Oh, of course it’s nice to eat everything you want.

In all my “Feel Good Books” and in tons of magazines I come across, I’m realizing it’s totally in right now to think that… Diets are in the past. Now you have to satiate your senses and eat until you’re full, that’s it, and that’s what’s most important.

All in all, I think it’s a good start.

It helped me to stop blaming myself in the months that followed my “crisis”. It helped me to stop blaming myself, but it also helped me a lot to continue not being able to button my jeans.

But really, the problem is that curves don’t come evenly. We’re not all like Crystal Renn, and gaining weight harmoniously… That’s luck that I just don’t have.

Life’s a bitch.

So, June arrived and I was in Paris at the Café de Flore with Sophie. We were drinking a glass of rosé and I’m watching her munch down chip after chip. She was loving each one as she always does and just as it always is, her silhouette was perfect.

And as always, I was telling her my whole life story, including my adventures with weight.

I asked her how she stays so perfect even after 40 years old rolled on by. She told me her trick.

And something clicked.

It’s not what she ate that inspired me… No, what got me was that she figured out how to really nourish herself. With her tastes, her desires, and even her lifestyle. For example, she has lunch all the time at Flore, so she’s integrated their menu into how she eats.

And right after she finished telling me all about that, she told me something that just cracked me up…

“And of course, you forget that the word dessert ever existed.”

No, no. That’s so impossible for me. No, no no no. I have my rules. And my rules, they’re as hard as iron… They’re stuff like :

• Every breakfast has to consist of toast with butter. Real salted butter. And honey, of course.
• And bread. Every meal has to have bread. My Papa taught me that just by teaching me to set the table (“Where’s the water? And the bread? Where’s the bread!?”)
• Life is not worth living without a glass of wine and 12 cups of coffee a day.
• Life isn’t worth living without snacks. And a snack is defined as a treat you can dunk in your tea.
• Every meal has to finish with something sweet, otherwise it’s not a real meal, and therefore not real life.

Oh yeah, I’ve got some other words to live by:

• Every cool self-respecting chick doesn’t exercise, because exercise is not cool. Have you ever seen Charlotte Gainsbourg exercising ? No !

And yet when Sophie talked to me about the way she feeds herself, her simplicity and groundedness inspired me.

I took a nice hard look at my “rules” and realized they were all pretty stupid.

So right then, I started changing things.

I started with giving up bread. Not completely, mind you, but in the past, I was the girl in the restaurant who finished the entire basket of bread before the appetizers arrived… And I eat out all the time.

I stopped eating desserts. Not all desserts, just mainly cakes and ice cream. I wanted to see what it felt like to end a meal without something sweet.

And the two were the same. It’s a little tough in the beginning, then you get used to it, and then you end up completely forgetting to look at the dessert menu.

After a few weeks, that’s what I did. But there would always be exceptions, because exceptions are part of life. I stayed cool about them.

I right away felt positive effects. And not only on my waistline but also with my self-image. I could eat differently without being totally frustrated. Realizing my “rules” weren’t anything more but bad habits to hide behind, not really understanding why I needed to change a system that worked up until then – even a system as chaotic as the one I had.

And I think I finally understood that if I gained some weight, it was my body telling me that it was tired of absorbing my excesses. I had to see it coming…. I’ve always eaten whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. After 30 hit, the machine got a little cranky. Metabolism just doesn’t deal with your chocolate pudding or your 3rd glass of wine the way it used to.

It made me actually stop and think about my health. Gaining weight, for me, it was never just a cosmetic problem or about pride or fashion.

There is a lot of type II diabetes in my family. And with my dumb rules, it was dangling right in front of my face.

Finding encouragement in my progress, I read a whole bunch of books on nutrition and applied some new principles that seemed to work for me. I revamped my entire way of eating.

No, it wasn’t following some diet. No, not counting calories. And it wasn’t stopping eating what I love to eat.

It was just harmonizing my way of eating with my tastes and my lifestyle. And that’s really personal. No one else can do that for you, and it would serve no purpose whatsoever if I told you what I’ve been eating. It suits no one but myself.

It’s been three months since this has clicked for me. Three months isn’t a long time, and I’m still fumbling around with how to feed myself. I’m changing slowly, one thing at a time.

