Chapter One
La RentrŽe
(Back to School)
The only real elegance is in the mind; if you've got that, the rest really comes from it.
-Diana Vreeland
It is September in Paris, and we are in the middle of La RentrŽe. This is the time of year we might describe as "back to school," but in France, the season has a bigger narrative because it's when most French people come back from their six-week holiday, tanned, rested, and ready to begin anew. It also signals big events around Paris, including Fashion Week, the Salon du Vintage, F?te des Jardins, and Paris Design Week. There's a lot of excitement over the new museum exhibits, concerts, ballet, and all the cultural happenings the City of Light has to offer her devoted citizens. It's also the time of year when France's top writers see their creations filling the bookstore shelves.
I am here in Paris in search of a deeper understanding to the meaning of Parisian charm. After months and months of preparatory e-mails and phone calls, I have created a kind of course syllabus for myself-a semester's worth of research, reading, and conversation-my own do-it-yourself charm school.
And so, I arrive on this sunny day for my first meeting at CafŽ de Flore on Boulevard Saint-Germain and I immediately see Edith de Belleville. You can't miss her. She stands in front of the cafŽ, looking very pretty, wearing her signature ensemble-a kerchief in her hair, a dress with a pattern of tiny red and white polka dots, red bangles to match, high heels, and a string of beads in the style of Coco Chanel. Edith and I give a bisou (a kiss) on each cheek and agree that the day is glorious and, ah, isn't Paris simply the most wonderful city in the world?
Edith hosts the rather famous Edith's Paris, tours specializing in literary Paris, as well as the great Parisian women in history. Her tours are informed by her insatiable interest in French social and literary history. She was educated at the Sorbonne and she's incredibly well-read. Edith was married to a Canadian, and while she has visited Toronto, she did not want to live in Canada because, as she tells it, It is too cold and impossible to wear high-heel shoes in the snow!
I realize that this is a French woman's particular gift-to be articulate and well traveled, but to take the conversation and effortlessly throw in a silly aside that makes you laugh and completely disarms you. And then, once disarmed, Edith will switch gears and give you a little lecture on the importance of Stendhal, the Chambre Bleue, and the great literary salons of seventeenth-century Paris life. She has a talent for presenting all this French social and literary history in a theatrical, slightly gossipy, and very funny style. Truly, after just a short time with Edith, you feel as if it's 1925 and you're hanging out at Harry's Bar at the Ritz with Hemingway and Fitzgerald, and look-in walks the barefoot artist's model, Kiki de Montparnasse. You can practically taste the sting of the dry whiskey and smell a cloud of French perfume.
And so Edith takes my arm and pulls me past the tourists and the couples sitting at the outdoor tables drinking their cafŽ cr?me or their espressos and watching the theater of life passing by on the sidewalk. Edith tells me that we will not sit outside, but inside the cafŽ, upstairs. This is where the true Parisians sit, she explains. This is where we can really talk.
I met Edith years ago during a book event at the American Library in Paris, where I was speaking with the author Harriet Welty Rochefort, author of Joie de Vivre. Edith was in the audience and she stood up during the question-and-answer period and pronounced-enthusiastically, and rather provocatively-that this whole idea of the French woman is a myth. There is no such thing as this quintessential French woman!
And then, with her passionate protestations, she went on to show in word and deed that she was the absolute embodiment of the quintessential French woman, because she was a mix of the most delightful and frustrating inconsistencies and a complete dichotomy. She was dressed all in vintage, wearing a red blazer with a silk flower at the lapel, and a flirty skirt, but her ideas were quite modern. She was sweet and smiled more than French women are known to smile, but she was also incredibly argumentative. In one moment she complimented me and in the next moment, she challenged me. More than anything else, she was completely her own person, and that made her very, very French and, yes, the quintessential French woman.
It's because of this original encounter that I wanted to meet with her and ask her about this thing called charm and why French women seem to have so much of it.
