Last Updated on March 19, 2024
I’ve recently been following the Paris Fashion Week news, and I just don’t get it. Most of the “revolutionary” new styles pictured in the papers look like they’re fashioned from black plastic trash bags. One designer showed a gown made from dozens of bras! One model sported what looked like a drumstick protruding from the side of her bra. Some creations looked like they were splattered with mud … as did the models!
Where was the new version of the little black dress or the creations comprised of peacock feathers? Where was there ANYTHING that was FASHIONABLE??? It may have shown up on SOME runway … but I didn’t see any of it.
I treated my granddaughter, daughter, and niece to a week in Paris in September, and I saw neither trash bag coats or mud-splattered dresses on the streets of that fabulous city. I DID notice, however, that French women in my age group (mutter-something) mostly seemed attired pretty much as I remember my own grandmothers dressing when I was growing up in the 1950’s. They favored simple cotton dresses, bulky cardigans, support hose, and sensible shoes (although my Maternal grandmother wore lovely little “tee-strap” pumps until she died, and the dresses she wore “downtown” were nicely cut and very pretty).
I’m sure they’re out there, somewhere, in Paris, but I didn’t see a single woman over 70 wearing the colorful leggings favored by many of us here at Charlestown or any nippy little 75-year-olds wearing LL Bean jackets, plaid shirts, tight jeans and hiking boots. I didn’t even see even any of the well-coordinated Alfred Dunner ensembles so popular with so many of us … no Talbot’s, and no Chico’s, either.
The older women I saw on the streets of Paris didn’t color their hair, and most of them wore it long and skimming their shoulders, or in a simple bun. I found it both entertaining and puzzling … do French women stop caring about appearance once they pass 60? (Not all, apparently … French actresses Catherine Deneuve and Jeanne Marceau maintain their glamour while aging, if one can trust their pictures on the internet, and Catherine is just a year younger than I am.)
These differences were further validated for me by a personal encounter I enjoyed one morning while sipping a cappuccino in the Patisserie just across the street from our boutique hotel. Two women who worked in the hair salon next door to the Patisserie came out for a cigarette, and when they spotted me, they approached my outdoor table and asked if I spoke French. I admitted that I did, but just a little, so they politely continued our conversation in English.
They had seen me around the neighborhood all week, one of them said, and they loved my (short, dyed blonde) haircut. Could they look at it???
“Sure,” I said, and sat there with my cappuccino while they stood over my haircut, speculating on which instrument my own hairdresser had used, and how they would achieve the same effect. One of them then went into the Patisserie and came back bearing another cappuccino and a little pastry … “Merci. Merci beaucoup!!” they said and returned to their shop with a friendly wave.
These two ladies certainly brightened my day … at (mumble-something) I, apparently, was one of the most fashionable ladies of a certain age in Paris. Merci. Merci beaucoup, Mesdames, you made my day. And now I wonder if MY haircut is making the rounds in Paris.
~Dayle Dawes~