Paris Undressed E-Book

Kathryn Kemp-Griffin

• Herausgeber: Allen & Unwin
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 211

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

French women seem inherently more confident in their bodies, able to embrace the sensuality of life and love. What's their secret? Lingerie. Yet, despite an insatiable curiosity for all things French, most women still find lingerie an enigma, a tangled mélange of silk and lace, and are confused about how, when, and where to wear it. (Hint: it's not just for special occasions.) Many aspire to having a drawer full of silky, lacy undergarments, but have no idea where to start: How should my bra fit? How exactly do I wear a garter belt? Do bras and knickers always have to match? With illustrations by French lingerie designer Paloma Casile, Paris Undressed: The Secrets of French Lingerie will help women feel at ease with their figures and show them how to integrate a lingerie lifestyle à la française to enhance their own femininity, confidence, and joie de vivre. It will transform the way women perceive their undergarments - and their bodies - and reveal how to co-ordinate a lingerie wardrobe to reflect personality and to meet lifestyle needs with the right dose of reverie. The book also includes a hand-selected guide to the most confidential addresses and lingerie boutiques in Paris, and discloses where to find the perfect bra, couture camisole or cheeky knicker. Paris Undressed goes behind the seams, combining cultural references, expertise, and practical advice to inspire every woman to reconsider her underwear drawer.

Leseprobe

First published in Great Britain by Allen & Unwin in 2017, by arrangement of House of Anansi Press Inc.

First published in Canada in 2016 by House of Anansi Press

Copyright © Kathryn Kemp-Griffin 2016

Illustrations copyright © Paloma Casile 2016

The moral right of Kathryn Kemp-Griffin to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Allen & Unwin

c/o Atlantic Books

Ormond House

26-27 Boswell Street

London WC1N 3JZ

Phone: [phone]

Email: [email protected]

Web:www.allenandunwin.com/uk

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Hardback ISBN 978 1 76029 572 1

E-book ISBN 978 1 95253 590 1

Cover and text design: Alysia Shewchuk

Cover illustration: Paloma Casile

For all the women who have ever wanted more from their lingerie

CONTENTS

A NEW BEGINNING: HEADS OR TAILS?

PART I

A PARISIAN AWAKENING: THE ART OF LIVING

Chapter 1: An Invitation to the Senses

Chapter 2: Caress the Now

Chapter 3: Sensuality, Not Sexuality

PART II

BEHIND THE SEAMS: THE ART OF FRENCH LINGERIE

Chapter 4: A Heritage

Chapter 5: Anatomy of a Bra

Chapter 6: Feel the Difference

Chapter 7: Details & Delights

PART III

UNDERNEATH IT ALL: THE ART OF WEARING FRENCH LINGERIE

Chapter 8: Defining Your Silhouette

Chapter 9: Hide & Peek

Chapter 10: Size Doesn’t Matter

Chapter 11: Panty Perfect

Chapter 12: Garter Belts & Stockings

Chapter 13: Faux Pas

PART IV

A BOUDOIR OF ONE’S OWN: CREATING YOUR LINGERIE WARDROBE

Chapter 14: Your Lingerie & Toi

Chapter 15: Creating a Lingerie Journal

Chapter 16: Inside Your Lingerie Drawer

Chapter 17: Un Jardin Secret

ET VOILÀ: LIFE, LOVE & LINGERIE

PART V

PARIS UNDRESSED: A GUIDE TO LINGERIE SHOPPING IN THE CITY OF LIGHT

French Brands to Know

Parisian Lingerie Boutiques

The Language of Lingerie

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Illustrator

A NEW BEGINNING

HEADS OR TAILS?

Let your dream devour your life so that your life doesn’t devour your dream.

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

American women wear underwear. French women wear lingerie.

French women seem to be born with the ability to inhabit their lives and bodies with effortless grace and sensuality. What’s their secret?

Lingerie.

In America it’s all about the gift-with-purchase, getting more for less, or splurging, but in France lingerie reflects an art de vivre, a philosophy dedicated to an enhanced well-being.