I follow Edith into the cafŽ, past the huge mirrors and the art deco posters of Paris, up the circular stairs to the upper floor. "Simone de Beauvoir wrote The Second Sex while at the CafŽ de Flore," she says, a little breathless, quickly negotiating with the waiter to find us the perfect table. "The Second Sex sold over one million copies in the US in 1949 and two hundred thousand copies in the first week in France." She gives me a serious look with her big brown eyes as we sit down at the red leather banquette, facing the window overlooking the bustling boulevard below. "So you see, it's good luck for writers."
We order coffee. Edith is talking-talking-talking. It's hard to keep up with her. She jumps from how Colette discovered Audrey Hepburn to play Gigi on Broadway to how she adores Swedish men, then on to Stendhal and Bonaparte and something called "crystallization"-a condition to describe falling in love beyond all reason.
Edith has a Louise Brooks-style black bob with bangs, mercurial mannerisms, and, as mentioned before, big brown eyes. Oh, and red lipstick.
She is a true Parisienne, born and bred in Belleville-across the street from Edith Piaf's birthplace, she tells me. "I come from a working-class part of Paris, but I got a great education."
When I ask her about the secret to Parisian charm, she tells me it's very simple. "Develop your intellect. Don't show a man you're interested in him. Show him you're an interesting person." She goes on to explain how even a high school student will have eight hours of philosophy each week, where they read the literature of Nietzsche, Kant, Rousseau, and Freud, among many others. "The French are expected to form their own opinions and to be able to discuss and disagree, but still maintain their charm," she explains to me. Edith tells me how when she was a teenager, she attended the Fran?ois Truffaut film festival, and how these iconic French films from the 1960s made a tremendous impact on her life.
Edith opens her purse, takes out a book, and hands it to me. "Here, you can have this," she tells me. "I didn't care for it." I take the book and thank her. It's a well-worn English language copy of Lucy Wadham's The Secret Life of France. For a book she doesn't like, it certainly has been read. The pages are warped and as I flip through, I notice water stains inside. I wonder if she read the book in the bath?
As we are talking, Edith spots a couple at a nearby table. Actually, they are not exactly a couple. I turn to see an older, gray-haired gentleman and a slightly younger woman with long blond hair. She leans in and holds a small recorder up rather close to the man's lips. He is pontificating about something or other. I assume it's important, because he gestures, patting his hand on the cafŽ table for emphasis, and the woman nods in rapt attention, a serious expression on her pretty face.
"That's Laure Adler," Edith tells me. "She's a famous journalist. She's always in here, doing interviews."
I glance over at their table again, as discreetly as possible, and Edith whispers in my ear, "She's a feminist intellectual. She wrote the book The Women Who Read Are Dangerous." And then Edith gives me a meaningful look. "Les femmes qui lisent sont dangereuses."
We sip our cafŽ and Edith gives me the history of Saint-Germain-des-PrŽs and how it became the place for intellectuals and artists, even surpassing Montparnasse. Edith tells me she is learning Chinese. "That's how I flirt," she says. And then she tells me a story about how she has an admirer and she's known this man for quite a long time, but the other day, they happened to be with some people from China and without a moment's hesitation, she began speaking Chinese to them. Well, the admirer was startled. He had no idea she could speak Chinese! "That's how the French flirt," she explains. "This little surprise would not be nearly as effective if I just boasted-hey, I know Chinese! No, it's the surprise that makes it fun."
I must admit I am enamored over this kind of flirtation. Perhaps it's because I admire education and reading, but I think it's more than that. I think I like this form of flirtation because it's available to anyone-anyone who wants to take the time to develop her intellect.
"Read, read, read! Feed your spirit."
Edith's parting words to me, as I leave her, are: "Read, read, read! Feed your spirit."
Girls Who Wear Glasses
My mother once told me that when she was coming of age in the 1940s, there was an expression, Men don't make passes at girls who wear glasses.
