Oh America. The Great Melting Pot. Country of anything and everything. One can be that anything and do those everythings. So the American style world goes:
“Let’s be Parisian.”
The hair and the style, the certain (tongue in cheek) je ne sais quoi’ness (I did say anything and everything is possible, including adding suffixes wherever your little heart desires). Why is it the fashion world wants to be Parisian so darn badly?
I’ll be blunt. I don’t have a clue.
Except for the myth. The tale. The legend. The romance.
Wait. Those are pretty good reasons for the grass to be greener on the other side. I’d like to be a heroine in my own romance, the Helen in my myth. French women put off a pretty good air of doing so.
Perhaps it boils down to three things.
1) The ability to grow old with grace- to grow old and embrace it, don’t fear it. Like a good bottle of wine, age well. Take Catherine Deneuve:
2) A uniform. Every advice column about being Parisian, every book, every blog (aren’t I clique??) hits on the subject of the uniform. They know what they like and stick with it- don’t clutter your closet with trends. (However, don’t forget: today you may want to be Parisian, but tomorrow you may want to be Canadian, or Swiss.) Don’t throw on stripes and a beret and call it a day.
3) Do you see that hair? Who doesn’t want to skip the blowout. Low maintenance all the way.
Be Parisian. Be New York. Be Milan. Be Midwest. Be North, South, East, or West. Be everything. Be anything. Be what makes your heart happy.
-Kait Elizabeth