Take, for example, your bra. A good one not only shapes how others see us, it shapes how we see ourselves. What bra do you have on right now? Not sure? Then keep reading. This book cracks the code of the je ne sais quoi of French lingerie — how to buy it, wear it, and use it to help gain outward poise and inner confidence.

Paris Undressed will help you cultivate a lingerie wardrobe that will have you living fully in the sensuality of the moment, no matter the occasion. It combines the practical (how to choose a bra and get the perfect fit) with the sublime (how to appreciate and wear lingerie as art). In short, this book is the culmination of everything I have learned and the result of more than twenty years of my experience, observations, and conversations about life, love, and lingerie.

I know what you’re thinking. I’m not an Inès or a Céline. What can a Canadian named Kate possibly know about French lingerie?

Twenty years ago, admittedly, not much. I came to France wearing faded Jockey For Her cotton panties whose shredded elastic floated like tentacles on a jelly fish. No one could accuse me of being a savvy lingerie-wearer. What was I even doing in France?

Let’s rewind.

Heads, Paris. Tails, San Francisco. That’s how my husband and I decided to change our lives — by coin toss.

It was a hot July night in 1990. Christian and I were sitting on our back porch in Toronto, sipping through the froth of our cold Molson Canadians and contemplating our lives together. Everything was perfect. Maybe too perfect. We had recently celebrated our first wedding anniversary and bought our first house together. Our careers were blossoming. No children yet, but we certainly wanted a family. Everything was going according to plan.

Hence the problem. Neither of us wanted to look back from the vantage point of our fiftieth wedding anniversary and say, “Well, that went exactly as expected.”

No longer content to settle for the certainty of the familiar, we dared destiny.

“Let’s take a sabbatical,” I suggested.

“Sure,” said Christian. “The first one of us to make a million dollars gets to choose where we spend it.”

“We don’t need a million,” I said. “We could leave tomorrow if we wanted. Just take off. Find jobs somewhere else.”

Maybe it was the heat or the thrill of the adventure. More likely it was the beer.

Christian brought out an atlas, closed his eyes, and pointed to a spot on a page. When he opened them, his finger was on Chile. We could imagine ourselves hiking the Andes.

I watched as Christian’s fingers skittered over the world: Sydney, Tokyo, Lagos, Novosibirsk — although we both agreed we would not be moving to the capital of Siberia any time soon.

We continued our game of Twister using the world as our floor print. As the game accelerated, so did our excitement. We finally narrowed our choices in a more serious way to San Francisco or Paris.

It was hard to hide my preference. I had always been in love with France — the country and the culture — but mostly I loved the language, despite my poor grasp of it. Living in Canada requires a minimal knowledge of French, given that it’s an official language, and I had worked for a summer as an au pair in the Loire Valley and spent a year studying in Grenoble. Yet all I could do was count to a hundred and order mousse au chocolat for dessert. In spite of the linguistic challenges, there was no denying the magnetic pull of the City of Light. I longed to live, eat, breathe, and maybe even dream in French.

That day in 1990, Christian and I had one coin and two choices: San Francisco with its byte-sized Silicon Valley promises, or Paris with its bite-sized, Michelin-starred amuse-bouches. Christian tossed the quarter high in the air, giving it some spin; our destiny twirled and glinted above us.

When the coin landed on Paris, I was beyond excited. I was folle de joie, crazy with happiness. Our French adventure was about to begin.

ONE

AN INVITATION TO THE SENSES

Paris. Paris. There is something silken and elegant about that word, something carefree, something made for a dance, something brilliant and festive, like champagne. Everything there is beautiful, gay, and a little drunk, and festooned with lace.

— Nina Berberova

Paris is a city that takes its time — especially when you’re in a hurry.

Tourists blame the Parisians, Parisians blame the tourists, and everybody blames the traffic. Or the strikes. Or the holidays. Despite the finger-wagging, however, there is tolerance — and delight — in the City of Light for those who learn to expect the unexpected. Paris is a celebration of unhurried time, an invitation to discover and tease your senses. Like a kiss at dawn that longs for nightfall, Paris is best lived not by tallying what you pack into a day, but by what you manage to stretch out over the course of it.

