Image via Complex Original
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American men perk up when my mom reveals in conversation that she's French. They whip out their favorite French phrase: "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?" and pretend not to know what it means. Fortunately, I speak English with an American accent, so I can keep my je ne sais quoi on the down low.
The mythical figure of the French girl looms large (but in, like, a slender way) in the American aesthetic consciousness. She's an icon of grace and style, like Audrey Hepburn, except she gets dudes more hot and bothered. Hence the kilogrammes of advice prodding American women to be more like the nymphs wandering around Paris with their immaculately done-undone hair flowing out from under their berets. But I'm here to tell you la vérité. Let's deconstruct, shall we?
Emily Lever is a French-American writer who wishes she led a life of adventure. You can follow her on Twitter here.
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We're Poor
Elle and Glamour tell us that French elegance is embodied in the "Five Piece French Wardrobe" of perfect, timeless black basics that you wear everywhere. Cue slideshow of the perfect YSL bag, Haider Ackerman blazer and, for some reason, a trench coat. (We don't wear trench coats. Even we can't pull them off without looking like dweebs, and we're French.)
OK, it is true that French women don't dress up or dress down. We just wear skinny jeans, a blazer and flats to the office, to parties and on the weekends. But the real reason we have minimalist, multipurpose wardrobes is that we have minimal purchasing power and can't afford to "update" our wardrobe each season with some glossy's "Seven Absolute Must-Haves" in, like, five different colors. So we buy a few articles of clothing, always in gray and black so that it all goes together. We're not minimalists, we're just flat broke.
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We Live In Fear
Our understated sex appeal seems to consist of not trying not to have that much sex appeal and showing only a little collarbone here, a sliver of leg there. It's really great that you find that so alluring, but it's really a defense mechanism because men on the street yell things like, " There are kids starving in Somalia, so why won't you swallow my cum?" and we're not trying to attract too much attention. Seriously, I wore a red beanie in Paris once and some guys in the strain station started to holler at me, calling me "Little Red Riding Hood" and commenting on my ass. Standing out in a crowd is really not the move, which is as good of a reason as any to wear so much black.
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We Diet
French women eat heavenly, unctuous French food, don't work out and don't get fat. Are our berets full of magic and secrets? Bien sûr! Believe that if you want. The secret to being as skinny as a French girl is just not to eat. Yeah, you see that waiflike Parisian biddy buying herself a croissant, but all she's going to consume for the rest of the day is espresso, cigarettes (Marlboro or Lucky Strike, not Gitanes, ditch the clichés please) and a bowl of broth. If that sounds miserable, try being fat (or even average-sized) in France.
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We Hate Our Lives
Naturally, from the age of sixteen, the French get in the habit of staring off into the distance, thinking about nothingness whilst smoking cigarettes. That's the age when we start to study philosophy in high school and our brains are molded by Camus, telling us life is absurd and Schopenhauer going on and on about how the present is like a dark cloud and desire is an endless cycle of unfulfillment. On the plus side though, we come to terms pretty early with the universe's chaotic indifference and we don't waste time trying to pretend all's for the best in the best of all possible worlds.
Maybe the reason French girls suffer from chronic bitchy resting face is that even if they look like Carla Bruni, they're going to end up with a dude who looks like Nicolas Sarkozy, makes them do all the housework, earns 22 to 38% more than they do, thinks they have female hysteria and treats them like shit. Au revoir!