To our ears today, this sounds terribly dated. After all, especially now, eyeglasses are certainly having their style moment, and we have entered an era where Jenna Lyons, the former creative director of J.Crew, rocks the thick black brainiac frames. Lately, we've seen eyeglasses on the models on the catwalk and the runways in Paris, Milan, New York, and London. The Academy Award-winning actress Lupita Nyong'o is famous for her fabulous eyeglasses. They have their own Twitter page! Young women are buying up prescription-less eyeglasses in an effort to cultivate the intellectual look.
It seems as if we are searching for a way to be taken seriously, to be appreciated for our depth and sensitivity. It's as if we are saying, Please listen to me-I'm smart. I'm serious. Look, I'm wearing eyeglasses!
As women, I believe we all want the world to realize we're complicated, we're sensitive, and when you look at us, there is more than meets the eye. We're not just a pretty face and we're not shallow or easily accessible. At the very least, if you want to seduce us, you'll have to create a convincing reason for us to take off our eyeglasses.
On a deeper level, those thick-framed eyeglasses are symbolic of a woman who sees the world clearly, but also wants to keep people at a slight distance. The eyeglasses serve as a kind of buffer, an object that is the modern version of the paper hand fan, something she can hide behind, create a little mystery, and slow down any potential admirers. Both eyeglasses and a paper hand fan can be used to conceal and can be used to reveal. Both are powerful props. Eyeglasses create the illusion, and perhaps proclaim the reality, that a woman is smart, well-read, intellectual, and interesting.
Reading Is Sexy
All this is lovely, but truthfully, it's a shortcut to what French women have always known.
We must educate ourselves and we must bring together that most irresistible combination of beauty and brains. We must read. Yes, I am actually suggesting that the very first introductory class in Parisian Charm School is this: read some books.
And afterward, you can pile a few of them on top of your head and practice your posture, but that lesson is for another day.
Parisian Charm School Lesson
Before you can even approach the idea of captivating a man's heart, you must first captivate your own. There are lots of ways to discover (or rediscover) your own spark. French women do this by cultivating an intellectual life. As simple as this sounds, begin your journey by reading.
But, don't simply stay at home and read. Rather, you must go out into the world. Begin by going to your local library and taking some books out on loan.
French women know that reading is very sexy.
Books love fresh air. It's true. The experience of reading is transformed when you get lost in the imaginary story, and then look up to see your world with new eyes. The leaves on the trees look a little greener, the air is warmer, and the sky is bluer. Read in the park, at a cafŽ, in a bookstore, or if it's a rainy day, read at the library. You can read from a tablet, but I would like to make the case for carrying an old-fashioned hardcover book with you. In fact, carry a big book with an interesting cover.
Consider that this book is an objet d'art, an artifact. It's a tangible object and it's also a great conversation starter. In fact, an interesting-looking book is a wonderful way to let someone know you're intelligent and curious about the world.
Reading a good book is the beginning because it will help you decide what you love, whether it's stories from the past or stories with an imaginary vision of the future. Then again, you might find yourself reading about the cure for polio, or jazz in the 1950s. Perhaps your books will be filled with pictures, art from the Fauvist period. From this first exploration, you can focus on what moves you on a deeper level. Is it dance, tennis, stargazing, or the science of beekeeping? If it's art, then look at your local event listings and attend the latest exhibitions. Be sure to look for receptions and openings at small, local galleries. Look for interesting workshops and classes.
This interest in culture and community is one of the most important secrets to charm. You will more than likely meet someone at such an event, and even if you don't, you will have something interesting to talk about when you find yourself with that handsome man next to you at the Stravinsky concert.
The truth is, when you're engaged in something you love to do, you are more naturally attractive, and you're probably not even thinking about meeting a man, which makes it even easier to meet one. So yes, begin with what you feel passionate about, and what makes you happy.
Copyright © 2018 by Jamie Cat Callan. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