Paris is a small big city. Geographically speaking, it occupies only 105 square kilometres of the earth’s surface, which is not much compared to other major cities and popular tourist destinations. New York is eight times larger, and London and Bangkok both sprawl over fifteen times the space. In terms of population, the two million inhabitants in the French capital pales in comparison to the more than eight million in each of those three other cities.

But small numbers add up. Rather, they multiply exponentially, placing Paris high on the population density charts with an average of twenty-one people per square kilometre compared to New York’s ten, or London and Bangkok’s average of five. Building-height restrictions in Paris have prevented people from piling up and encouraged them to spill out onto the streets.

Whether you prefer the company of others or the solitude of anonymity, les rues of Paris invite us to engage. A vibrant café culture encourages conversation and debate while winding cobblestone pathways nestled between broad boulevards give the freedom to wander and lose your way, knowing you’ll never be truly lost. This overlapping of lives and experiences heightens the senses and makes everything feel more intimate and more immediate.

Four weeks after the coin landed, Christian and I had quit our jobs, put our house on the market, broken the news to our stunned yet supportive relatives, and were on a plane to Paris. We stayed temporarily in a boutique hotel where mornings began in a breakfast room overlooking an inner courtyard. There were hardwood floors, teal velvet chairs, ivory damask table linens, hammered metal flatware, along with freshly squeezed orange juice, a basket brimming with hot-from-the-baker’s-oven croissants, and café au lait in wide, vintage bowls. My breakfasts in Canada had been eaten over the sink and washed down with coffee to go. In Paris, I could have lingered over petit déjeuner all day.

But I had work to do. Christian had secured a fashionable job on the European team of Polo Ralph Lauren, which generously included these temporary accommodations until we could find a place of our own. While he worked in their flagship store at place de la Madeleine, I scoured newspapers and bulletin boards in churches and community centres looking for a job and an apartment. Days and weeks passed. Apartments within our budget were as scarce as jobs that included working papers. Not being able to roll my r’s didn’t help either, but I remained optimistic, confident that a combination of luck, effort, and the magic of Paris would help me along.

The best way to get to know a city is to walk it, and I didn’t need much convincing to hit the streets. By day I walked and by night I charted and planned my route to maximize efficiency. One day, I decided to walk across Paris. Literally. At a good pace, I figured I could cover the fourteen-kilometre journey from Porte Maillot to Bois de Vincennes in about three hours. I set out from the hotel in my running shoes, hauling an oversized knapsack packed with a picnic lunch, water, gum, sunscreen, sweater, Plan de Paris, and a leather-bound journal I had received as a going-away present. Looking back, I was more appropriately dressed for trekking in the mountains than a promenade through the birthplace of the little black dress.

It started to drizzle as I made my way around the Arc de Triomphe and started down the Champs-Élysées. I had everything in my backpack except an umbrella, and by the time I reached place de la Concorde, the drizzle had turned to pelting rain. Hurried by an irresistible impulse, I sought refuge in Angelina, a prestigious tearoom steeped — or stuck — in belle époque grandeur. The hostess scowled and I smiled through the water dripping off my bangs. It was only when I sat down and saw my reflection in the opulent wall mirror that I noticed the real source of her disdain. My soaked, clingy, see-through T-shirt exposed the veteran sports bra I wore on days like this — days that didn’t matter, days where nobody was supposed to see it. I pulled the sweater from my knapsack and draped it around my shoulders to conceal my embarrassment and then did what everybody else did chez Angelina: I ordered their famous molten hot chocolate, which arrived in a ceramic pitcher accompanied by a billowing pot of whipped cream.

Real chocolate. Real cream. Real china.

Time unravelled as I sat there, soggy, yet stilled in the moment.

