french chic: iconic style inspo from my childhood

when i was about 10 years old i checked out a book on french style from the fairview public library. i've been obsessed with the idea of french style & culture since i can remember – i'm not sure where this began, perhaps my love of ballet or the madeline books.

i've thought about the book several times over the years, but i couldn't find it (you try searching "french style book"), all i could remember was that it had a very 80s cover, and there was a section detailing the importance of plain white hanes t-shirts to a frenchwoman's closet. (re: the cover, it was already pretty dated by the time i read in the book in 1998 or so. i'm older but not that old.)

finally, this past spring, i did a google book search for french style books published between 1980-1999, and i found french chic: how to dress like a frenchwoman by susan sommers. published in 1988, it's definitely the book from my childhood! look at that cover – and here's the section on white t-shirts.

i've always had a habit of wearing all black everything; it mostly came from following my mom's example, but this book also heartily endorses the monochromatic scheme.

it's also fun to reread the sections on lingerie, fragrance and skincare. i'm pretty obsessed with all those categories of things as an adult, but they were completely foreign to me as a child. my mom was irish catholic, definitely not a french mother. she still washes her face with dove soap and i'm not sure if she's ever worn perfume. (she does look incredible, though.)

the introduction to the lingerie section held a sweet surprise – the author named les folies d'elodie and les nuits d'elodie as "two of the most luxurious lingerie shops in paris." i loved this because in 2019, i went on a retreat in paris with four other women, and we were asked to choose parisienne names for ourselves from a list. the name i chose was elodie, which i thought i'd never heard before; but evidently it was buried in this book from long ago.

i remember reading and re-reading the section on clothing quality in my girl scout handbook, too. small wonder that i spent 13 years in the fashion industry.

"buy only what you love / the concept of coup de couer / part of the mystique of chic is mixing the cheap with the costly"

thank you, susan ♡