My French Fashion Mistakes Haunt Me
If looks could kill the most deadly would be French women reacting to wet hair and sweatpants.
There are three important things for outsiders to remember in France:
They don’t hate you. They’re just French.
If you are ordering at a restaurant or boulanger and don’t know the gender of a food item just say the noun with as thick a French accent you can muster.
Don’t go out with wet hair and sweatpants.
All three of these are helpful to know before coming to France but that last one is the most important. While France has a national pastime of scolding and complaining and a very protective emphasis on the importance of a national language it was my lack of Fashion on one fateful day that made me feel the most like an outsider. After all, first impressions make the biggest impression and before I could shrug off a scold or mispronounce a pastry I accidentally introduced myself as a foreign hot mess.
Even the French government states “our language and our national territory are deeply imbued by [Fashion.]” Unlike in America where we like to brag that “Fashion” is different from “Style,” implying that you can opt into one and/ or the other, the French see both Fashion and Style as intertwined and essential to daily life. It’s such a strong cultural identity that even Americans who don’t speak French know the meaning of à la mode. I love watching French Vogue interview people in Paris about their street style1 because Fashion is not just about a brand of jeans they wear but a personal narrative. Not every French person lives this way but the vast majority see clothing and styling as a window to a person’s cultural identity and, apparently, state of wellbeing. Even at school drop-off.
As a mom of four kids who still need help getting dressed, fed and bags packed in the morning I have never been one to worry about how I look at school drop off. Despite our new emphasis on l'autonomie des enfants I still run out of the house without a glance in the mirror. It was a cold, rainy morning with four little ones in tow that I received my first cold, hard French looks of disapproval.
That morning I wore a matching sweatsuit and wet hair under a raincoat. I come from the rainless land of athleisure: San Diego, California. I consider tinted chapstick and moisturizer “makeup.” I thought the fact that my sweatpants matched made me look extra put together. But as I peered out from under my umbrella I saw looks of concern, shock, disapproval and what my husband said was “maybe just them being jealous of your comfort?”
The looks came from young and elderly French women; kind moms I would later become friends with and intimidating moms I still haven’t found the courage to speak bad French to. Moms who had on makeup and outfits with pants that had belts and shoes with laces. Some even wore dresses in spite of the cold and rain. They all had miraculously dry hair. What’s worse is that I accessorized with a neon green YETI of coffee. This insulated to-go cup is still the only one I have seen carried openly in our small town.2
It wasn’t just my imagination. A quick Google search of “french athleisure do not” reveals that while some French women will wear elements of athleisure on their way to and from a gym (where else?!) an entire outfit, even a matching one, is not socially acceptable. I am a very sensitive person and thought maybe the drop-off looks were me reading into things. I asked a stylish French friend in San Diego if I was imagining the looks. With a deep sigh she said, “Regina, just put on jeans. It is the very least you can do.” In other words, I was long-distance embarrassing her, too.
The New York Times recently did a fun piece on the art of drop-off outfits called “Who Cares What I Wear at School Drop-Off? Me.” Written by a New Yorker, the only city in America that comes close to Paris and French Fashion in general, the author writes about how the key to looking good at drop off is to “look like you do not care about the drop-off outfit.” Looking-like-you-don’t-care while very much looking fabulous is the very definition of French Fashion! The NYT author goes on to write, with some French words no less, that she is “not ashamed to admit that [she does] put some consideration into the fashion of it all, especially during the tour de force that is the first two weeks of the school year.” There you have it: The first few weeks of school are essentially debutant (French!!) season.3 What you wear matters. And I rolled in wearing sweats. I didn’t just look like I didn’t care. I didn’t care. And that was the problem.
The sweats conveyed that I didn’t care to assimilate nor know the rules of French dressing. The the wet hair announced a lack of pride and self-worth. My kids had their autonomie on display but where was mine? Of course none of these things are true. I am obsessed with French Fashion, I think my hair looks best air-dried and my autonomie is evident by the fact that I’m the only American mom at the school (and in the entire town). But that was all lost in translation.
Sometimes I still wear leggings and sweats but I wear them under tailored jackets with broaches. I bought acrylic hair clips to toss my hair into “I don’t care *wink*” updo’s. I wear my matching sweatsuits around the house and toss on jeans in the morning with a laugh (“these are for you, Veronique, my friend in San Diego! Don’t be embarrassed today!”).
Today, knowing I wanted to write the post, I walked out of my house and into the busy les halles with wet hair and no makeup. I wanted to see if I was imagining the looks. I got them. One woman even looked directly at me and then to her reflection in a nearby window to adjust her own perfectly “careless” French twist. Regarde ça. Est-ce que tu vois? C'est facile! This post is being written by a ghost. The French-women-looks killed me. Again.
The linked episode is loosely translated into English as “Fall Fashion” but in French it is about robe de réentrée. September is the month of re-entering daily life, work, school and even book publishing after the vacation month of August. September may be part of Fall but it is an entirely different feeling than October and November. The month calls for its own dress code. It’s basically it’s own separate universe.
Once I left my neon YETI in the common area/ stairs of our rental apartment and it went missing. I thought it was stolen (I love a good worst-case scenario!) but it turns out our sweet Basque grandma neighbor had proudly protected “the American cup” in her apartment.
The French have an annual, nationally-celebrated debutant month called Réentrée. See Footnote 1 above.