Ghosts inhabit probably every old European city. I assumed that in Paris, they would turn out to be gargoyles. However, it seems the growing reputation of the fashion capital scared them away back to the burned rooftops of Notre Dame and conjured another one instead. The new phantom haunts French people and allures the rest of the world. White ladies, gorgons, vampires, beware, the French girl is coming with her effortless style in Repetto ballet flats.
Chic like Brigitte Bardot or artsy like Lou Doillon, the French girl aesthetic came the long way from breathing and living people to a stereotypical trope worshipped by almost every fashion magazine around the globe. It has different subtle flavors but doesn’t come in all shapes and sizes as the code is limited to white, skinny women, mostly from wealthy families. Nonetheless, there is another factor that decides eligibility to be named the mythical French girl – effortlessness. The rare quality sounds very ordinary and yet appears as something paranormal by nature. The French girl is the only person on planet Earth who has truly mastered the art of existence.
Effortlessness means not only a particular style but living without the slightest sign of struggle. The French girl is like a deity in the human body, comparable to Tolkien’s elves. She is exempt from biological laws that apply to us mortals. She doesn’t experience bad hair days, never gains weight, and handles motherhood with unattainable grace. Busy all the time, the French girl is well-educated bonne vivante. She is well-versed in the culture, likes to read, knows where to dine and, above all, where to go and who to know. Her entourage is always perfect and matching like cherry-picked accessories. I bet even her restroom time is breathtakingly instragrammable.
When as a trend, the French girl transformed into an archetype to exist on her own. She began haunting women, like a spiteful ghost willing to spoil any pleasure one could possibly enjoy. The mythical French girl lurks in the back of French women’s heads, constantly smirking and judging whenever they are not perfect. Like a malicious spirit, she whispers that anything less makes a woman unworthy, at least of being associated with French-flavored feminity in any way. Nevertheless, mythical creatures are as long-lived as the legends about them, and the French girl is no exception.
(Source: AnOther)
As for fashion magazines, the French girl aesthetic, in its embodiment of chasing perfection, sells better than sex. While it is obviously impossible to cross the limits set for human bodies by biology, it is also absolutely feasible to pretend we belong to the group believed to live outside the laws regarding ordinary people. Fashion magazines thrive off approaching such concerns by offering tips on becoming the closest to flawlessness as possible, and the French girl has become their gold mine. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a problem if not for the fact that most of the articles proposed on the subject boldly assume that all French women match the far-fetched fantasy about French femininity (for example, Hannah Coates’ interview with Parisian hairstylist David Mallett for Vogue or L’Officiel’s “10 French Girl Style Do’s and Don’ts”).
(Source: Vogue)
Some French journalists decided to stand up against the unabashed tyranny of the French girl. Alice Pfeiffer published her book “Je ne suis pas parisienne” (“I am not a Parisian”), in which she challenges the popular myth of how French women are perceived and wrote a piece for Vogue where she discusses how Y2K style helped her deal with the French girl’s overpowering omnipresence. Iris Goldsztajn, in the article for British Vogue, recalls how the stereotype affected her and how harmful it is, especially for French women of color. Her quest to do French women justice also received support from Paris-based American journalist Lindsey Tramuta who also threw the gauntlet to the harmful stereotype in her book “The New Parisienne”, where she amplifies the voices of real Parisian women that otherwise would not have made it through the mythical narrative. Both English-speaking and French, Pfeiffer and Goldsztajn used their position as fashion journalists to speak up about the issue in the environment much responsible for keeping the French girl alive.
Looking back from the historical point of view and the context of the late 50s and 60s when the French girl was born, I don’t think the trend was supposed to become ethereal shackles. Thinking about the French girls trope reminds me of Nicole Cruchot, the iconic Ludovic Cruchot’s daughter from the famous Gendarme series. Or Pénélope Lannier (played by Jane Birkin) in 1969 “La Piscine”. In its origin, the French girl was supposed to depict a young girl, and the so-called je ne sais quoi was a carefree attitude usually associated with the image of youth in popular culture.
(Source: RTBF)
Yet, if there is any rule about trends is that turning a lifestyle into one will definitely destroy its originality. Needless to say that creating oppressive standards based on fictional characters we only get to know for several hours of the movie’s running time is a harbinger of a toxic culture. The emphasis on not trying came from the genuine inclination to enjoy one’s life. It was the reflection of those times. The original concept of the French was killed by those who wanted to bring her back not as a philosophy but as an inflexible trend meant to be available only to the chosen ones. In other words, the ghost incarnated in selected mostly wealthy it-girls who would establish the trope as an object of desire. Even the famous Repetto flats aren’t timeless. They were out of fashion in the 80s until their comeback, which was nothing more than the well-intended marketing strategy of Jean-Marc Gaucher, who had earlier successfully revived Reebok in 1999. Lest we forget, fashion embraces creativity, but as an industry, it’s not free from economic laws. Luxury fashion brands often rely on demand-boosting trends to stay afloat in business.
Had it been all about the money, Paris wouldn’t be able to defend its title as the world capital of fashion. After all, fashion is supposed to be fun. When visiting Paris, my brother said that what he found unique about the city was that every Parisian was dressed differently and expressed themselves through individual style rather than trends imposed by the media. I never gave it much thought since the approach felt natural, but it struck me when he pointed it out. Despite the French girl’s overwhelming hegemony, the French reject the pressure to be like her by choosing freedom and variety. But the same diversity can be as frightening as it is compelling because it’s easier to follow even the most restrictive checklist instead of forming one’s own guidelines. At its core, the genuine French aesthetic is not about ticking all the boxes but figuring out what we want to communicate to the world about who we are and what we represent.
(Source: Vogue)
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