The rain had subsided by the time I was finished. I crossed rue de Rivoli to walk through the Tuileries, a landscape garden built on proportion, symmetry, and grace that stretches from place de la Concorde to the Louvre. Once reserved for royalty and members of the court, the Tuileries became one of the first public gardens in Paris and continues to welcome both locals and tourists wishing to stroll its pathways lined with centuries-old chestnut trees. There is nothing quite like the fresh, earthy fragrance after a rainfall: I inhaled its bounty.

Blue skies gradually appeared and the sun dried the chalky gravel of the pathways. Once I reached the Louvre, my running shoes were coated. I brushed off what I could and walked up to rue Saint-Honoré, one of the most luxurious and fashionable streets in Paris. Women walked by in maxi dresses, crisp linen trousers, nautical stripes, floral prints, and signature bags. Had we been through the same rainstorm? Even the mannequins seemed to furrow their brows at my sodden sartorial look.

Bailing on my original itinerary, I spontaneously headed toward the pedestrian bridge, pont des Arts, and found solace in the sounds of a jazz quartet in rhythm with the late morning sunlight dancing on the Seine. Street artists and musicians are everywhere in Paris. Whether in the metro, under arches, on bridges, steps, or corners, artistic interludes are part of the Parisian landscape. The soft wail of a saxophone faded behind me as I continued my walk along the Seine and through Île de la Cité and Île Saint-Louis, two tiny islands that make up the heart of Paris. Both are charming, but the smaller Île Saint-Louis has the added distinction of being home to Berthillon, the best ice cream parlour in the city.

I had intended to walk right by Berthillon, but the sight of two girls giggling while tasting each other’s sorbet changed my mind. I crossed the bridge behind Notre Dame cathedral and got in line. There is always a line at Berthillon, but it didn’t matter; I needed the time to consider the myriad flavours. I picked sorbet cassis and my tongue tingled from the first lick — a tart and refreshing contrast to the sun warming my face. By now I had completely forgotten about the path I had mapped out for myself and just kept walking east.

At place de la Bastille, I left the crowds on street level and climbed the stairs to the Promenade Plantée, a planted walkway built on top of an abandoned railroad running over a viaduct. Neither a rooftop terrasse nor a ground-level garden, this raised path, approximately the height of a third floor, offered an opportunity to see the city from another dimension. Today the walkway includes footbridges and tunnels and extends four and a half kilometres to Bois de Vincennes, but back in the early nineties, landscaping had only begun. I walked as long as I could and looked out over the vistas along the way.

Back at street level, I continued down avenue Daumesnil until a looming labyrinth of roadways indicated the eastern city limits. Cars roared above me on the Périphérique, the ring road that circles Paris, and echoed and reverberated as I made my way through the concrete corridor to the other side, where I was greeted by the verdant border of Bois de Vincennes.

I’d made it. Triumphant.

And hungry.

I sat under a tree on the bank of lac Daumesnil, a lake in the woods, and took out my jambon-beurre sandwich. Available everywhere, jambon-beurre is the French equivalent to fast food. I had been quick to judge this seemingly lacking sandwich the first time I’d tried it. Ham and butter on baguette — that’s it? Yes, there are only three ingredients, the butter so vital it beats out “baguette” in the name.

While Americans go to great lengths to emphasize that a recipe is made without butter, the French are busy specifying which kind to use: beurre doux (unsalted) or beurre salé (salted). The difference is big. Salted butter enhances taste and brings out the subtlety of flavours. Try it with three pieces of bread. No butter on the first, unsalted on the second, and salted on the third. Add a piece of ham or cheese.

Taste, taste, and taste again.

In France, it’s never too early to learn to appreciate food. Guess where you would find the following menu?

Asperges sauce vinaigrette – Asparagus with vinaigrette

Confitdecanard – Duck confit

Haricotstarbais – Tarbais beans

Tommenoire – Tomme cheese

Fruitdesaison – Seasonal fruit

A world-renowned gastronomic Parisian establishment? Pas du tout. This epicurean experience is a typical lunch menu at a public primary school. These kids don’t get their food from a lunchbox or a greasy grill. Children are served an entrée, plat et dessert (appetizer, main dish, and dessert), and even three-year-olds are required to bring their own serviette de table, cloth napkin, to school along with their crayons. Weekly menus are posted for parents to see and discuss with their children. A national program in primary schools, La Semaine du Goût, dedicates a full week to teaching youngsters how to distinguish among sweet, sour, salty, and bitter.

