In Paris

September 15, 2018
Based on love for their city and a desire to "create an impressionist portrait" of the oft-mythologized Parisienne, model, actress, and photographer Damas and journalist Bastide compiled this collection of profiles and photographs. Focusing on subjects' work, style, and personal relationship to Paris, they interviewed 20 women of various ages and backgrounds who, like them, move in the worlds of "fashion, media, culture and art." Profiles lead with interviewees' quartiers and a poem-like teaser of what's to come. For example: "Gare de l'Est with Dorine Aguilar/ Bordeaux/ A boyfriend/ A little car/ Vintage clothes." Between profiles are spreads about the authors' favorite hot spots, books, and red lipsticks, or on the necessity of a trench coat. Among the key elements in these tributes to a fabled city are taking walks, shopping vintage, radiating "naturalness," "being chilled out," and "intellectualizing everything." Interviewee Sophie Fontanel perhaps says it best: "Being a Parisienne is a bit like not giving a shit." A portrait of Paris itself emerges, too, reminding armchair travelers that if we can't all be Parisians, maybe we can at least go there someday.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)