I’m slowly adapting to where I live : if New York is hell to start with, you can quickly realize that there are tons of delicious healthy options on every corner.

I have a giant Whole Foods just down the street and an awesome Farmer’s Market every other day.

This weekend, locked in the house because the not so hurricane, I cooked. It’d been months since I’d fired up the stove. I forgot how nice it is.

I don’t eat toast and butter every morning anymore. That said, it’d be dumb to try to eat like a Frenchie here. Nothing tastes the same. Not even the French wine, it’s somehow too sweet… If you want a good red, you really have to go looking.

By the way, I still drink a glass of wine every day. Just one, except, you know, exceptions.

And I lost weight.

I’m far from being New York Skinny and that’s not at all my goal, but I got back to the weight I knew and the weight I feel most myself.

Now my friends ask me to be their weight-loss coach, that they’re inspired by me… And it just cracks me up.

Seriously? Me?

It’s funny… I never thought myself capable of change. And still, I wonder if I’m just dreaming here. I feel such a strong sense of balance and I hope to continue this way the rest of my life.

—-

But the craziest thing that I found, I’ll tell you about next time!

Translation : Tim Sullivan

I also love her style, but I can’t help going back to her hair as I find it gives her a fantastic allure.

And you know what ?

Beware, I am about to turn the whole subject to me, I warn you.

You know what ? I think I have the same hair. Pretty much.

It’s weird. Since I’ve had my Keratin Treatment, my hair has changed. It’s more curly and it has more volume than it ever had before. I’d heard these things happen. Just know it if you’re about to have a Keratin Treatment!

But even if I love Naz’s hair, on me it just doesn’t work. Sometimes on an bold day I let them dry naturally, find it super cute and just go out like that, but after five minutes I have that feeling everybody’s looking at my big hair and there you go, I put it up.

I’ve heard it’s not good to wear it up all the time. Unless you make a very loose bun, it breaks the hair. And it’s even worse if you do that on wet hair… Which I do all the time. Just know this if you have them up all the time !

But why are we able to love on others what we can’t stand on ourselves ?

So, can you guess what I am going to talk about ?

It’s funny. I seriously just had the idea of doing a post about slightly strange beauty techniques (like those little fishies that give you a pedicure or eyelash extensions, but don’t worry, we’ll get back to it soon) when this morning I gasped the second I saw my photo producer Tamiko’s eye color.

“Woooo Tamiko your eyes are the coolest color. You’re so lucky. I love it!!!” She blushed a little and apologized for deceiving me, but they were indeed color contacts.

WHAT? I got a little closer and really, I didn’t see a thing. Mmmmm.  Pfffff.

She fooled me? The Great Destroyer of Faux Green Eyes? Me? Who never for a second believed that Naomi Campbell had a Peruvian grand mother that would be the justification for her blue eyes… She got me, with my hawk eyes for colored eyes? Yep. Me. I was totally fooled.

What do you think? Do you think it’s nothing more than a kind of make up? Or is it cheating your true personality? Is it just ridiculous? Or beautiful? Who cares? Pfffff.  I’m so lost. What I know is that it looks amazing on Tamiko.

And if one day I am telling you a story about my deep green eyes coming from my peruvian grandmother, well, don’t say I hadn’t warned you !

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Here is an update with Tamiko’s comment… Thank you so much Tamiko !

Hello Garance.

Well, since your departure the sun has faded and the rain set in – you are no longer missing anything here!

Thank you for my beautiful post. You have a talent for making the everyday more interesting and i’m so excited to see the final results of your work in Sydney soon!!.

Anyway – for all those keen to know.

My shirt is a shirt dress from an amazing Australian designer Jessie White whose label is called Shakuhachi

https://shakuhachi.net.au/

And my contact lenses are actually a brand called Freshlook Dimensions (i’m wearing Sea Green)… i think the thing that makes them look so natural is that they are only tinted around the edge leaving your natural colour still to be seen in the middle).

Anyway – thanks for outing me to the world!!! I’m a fake! It’s true!

(Just so you know though they are actually prescription so i do need them to see – and if i’m not wearing them i’m wearing glasses – either way it’s all a part of accessorizing our look isn’t it?)

