February 23, 2021
Much of the appeal of the French Girl style trope goes beyond the clothes.
24s
It’s difficult to think of a more mythologised style trope than that of the “French Girl”. Who is she?
Well, she’s model Caroline de Maigret with her perfectly undone hair and skinny jeans. She’s va-va-voom like Brigitte Bardot and Catherine Deneuve.
She’s Jane Birkin with a basket bag (Birkin is of course English, but practically more French Girl than an actual French Girl), and a French
Vogue editor smoking between shows during fashion week.
Her only make-up is a perfect red lipstick . She wears ankle boots and a little top she found in a flea market while cycling with a baguette. She reads Proust over dinner and carries her grandmother’s vintage Chanel bag.
Hi Matt, how’s it going?
Matt Lambert: Good! My husband just dropped a box of blueberries on the kitchen floor, so we’ve just been cleaning up.
The joys of working from home!
Matt Lambert: Yeah, it’s as much action as goes on here now.
How’ve you been finding lockdown?
Matt Lambert: We’re still going along. They opened up shops yesterday, so we’ll see how that plays out. I’m skeptical, it seems there’s going to be another one (lockdown). I mean, realistically, it’s cold and there’s nothing to do anyway. Although I have been shooting a lot recently; a lot of commercial stuff.
Rooftop snapper reveals private Paris
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Rooftop snapper reveals private Paris
Connexion s Samantha David meets an amateur lensman whose images of rooftops and residents are an internet smash
7 February 2021
Raphaël Metivet s Paris photographs of people taken through windows are loved by the people in them, with the city s residents often wanting a copy for themselvesBy Samantha David
Incredibly, Raphaël Metivet only started taking photos of Paris a couple of years ago. “I had always taken photos with an iPhone but then I started using a Canon Reflex and I taught myself from YouTube tutorials and by going to photography exhibitions.”
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When I began my career, the big Topshop on Oxford Circus was to me what New York City was to Carrie Bradshaw or Seattle to Frasier Crane or Pawnee to Leslie Knope – it was there for my every adventure and every heartbreak. It told the world who I was and it kept my deepest, darkest secrets. It was a constant companion, always there when I needed it.
That flagship store was a lifeline.
Malmaison in the sky
Malmaison is familiar to many as the château of the Empress Josephine in Rueil-Malmaison, eight miles west of Paris. In 1978, though, Malmaison moved to New York figuratively speaking in the form of Roger Prigent’s fabled Malmaison Antiques, which introduced French Empire furnishings of the highest quality to the United States. An insatiable yet discerning collector who refers to Josephine as “the first lady of the world” and once bought a white Cadillac just because he liked the radio, even though he does not drive, Prigent has led a singularly atypical life. He and his sister Yvonne Prigent Lacks, with whom he works in the Manhattan penthouse that is now home to Malmaison Antiques, are such treasures themselves that both should adorn an Empire vitrine.