garance doré

And in the end it’s just like everything else.  You love love love love it, and then you’re happy it’s over.  End of fashion week!  Euh…. Vive la fashion week!

And because right now is not, no i mean like definitely not, the time for putting together balance sheets and everything but really more of a go-and-sleep-for-44-hours kind of thing, and then crack into some carrots to get some color back, doesn’t really matter what color, any color will do, even blue, but you gotta get some color back, but because of all that, I’ll give you a little extract of my exchange with Alexa Chung, a girl who decidedly and completely cracks me up.

“Oh hey hi!  How are you?  A picture, mais oui, oh mais wait wait wait!!!  Let me get my funny glasses!”

Ouais, Alexa, she’s into adding a little something funny into her outfits.  And even if she forgot her skirt at home, her hair is all ruffled, and is rather Louis Vuittsponsored,   and because she forgot her skirt at home and because her hair is all ruffled up, and because she is rather Louis Vuittsponsored, I find her just amazing.

It’s that at the same time, her Vuitton sandals seem to be written about everywhere and everywhere are breaking budgets, they still remain never the less, completely stunning and spectacular.  And no one can really copy them because they’re just that exceptional.  And they’ll always remind me of last season’s Vuitton show that I absolutely, like a kid in a candy store, just loved.

One of the girls I most like seeing these shoes on is definitely Alexa.

Voilà, after a few weeks of fashion colonized by very serious looking heels and by an almost gothic S&Mish black, I’m liking girls who have a little fun with style and wear little funny details, always staying cool, class, and coolass.

And of course to bring this fashion week to a close and because I can never get enough of her, the queen of the funny detail, the queen of the improbable yet successful melange, the queen of good-humor, the queen of American adolescents (Gloria is the fashion director over at TeenVogue) and of French adults (well, me, at least) and the queen of this blog with at least one appearance every week for more than a month, it’s my dear dear Gloria.

Et voilà!  Au revoir fashion week.  Au revoir sleepless nights.  Au revoir plumes et dentelles.  Au revoir white chocolate Oreos at two a.m. in front of my computer screen.  Au revoir Gloria.  Au revoir Tuileries gardens, Louvre, and the Couvent des Cordeliers…  Hello, reality?  Yeah, Hey!  It’s Garance, what’s up?  I’ve missed you.  Tell me, wanna hang out for a bit?

Gros bisous, bonne journée !

Translation : Tim Padraic Sullivan

Weird stuff is happening to me these days, no, but seriously.  I was all relaxed, in the middle of a glass of champagne over at Vanessa Bruno yesterday, waiting for the show.  All’s good, when suddenly, there’s this incredibly strong light.  I’m squinting and under the light, a camera, and behind the camera, a charming young man, who asks me if I’d like to respond to some questions about fashion week.

Truth be told, I don’t want to.  I didn’t see all the shows and you know that you’ve had your dose of fashion when even the words fashion week make you a little neurotic.  On top of that, I have the odd appearance roughly like a girl who just got hit with a monsoon season on her face and smokey eyes, if you see what I’m saying.  So, no.  And more than that though, I know the cameraman.  I saw him with Loïc Prigent.  And I gotta say, I do love Loïc’s shows, but as he will quite often make fun of people, I’m not exactly jumping at the opportunity to be on one. 

So no.

Ouais, bon.

But this isn’t counting the power of journalistic persuasion and a glass of champagne.  And so there, now you know why, a little bit more bubbly and non quickly becomes oui.

So, quick overview, here’s the quetion: What upcoming trends do I see taking center stage?  Of course, I got nothing.  Okay, maybe I saw two or three long skirts, some knee-high leather boots, but really, I’m finding that nothing really has changed.  Oh wait, yeah, no one really wears it-bags anymore.  That’s good, yeah?

So he keeps asking me questions and I keep talking out of my ass.  It’s weird to be forced to have an opinion on everything, especially for me, who changes my opinion everyday.  And it’s bizarre how in front of a camera, microphone there, how obliged you feel to respond.  You want to be nice.  You can’t just say, “I dunno,” and so you say whatever comes to mind.

And so at the end of the interview, when he asks me how to dress in this time of financial crisis, i think about the post i wanted to write for today.  I wanted to talk to you about rummaging the bottom of your closet, your mama’s closet, or your daughter’s for that matter, and to resurrect lost items and put it all together differently.  Wear one of your grandma’s super posh blazers with a leather jacket like the first picture, or put a ginormous scarf over a super chic dress and mix up a whole bunch of prints like the amazing Gloria who I have yet to finish spying on.  And always lots of color, bien sûr.