Much love.
Xx
Tamiko

Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. Everywhere I’m seeing girls who want to make me jealous with their supernatural blondness. What’s going on here? This season, everyone’s gone platinum blonde.

Aaaah la la. This is giving me goosebumps.

I think this is absolutely sublime. It’s totally rock and angelic at the same time and I get the impression that all platinum blondes automatically have a life much more fascinating than mine. 100% sure. All of them. It’s gotta be.

So there you have it. If one day I take a nose dive into a bucket of bleach, at least you’ll know why.

Bonne journée!

Translation : Tim Sullivan

Sorry, this entry is only available in Français.

Ce coup là, je ne m’y attendais pas du tout. Invitée pour la présentation du nouveau make-up artist de Lancôme, j’étais là, tranquille, en train de raconter ma vie comme toujours, quand arrivent Alice et Aaron. Ils ont quelque chose, ça se sent tout de suite. On me les présente.

Aaron c’est donc la nouvelle star du make up. Il me présente Alice, son assistante et sa muse, puis s’intéresse à moi. Pas un mot sur lui. Puis on me l’arrache. J’en profite pour prendre quelques photos d’Alice dont le style, l’humour et l’étrange et vénéneuse beauté me vont droit au coeur. On accroche assez vite, on déconne, on parle de photo, de Stephen Malkmus, notre héros, elle m’étrangle parce que j’ai vu Pavement en concert. Et on parle de New York, où elle vit quand elle ne parcourt pas le monde.

Alice porte un vrai bleu de travail, avec une veste et des bottes Westwood

Mais la conférence commence. En bonne mauvaise élève, j’arrive en retard, je me prépare à m’ennuyer sévère, j’envoie des oeillades à mes copines, limite je fais des avions et du papier mâché.

Puis Aaron commence à parler. Et là, je ne comprends pas ce qui m’arrive. Il m’émeut. Son humour, sa simplicité, son accent hyper bizarre, sa façon de parler de son boulot, de ses débuts, de ses héros, de Rei Kawakubo, de Slimane, de Kate Moss avec qui il bosse.

De ces gens en présence de qui, dit-il, l’existence vibre et les idées s’entrechoquent.

Je commence à l’écouter, bouche bée. Je sens ce truc indescriptible, ce petit souffle précieux qui vous cueille quand vous ne vous y attendez pas. Je sais pas, genre, l’inspiration.

À la fin du truc, j’ai complètement oublié qu’on est là pour parler de rouge à lèvres. Je vais le remercier comme j’aurais remercié Bob Dylan à la fin d’un concert, la fille à peine impressionnée. Je ne raconte plus du tout ma vie. Et je repars, enchantée.

Quelques jours après, je reçois un coup de fil de chez Lancôme. Aaron s’est intéressé à mon boulot. Il est venu faire un tour ici, il a aimé mes dessins. Il aimerait, si je suis d’accord, qu’on travaille ensemble.

Je ne vous parle pas souvent de mon boulot, mais je peux vous dire un truc. Même si on ne fait jamais rien avec Aaron, c’est pour des rencontres comme ça que je bosse. Tout le reste, c’est du bla bla.

———————–

Like one happy family, there I was with my mother and M. (my mom’s friend who I haven’t seen in 20 years), enjoying a serving of Bordeaux Rillettes* at Au Sauvignon, on rue des Saint Pères (but of course, it’s another story of my life). So we were  intoxicated and talking about how unbelievable it was that we haven’t changed, when Mélodie takes a seat from across the table.

Her traffic-stopping beauty took our breath away which wasn’t so bad knowing that we were on our third bottle of Saint-Émillion and my mother began showing the contents of her purse to the young girls on the other table. (Nuh-uh, not telling you that thing inside the purse. But here’s a hint: it’s mentioned in this post).

Me: Excuse me, I’ll go take a photo.

M: …and the girl looks delightfully charming.

My mother: Go ahead and have your photo taken, then send it to your sister (13-year old Sacha with glorious hair looking exactly like Mélodie’s yet flattened daily, conscientiously and rigorously for a more layered look) and tell her to quickly get rid of her straightening iron.

There’s my mom’s personal message to Sacha and all the girls who don’t know what to do with all that big hair. Amen.

