Longing for Paris: French fashion

I hadn't planned on posting this, but Aims asked about French fashion, so here goes.

Coming next week: Up the North Shore with the boys. Boscoe is starting to show his age...


I'd been warned by someone (and you know who you are!) that I would feel frumpy in Paris. This is a reasonable assumption, since I feel frumpy in St. Paul.

But the truth is, I didn't feel the least bit frumpy in France. Sure, there were glamorous ultra-thin women with insouciant scarves and high heels and cigarettes and, sometimes, interesting hats. You couldn't help but stare.

But there were also old shuffling people, and fat people, and casual people in blue jeans, and sort of regular-looking people, and people who attempted to look kicky but just ended up looking a bit off. Like this young woman browsing the bookstalls along the Seine:


One of the more popular looks for women was a frilly dress worn with very heavy jeans, sometimes rolled up at the ankle. The effect was a bit lopsided; the wearer looked winsome and delicate from the knees on up, and tough and durable down to the feet. But it struck me as practical, too; sort of the best of both worlds.

The most signficant fashion detail I noticed, though, was breasts.

Breasts are apparently quite significant this spring in Paris. Maybe they are every spring. I'm sorry I didn't take any pictures for you. But it seemed to me that every single woman in Paris was wearing a push-up bra; I have never seen such perky girls in such numbers (two at a time, obviously) on so many different body types. Even Doug noticed, in his Norwegian understated way. Perhaps he even noticed more than I did. Combined with clingy tops and low necklines, they were definitely, um, out there. On display.

My own fashion statement was less provocative: comfortable shoes, a swingy skirt to beat the heat (worn without jeans), and those important accoutrements of every traveler: a camera, and a tour book.