On beauty....

Posted by Isabel Dexter at 18:02 on 25 Feb 2010

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Despite everything (and that includes my own newly-formed national pride) I still think that French women, or at least Parisian women, are amongst the most beautiful on the planet. Haughty? Yes. Judgemental? Mais, bien sur (of course) and mostly really traditional about dating, marriage and even dancing on bars, but still gorgeous. Now I need to add here that so many of my best friends are French women (reminds me of that old joke, "and when I see them I treat them just as if they were people.") who are funny, sparkling, non-conformist, clever and thoughtful, this isn't about reinforcing stereotypes, only that the most interesting thing about being a foreigner, being by default on the outside, is that you analyse things that previously you would have taken for granted. I never stopped to think about how "so British" my English friends are, or even saw Londoners as being all in one bracket, but I seem to have a developed an obsession with doing it in Paris. Like drinking pastis, scowling at strangers and wearing head-to-toe black, there are somethings it seems I will only do in Paris.

The judgemental thing (which my friends assure me is just Paris, and not France as a whole) seems to be rubbing off though. I'd see a pretty girl in Old Street and maybe check out her Pri-marni dress, ripped leopard print tights, neon pink jelly shoes with a wedge heel and vintage fur coat and think, "Cool, love her style". On the Rue des Pyrenees, I see the girl's French equivalent in steel grey tights, black -t-bar heels, neat little navy vintage coat, red lipstick and YSL bag and think, "Bitch. She's so much more stylish/skinnier/prettier/more French* than I am." I'm not sure where this came from? I used to like people. Do they put something in the Yves Rocher shower gel here? Are the crepes secretly stuffed with insecurity as well as Nutella and banana?

And yet, and yet.... en même temps (at the same time) I have this ridiculous, all-consuming love for Paris, France and anything and everyone French. Have you seen how long peoples' eyelashes are in this country? The way all their emotions stretch across their faces the minute they feel something, as though they are children who have not yet learnt how impolite it is to show all your emotions? I love the way that it has taken about five months of regular morning trips to my local boulangerie (bakery) and only last week did the boulangere smile at me the moment I walked in the door, before the obligatory eye-contact-without-a-smile and "ca va?" (how are you?). I love that it takes the average Parisian 18 minutes and forty-five seconds to choose a tomato in the supermarket. I love that when I had stomach ache and was throwing up every two hours my doctor prescribed me a bottle of coca lite (diet coke) with a drop of whisky. Vive La France indeed!



*Yes, Yes je sais (I know). I need to find some American girls to hang out with here so I can be more smugly European.

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