On another note, what’s with the little blue vintage dresses and long necklaces? The anchor pendant à la Fonfonelle is from a boutique in the Marais quarter. It’s marked Culotte**. Does the name ring a bell?

Elsewhere, I immediately went inside the first thrift store at the corner and made seemingly foolish buys—a hat that’s too small, a shirt that’s too big and a dress to be cut and made into a great skirt. One day, perhaps. If I won’t use it as an apron, that is.

_________________

Do you remember my photos of Valentine Filiol-Cordier? Online magazine Dirrty Glam posted them in an interview with one of my favorite it-girls. Click here to see the link! Bisou!

* Click here and here for details related to rillettes. And here for a closer look at the dish (photo credit:Laura Neulat).

** Found it! Photos of Culotte, the shop. And view here for the real meaning of “culotte(s)”, the French word.

Hello! Here are my latest photos taken from Hyères with two or three things to remember before leaving for some editorial assignment this first weekend of May

1 – Must have a holey shirt.

That’s according to Emmanelle Alt in La Mode La Mode La Mode and if that’s what she said, then I’d take her word for it. And if Chris, above, chimed in to agree, I’d rush to the nearest shop. As I didn’t have a tee tattered with holes, I went to AmApp to buy a super low-cut tank top, the kind that would get you ten new friends soon as you bend down. I hooked the shirt to the tire and rolled my car on broken glass. As a result, said shirt would make me gain ten new friends per second, no bending down required. A perfect wear for summer.

2 – Must have a head gear.

Personally, I love the cap. But I passed up the chance because I <del>was too old</del> had too many accessories on me, although I’d like to wear a Panama hat. I almost bought one yesterday but it was too small. I asked if they had my size, and they said, “Yes, of course, just make an order and you’ll get it in six months.”

I said, “What the hell!” (yes, my Italian is slowly coming back).
Supposing the item would come (6 months, say we count in Hermès years and probably calculate in Hermès currency, so we pretty much pay in gold), I went on asking further, “How much is it?”

“997 Euros”
Not 9.97 Euros, not 99.7 Euros, no. It’s 997 Euros.
Bon, at that price, I’m better off traveling to Central America myself and searching for my own Panama hat, right?

3 – Must have a scarf.

Aaaaah, but what the heck are you talking about, Garance?  You think we’d expect you to bring the scarf? (No, but whatever.).
Look girls, you know well that we’re in an extremely advanced fashion arena. While the scarf touches the chests of all the young privileged girls, it’s time we tackle the issue of the after-scarf.

We had argued over this case in Hyères with Géraldine and Géraldine and I have the answer. So, so indeed, what exactly do we do with scarves, huh?

In any case, Portofino is simply divine. The sun plays hide-and-seek with the clouds, giving off an intense and dramatic light on the ifs that dominate the hill. The birds sing, the sea is calm and the fishermen make a catch that will bring tagliatelle al vongole to the table. My calorie counter is totally useless. The place is strikingly beautiful that my mouth hangs wide open. In Italy, everybody takes advantage of your moments of relaxation to prepare you delicious pasta, but you did well in advising me to chuck all diets out the door from the moment I didn’t manage to remove a tree inside my (huge) rental car.

I leave you to ponder on the scarf issue. So for a couple of days, while waiting, I’ll try, as in try hard to raise my arm—a bit higher, the highest it could reach—to take a few snapshots. After all, dear children, Italy’s such a beauty to behold.

Panama can wait, though.

Ciao!

J’en ai marre du rouge à lèvres rouge.

Ça m’a frappée il y a quelques jours. Soudain, j’ai trouvé que ça ne m’allait pas du tout, que c’était une galère et que j’allais devoir utiliser mes 375 tubes de rouge pour autre chose que pour me maquiller.

Je ferais peut-être une oeuvre conceptuelle, une sorte de tribute à mon ancien moi glamourisant et un so far so long au rouge à lèvres qui file. Ou bien un calendrier 2008, comme le Vogue dont les filles ont trouvé un bon moyen de recycler le make up qu’elles reçoivent en pagaille.

Je suis donc passée au nude sur les lèvres, et je m’éclate toute seule. J’en ai plein : un beige rosé, presque mat, qui fait la lèvre discrète et sensuelle. Un rose un peu fané, un rouille léger. Je me sens beaucoup plus chic comme ça, tiens.