Tuning the taste buds early is the first step toward learning how to pair foods, which will enhance the enjoyment of food throughout life, but a fine palate isn’t the only thing that gets cultivated early in France. The cultivation of pleasure — recognizing it and knowing what brings delight — isn’t considered self-indulgent but rather as essential to living a full life. Life is richer when experienced through the layers of all five senses — sight, smell, sound, taste, and touch. For the French, enjoying the senses is as natural as breathing, and is imperative to the quality of any experience, large or small. I had only scraped the surface of the senses on my walk. What started as a journey from A to B relaxed into a sensorial experience and discovery of the extent to which senses can trigger and engage our whole body.

I lost track of time in the Bois de Vincennes as I filled my journal with pensées: thoughts, notes, vocabulary, and expressions. It had been a surprising journey of insight, one I wanted to continue and nurture. I resolved to treat each day like a treasure hunt, collecting sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures, and to use my journal as a place to record and reflect my new sensory discoveries.

On my way back to the hotel, I took a detour to see an apartment in the heart of the fifteenth arrondissement. It was slightly over our budget, but I decided it wouldn’t hurt to look.

I smelled the cherry blossoms as soon as I exited the Pasteur metro station. I looked around. The gold dome of the Invalides and the Tour Eiffel rose in the distance. Freshly baked baguettes from the boulangerie were tucked beneath arms, pyramids of cheese beckoned from the fromagerie, and flowers spilled onto the sidewalk of the fleuriste. The apartment itself was a sunny sixth-floor walk-up (127 steps, to be precise) with three spacious rooms that overlooked a courtyard on one side and a garden with artist lofts on the other. No elevator. No dishwasher. But I didn’t care. I loved it. It was chez nous.

Euphoric, I floated down the stairs and out on to the sidewalk, almost colliding with the florist. Inspired, perhaps, by all the gardens I had seen, I selected a bouquet of peonies in a camaïeu of pinks with each petal singing its scent. The florist asked me if the flowers were pour offrir, to give. No, I told her, they were just for me. Nevertheless, she carefully wrapped the composition in a layer of diaphanous tissue paper and kraft with loops of raffia to hold it in place. Imagine to what lengths she would have gone if it had been a gift!

Customer service in my new city was less about easy returns and more about harnessing delight. Business was less about location, location, location, and more about sensation, sensation, sensation. Christian and I had made the right coin toss. Now all I needed was a new bra.

TWO

CARESS THE NOW

The eyes caress more sweetly than the lips.

— Auguste Angellier

I used to be one of those women who only bought a new bra when the washing machine ripped the old one to shreds. A bra was a basic necessity. Functional and nothing more.

But now that I was in Paris, it was time for a new beginning, a change in habits — a new me! I pledged that I would refresh my lingerie and my attitude. Goodbye tattered bra . . . hello — well, what exactly?

Lingerie stores are everywhere in Paris, including just down the street from our new digs. The sign above the boutique said Lingerie Annabelle. As I pushed open the door marked entrée libre, a shrill bell announced my entrance into a space no larger than a birdcage. I was greeted with an officious “Bonjour, Madame” and a terse smile from the woman behind the counter — Annabelle, I presumed.

As the bell continued to chime like a theft alarm because I hadn’t closed the door properly behind me, I stammered with my bad accent, “Un soutien-gorge, s’il vous plait.” A bra, please.

“Avec ou sans dentelle?” Madame Annabelle asked. What did she want to know? I flipped through my pocket Larousse to discover that dentelle meant lace. With or without lace, she had asked.

Was I a lace person? I had no clue.

