Grace Jones wears Issey Miyake while cycling on the English countryside. What are you doing with your life?

Yeah, I saw a few people who were just wearing crazy color combinations, but they looked wonderful. They seem to follow their own personal patterns when dressing, whereas I think a lot of Americans are reliant on certain social codes or images they see. That’s not always true, of course, but prevalent. (And thanks for the correction, I missed that!)

On French style or “Parisian Chic”

Was there ever anything off-putting to you about the fashion press’ onslaught of rhapsodies about how chic the French were? How well they dressed? For me, it was once very easy to reject this rhetoric. It was overtly romanticized, to a degree that made London seem trashy and New York seem lazy.

My recent stay in Paris for about a day an a half, however, added much needed truth to the musings of fashion plates on the subject of what makes Paris such a chic city. Perhaps, then, here are some brief notes on the subject, taken down while walking around the city Sunday and Monday.

First, It’s not a completely different vocabulary. Their boots are our boots; our trenches are their trenches. But many of the sensibilities that surround certain choices are different. The differences are subtle but always noticeable. People look good in France in ways that are different than the ways people look good in France.

Part of this sensibility is a certain confidence to every sartorial choice that is made. Where Americans often obsess over certain pairings of colors, the French seemingly have a nonchalant attitude about color’s bearing on a good look. One of my favorite outfits I saw was what a friend and I termed “the study of brown things.” A tan trench, a brown pant, a dark brown shirt, and a brown Hermès bag. I may be making some broad assumptions here, but the general swathe of Americans would never wear this. How many times have you worn varying shades of gray or black to receive responses ranging from boredom to moral shock? 

Confidence begets a certain simplicity to French dressing. The overtly decorated designs of mainline American clothing rarely are seen on the streets of Paris. Pieces are individually simple, unlike the strapped lace floral print halter tops purchased in suburban malls. It’s a shirt or sweater paired with a blazer, dark jeans, and a short-heeled suede boot: a uniform I’ve seen repeated time and time again in France. The men are no exception.