C’est la vie… J’adore la mode : j’adore par conséquent atomiser ce que j’ai porté aux nues deux jours avant.

C’est pourquoi j’ai soudain une envie folle de maquiller mes yeux, et le Elle d’il y a deux semaines vient de me flanquer (oui, j’ai du décalage MÊME dans la lecture des magazines) une nouvelle obsession. D’autant plus marteau-piqueuresque que je ne sais absolument pas comment avoir ce rendu arachnéo-charbonneux-givré.

Moi d’habitude, j’ai le cil net et brillant (et la truffe humide, oui bon), ultra défini par ces nouvelles brosses plastique qui déposent le minimum du minimum sur les cils.

Je vous l’ai donc scanné et je vous le demande très solennellement. Je vous lance un cri un SOS qui part dans les airs dans l’eau laisse une trace dont les écumes font la beauté.

Alors, au nom de la beauté, comment on fait ça ?

——————

Ah, et au nom de la mode, quelqu’un connaît-il une bonne couturière entre le Marais, Oberkampf et République ?

Silhouette inspirée par le défilé Dolce & Gabbana que j’ai vraiment aimé, pour une fois. Fallait immortaliser ça !

Aujourd’hui, je voulais vous raconter à quel point je suis accro à mes accessoires. Oui. Faut que je vous raconte, sinon vous allez passer un mauvais week-end.

Comment ça on est jeudi, et c’est pas le week-end ? C’est pas moi qui ai commencé. Mardi, un collaborateur m’a dit : allez, à lundi, bon week-end. Surprise, j’ai réfléchi puis j’ai décidé de le prendre au pied de la lettre. Puisque vous le dites.
Et depuis j’en fiche pas une, je sors tous les soirs, et tout à l’heure je vais même manger des Daims chez Ikéa.

Je suis donc accro à mes accessoires.

First (what, c’est toujours mieux que prems, pour dire premièrement non ?), à mes foulards. Sans foulard, je me sens aussi nue que les seins de Kate Moss.
Je choisis donc selon la météo (…) : soit le maxi en laine, soit le mini en soie. Sans cela mon cou rebelle et j’attrape froid.
Ce qui est dingue, c’est qu’en même pas un an, et après le coup d’envoi du défilé Balenciaga et de ses keffiehs, je suis passée de zero à 35 carrés. Bon, j’en ai piqué 33 à ma mère hein. Ah c’est du joli.

Second (bah yes, I know, my frenglish is getting perfectly obnoxious), mes gants. Non mais que se passe-t-il ? Sans gants, mes mains ne veulent plus me parler. Je suis donc obligée de transporter avec moi DEUX paires de gants. Une paire de longs et une paire de gants de conduite, toujours à choisir selon la météo (…), même si, je vous assure, je n’en suis pas encore à conduire mon métro.
Les gants de conduite, c’est juste trop, trop chic. Là aussi, j’en voulais 35, mais ma mère n’avait que des Isotoner, donc j’en a juste deux paires. Et le prix des beaux gants, s’il vous plaît, venez on en parle pas.

Third (avec la langue sur les deux dents de devant), and last but not least, mes lunettes. Ça y est, j’ai enfin un problème de vue !!! J’ai galéré pour y arriver hein. Il en a fallu des heures scotchée à mon écran, mais ça marche !
Je n’ai donc plus aucune justification à donner quand je passe 1h30 chez mon psychologue opticien. Pour le moment, j’ai une paire de Fiction absolument secrétaire perverse vintage, mais je bave déjà devant une paire de Cutler & Gross en écaille absolument indécentes old school.
Sans parler des Benjamin de soleil que je compte m’offrir (je suis dingue de lunettes, je connais toutes les marques du fin fond de la Californie au coins les plus reculés de la Toundra)(je suis dingue de montres aussi, remerciez moi de vous épargner mon amour du mouvement perpétuel).

Je pense parfois aussi à me mettre aux chapeaux. Mais bon, je me dis, si je continue à masquer la mule (=moi) comme ça, même ma mère ne va plus me reconnaître. Pas de chapeau. Mais un foulard dans les cheveux, je peux ?

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