Madame Annabelle pulled out an ivory satin bra with small pleats that was trimmed in lace. She ushered me into a minuscule changing room where she deftly adjusted the back hooks and tightened the straps, running her fingers over the bra like she was tuning a violin. She handed me une culotte assortie, a matching panty, indicating that I should put it on. Now. I hadn’t even asked for panties.

When I turned to face the mirror, I couldn’t believe what I saw. I’m five foot seven, but . . . had I suddenly grown taller? My back was straighter. My breasts were lifted and fuller-looking. And what was that on my face?

A smile.

Normally, I found shopping for any kind of lingerie a miserable experience, complete with cheesy marketing, loud music, and bad lighting. During one visit to a lingerie megastore in New York City, I was so dazed by the towering panty pyramid and the “Buy 3 Get 1 FREE!” neon sign that I went for the same look as the decked-out mannequin beside me. The teddy scratched a little, but the effervescent saleswoman promised that it wouldn’t stay on long enough to bother me. She also managed to talk me into buying a Pamper Me Kit, complete with shower gel, exfoliating glove, body lotion, and headband. It made for a night to remember, but for all the wrong reasons. What a production! I felt like I’d hosted a sit-down dinner for twelve, and couldn’t wait to be back in my favourite T-shirt.

This was a different experience. Madame Annabelle was quiet and patient. She understood that it takes a while to adjust to what you see in the mirror, to grasp the simple message of quiet beauty. I didn’t feel the pressure of having to be — or pretending to be — someone who was likely to jump out of a centerfold at a sperm bank.

Lingerie doesn’t always need an ulterior motive. With Madame Annabelle, I felt at ease to appreciate the beauty of a very good bra. I wanted to feel like this every day.

My confidence swelled. Madame Annabelle observed quietly, like a mother deer watching her fawn learn to stand. Her silence gave me time to experience and appreciate a sensation I had never felt before, an awakening. It felt like a day brimming with promise.

I still have that first pleated bra, although it has long since retired from service. When I open my drawer in the morning, those gentle folds make me pause and remember that I have a choice: I can have an ordinary day or an extraordinary one.

I’m sure that when Madame Annabelle helped me, she didn’t realize she was setting in motion a seismic shift in my appreciation of lingerie, a shift that would engender both a passion and a career. Within months, I’d started my own company, Soyelle, specializing in lingerie accessories and beauty products. You might think I had no business starting a lingerie company in the lingerie capital of the world. After all, I had only just bought my first real bra. But, while the French certainly knew how to design beautiful lingerie, caring for it remained problematic. With the help of a chemist, I developed a delicate fabric wash, and Soyelle was born.

Many years later, I sold that company, but in the meantime I noticed a pronounced difference between how women of different nationalities viewed their lingerie. American women needed guidance. I began to conduct lingerie tours of Paris to help navigate the silk contours of the French capital. These tours are more than a shopping expedition. My aim is to help women enjoy a renewed sense of femininity, confidence, and elegance.

On these tours, I inevitably hear women make one, if not both, of these two comments: “I need to lose a couple of pounds first” and “Who’s going to see it anyway?” There’s a tendency to try to justify lingerie choices, with women preferring to spend money on a dress that everyone will see rather than on something very few might. When women do decide to spend, we use words like splurge and indulge, as if feeling good is the exception rather than the rule. Thinking of lingerie in terms of conditions to fill — the when, how, where, and why — takes all the fun out of it.

In America, women save their best lingerie for date night or Valentine’s Day. French women don’t need a special occasion — or permission. They resist cookie-cutter definitions and labels for love. Dinner with a love interest isn’t a “date” or “a special occasion,” because every occasion is one to savour, not save for.

Why put a quota on pleasure? If lingerie feels good next to your skin, why not wear it as much as possible? Life is the special occasion. Today. Right here. Right now.

Intrinsic to the French is the expression joie de vivre, suggesting an inherent love of and zest for life. In English, it translates as “joy of living,” which isn’t quite the same thing, but then again, that expression hails from a land that needs a book to rejoice in the joy of sex.