And so here I am, riding my tidal-wave of inspiration.  You know what I didn’t see coming?  My own BS.  I think I heard myself say, “The idea it’s, c’est shop your closet, tu vois?”

And bang!  That did it.  Ridiculous.  It’s definitely the sort of Anglicism said with an accent from the planet who-knows-where, that when you see it on TV, you say to yourself that these girls drinking champagne outside the runway shows have quite the head on their shoulders, backwards maybe, but it’s on there, and on top of that to look like such a wreck…  I see the journalist’s face light-up, “Voilà!  That’s Great!”

Herumph.  I finish my glass of champagne saying that I’m putting my foot down, no one will ever get me on film again.  Never.  Non.  Never giving myself the chance to make an ass of myself again.  Never.  Never again is what you swore the time before.  And then 15 minutes later, I forgot all about it.

What’s that you say?  My opinion of the Vanessa Bruno show?  Euuuh…  Ouais, bon…. Okay!

 Translation : Tim Padraic Sullivan

London!  I write to you under layers of covers in bed, a double espresso (you gotta say it : duhbull expwesso) in hand and a blissful smile on my lips.  Is it the time difference, the slight dizziness o have only spent a few tiny hours in Paris, or the joy to the point of hysteria at having found my friends once again?  I dunno.  Well, okay, yes, I know.  It’s all of it, and it’s definitely finding myself once again in this lively and cheery atmosphere that I loved last season.

It never stops, I’m zonked.  This girl is tired.  I even had to say no to a party on a roof, a party in a pub and a party in a… well, I had to say non to a million and half invites we received and to a million and a half cheerful faces who all said : out of the question that you’re not coming.

I think for tonight I’ll have to say no to a heart stopping super mega fashion debate that I wanted to raise up as the only thing I’ll be able to raise up tonight will be my hand to close the curtains and turn off the light.  Politics of style…  A townhall on how to dress… Today?  Nope, you get the story of my life.

I packed a much better suit case thanks to your advice, merci merci merci.  I bought my DKNYs and haven’t taken them off since.  I’m working on a pink chocolate Barbie given out at one of the shows.  The goody bags are really random.  Today at the Eley Kishimoto show, an Eastpack pencil case, for example.  Frankly, I don’t see the connection.  But okay.  I saw the most beautiful older woman in the entire world.  Her name is Carmen de Orifice (She’s also the only woman in the entire world who could pull off a name like that, I’ll give you that) and my new goal in life is to take her picture.  Oh and also, I’m in love.  Frankly, I don’t see the connection.  But okay.

Okay okay, I admit it.  I can’t stop myself.  I’m digging up a trend.

Look out here my friends, something’s going down.  Nelli Rody is going to cry in her fashion trend notebooks.  Anna Wintour is going to beg me to work with her.  You seeing my trend here?  Look at these three photos, and no, I’m not drunk.  Just a little zonked.  I love writing when I’m like this.  And I never reread anything I write.  So be it.

Answer: my trend of the day is an anti-trend!!!  Nothing to it : checkers and stripes.  Voilà.  That does it for you, no?  It’s so great, SO GREAT! I’m so great.  Voilà.  Think you’ve had enough?  Oh I’m far from finished, even if you said yes.  So hold on to all your plaids and steal the checkered tablecloth from your favorite Italian restaurant to make yourself a scarf.  Are you a true recessionista or what?  And even if you don’t believe-in-Gloria, she knows what she is talking about, that you can, you MUST put checkers and stripes together.

Because the fact that three of my style stars wear them proudly, it’s more than just waiting in the trend line.  It’s more like a second wind, like when you’re jogging and you think you’re going to crack your wide open mouth onto the pavement when suddenly, here we go, you go back to running like a gazelle (okay, except for me when I go jogging and I think I’m about to crack I find myself at a table outside a café to talk about the utility of sports in an urban environment and whether or not it’s…. okay, that’s another subject.)(Okay, no.  I have decided to draw a line right here and now on the blog : nothing is off-subject.)

Never.

Ha!  Okay, I send my affections, and I promise, about the super mega fashion debate and the anti-trend of cracking your wide open mouth on the pavement, you’ll get it all tomorrow.  In the meantime?  Curtain.