Quelle peau de vache

Posted by Isabel Dexter at 23:00 on 3 Jun 2009

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'This season is all about skin!' boasted the press release at one of Paris fashion week's autumn/winter 2010 shows. Being a girl from Derby I was assuming it meant that sporting the stereotypical English girl attire (tiny top showing lots of cleavage, pelmet skirt, no tights, high heels) has finally crossed the continent. Mais malheureusement (sadly) it's not my skin that's a la mode (in fashion) right now. In that adorably explicit way that the French talk about the pieces of meat that they eat ('you would like just the thigh or more from the ass?' I was asked in a restaurant recently) 'skin' is simply leather or suede. And any girl worth her Agnes b 40's print floral dress and Louis Vuitton tribal sandals is wearing a leather jacket in Paris this spring.

Mostly in black (mais, bien sûr) I've also spotted some prime cut examples in Italian ice cream shades (pistachio, maraschino cherry and buttermilk) as well as the usual bitter chocolate brown and navy blue. This dark purple jacket with studs on the shoulders is the sort of thing that would look typically Morgan on me or most other English girls I know. (Think matching studded belt with too-short jeans, heels and a lycra vest top. Think shopping centres. Think Milton Keynes.) It looks trop class on this Parisienne however. 'I always roll up the sleeves on my jackets,' she confided, 'it makes your arms look slimmer.' Plus it gives that elusive, effortlessly stylish Parisian thing which I'm working on. Now if I could only learn to show less cleavage...

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