De Moda a Moda

La mode! Paris is known as the city of lights, to some the city of love or the land of baguettes, it is also a fashion capital. That is quite the obvious statement as you step foot onto the streets to discover what it takes to pull off the Parisian style.

Arriving in Paris back in august I noticed one thing that is very peculiar in Paris, although it’s a fashionable city, no one is told how to dress or what trend to follow, on the contrary Parisians do have a specific style. It is seen and many times imitated worldwide, but no one in this city dictates that style for the rest.

When i began my packing to come live in Paris I remember omitting the items that seemed to "not fit in,” bright colors, short shorts, over 5inch heels, very loose clothing, cropped tops, so on so on. Now don’t get me wrong you can definitely try to pull all these off and from time to time there is exceptions, but as a general rule…those things don’t go.

So living here I got a little used to the Parisian style, I tried to adapt to the trends around the town and in a sense I just took bits and pieces of it and made it my own. Though the run down on the style is simple, one dresses to look presentable and feminine. You can be sexy and classy at the same time, that’s the Parisian way.

The trick is that one doesn’t typically over-expose here. You can’t show all of your skin at the same time, but you can definitely wear flattering clothing without looking like you’re trying to hard.

Paris and their fashionistas swear by the color black, here it’s not only a color but a statement of elegance. We all know a little black dress is an essential that depicts a classy and put together look, you can never go wrong with black and on a daily basis you will see everyone wearing black.

Sounds a tad depressing at first and in a sense your wardrobe ends up being composed of blacks, whites and maybe some grey or beige if you’re really feeling wild.

Day to day we began to notice that’s how we were dressing, we were becoming like the persona we would see on the streets. It’s interesting to see how much you can play with a combination of black and white, though eventually you begin to feel repetitive. The good thing about it though, is that you really do feel presentable, you can go from school to dinner and wear the same outfit and its accepted, per say.

We would notice more how adapted we were when we would leave town, at first we were rookies then I feel like we really got the feel of things. Back in September we had a trip to the Normandy coast, we were told it was going to be a hot day by the beach so wear “appropriate clothing” for such.

So Kath and I wore our summer outfits with shorts and tanks…worst mistake. First of all, Normandy was cold, windy and the sun lasted 1-2 hours max, we of course imagining our summer paradise didn’t bring a sweater…bonus points for that. The best part, was the looks we got on the metro once we were going home, people frowned at us and we were pretty much the center of attention because no one understood why we were wearing those outfits.

Of course we got better at it, to the point that when we received visitors we told them what they should or shouldn’t wear to not catch too much attention. In the end, it’s probably a habit that will take some time getting rid of, whenever I travelled I also noticed myself packing basics and playing with just simple pops of color. That is the ideal of fashion in this city, you can be simple and wearing all black, but a pop of color is completely acceptable.

The other peculiar fashion trend that takes place in Paris is the nikes (or sneakers) for every outfit. We many times saw a girl wearing a great outfit, completely trendy and something we wished we may have owned, and then she was wearing tennis shoes…yep tennis shoes. Now there’s nothing wrong with that but it thrilled me to see how many people did that, put a whole outfit together and throw on your nikes…they do believe in comfort after all.

Some essentials include the beloved black leather jacket, booties, black leggings, trench coat, and of course the red lipstick which is a Paris must. So next time you go to Paris, you’ll find packing to be simple because its a light suitcase with essentials and versatile clothing that can be mixed and matched to fit in this fashion capital.