a midi corduroy skirt, the perfect raincoat, exquisitely beaded cardigans that just needed some gentle repairs, and a linen blazer from M&S that I still look out for in vintage shops. I've even tried a search on EBay for it, but it came up with eleventy million candidates so I gave up.

I've probably over compensated since then by keeping too much for too long. And yes, I was rummaging through the cupboard recently and asking myself, 'If I don't want to wear this right now, why do I think I'll want to wear it when I'm 70?'

Great coat @Papyrophile and a perfect combination of style and life appropriate. I wish I was half as good at the art of considered buying.

Maxi skirts are so cool, but I always find them easier to style in the summer personally and for my body shape as I tuck thinks in and if I have too much fabric I end up swamped.

This weekend I did a bit of shopping as we visited Bath, looked at too many things but at the end I just ended up getting two pairs of jeans from M&S a boyfriend cut in regular biue denim and a wide legged ecru white cropped. And just a white long sleeve ribbed white top from Cos. Basically just some basics.

I seem to have loads of fancy clothes and I was low on just basic stuff .

Never thought it that way … will I wear this when I am close to 60?
gosh… maybe I will not think about that right now …

I am just saying that because I don’t feel in the right frame of mind to think that way. I am sure those thoughts will come.
But doesn’t mean that I don’t think , I will probably never wear that again … maybe buried somewhere there is an age consideration, I am not sure, but not conscious right now.

What's so pivotal about 60? Just the difference at either end of the decade health wise? Tbh I find the whole one decade into the next always a bit uneventful, the mid point seems more meaningful somehow. It also seems to coincide with the media or similar declaring that whatever decade I enter into is the 'new' last one I was just in (60 is the new 50 type articles iykwim).

It occurred to me tonight, sitting in a concert which I very much enjoyed, that I spend a lot of time thinking about clothes.

My clothes, other people's clothes, the philosphy of clothes, dressing for your tribe, planning outfits. You know the stuff

Oh me too, honestly the state of the inside of my head! If humans ever learn to read each other's thoughts I will die of embarrassment.