La nuit est jeune

Posted by Isabel Dexter at 15:29 on 28 Oct 2009

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A lightbulb moment on Saturday morning at 8am, walking the four miles in the rain from Truskel's to chez moi in the 20th. Clad in last season Marc Jacobs sandals (come on, it was Truskel, most people there look like they have been wearing the same jeans their entire life and just added a leather jacket and facial hair when they hit 15), leopard print tights and a could-it-pass-for-Balmain? zip-up bodycon black wool dress that I had been wearing since 7.30am on Friday morning when I thought it would give me some pseudo fashion authority for my Corporate Job powerpoint presentation (Oh all right then, I thought it might just be distracting).  Then it hit me. My feet may have been soaked, my hair fluffy and I had not eaten since 2pm the previous day, but the dress? The dress worked.

So this is why Parisians wear so much black. Mais, oui. It's not, as I had previously thought, a genetic phobia of bright colours and loud prints, more that it's pretty much the only colour that can do day-to-night-to-day without looking cheap. I was all ready to hot (wet) foot it back to the office for another round of 'lets create a spreadsheet' but The English Boy, who thought the night was officially ending at 2am, "bah, quoi?",  opted for Macdo (MacDonalds) where we nestled inbetween a fox fur wearing granny nibbling on chicken nuggets and a girl in faux pearl earrings with a Chanel bag. Oh the glamour. You don't get this on the Tottenham Court Road.

Having now resigned myself to the fact that any sort of leaving-the-house activity might actually lead to not coming home until 48 hours later, I am going all Girl Guide and Lets Be Prepared. This includes having a small packet of pistachios in my bag at all times (they've replaced my beloved Tracker bars, which are almost impossible to find here), BECCA creme blush in Rosebud, which doubles as lip colour and Diorshow Iconic mascara, because of which I once actually held up a wedding because I thought it had dropped out of my bag in the taxi. Annoyingly, whenever a girl tries to apply make-up in public in Paris though she is assaulted with a barrage of compliments and "N'inquiète pas, vous êtes belle" (don't worry, you're already beautiful), which may be endearing the first time but after a while it's all too reminiscent of your Senior School teacher telling you the best way to be pretty is to smile and be a nice person. Ugh. So that's why she has lipstick on her teeth.

As much as I am loving my sandals with socks look, after realising that taxis in Paris work on the same principle as men here (they expect to be chased, I mean literally), I am so over it. As a girl who likes her extremes, if it's not sandals it's Over The Knee boots, so I dug out my trusty Office leather ones from a few years ago. A mon avis (personally), the OTK boot with a heel is a little too Tamara Mellon (but if it worked for Christian Slater...) so I am sticking to flats. Malheuresement (unfortunately) these boots really are made for walking.

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