Why French Women Dress Different

French women can spot in a split second who is French and who isn't, based on their outfits. Women who are not French worry about looking in. They worry about showing that they're aware of fashion, that they're following fashion. They come to Paris, the capital of fashion, to show they're following fashion. Whereas French women think about dressing in a completely different way. Instead, the question a French woman is going to ask herself is, how do I want to be perceived today? Do I want to be perceived as soft and kind and feminine, or do I want to be perceived as strong, bold, and maybe a little bit cold? And in order to engineer that perception, they are going to purposefully choose the connotations of their clothes. Every single piece of clothing has connotations. A connotation is an idea or a feeling that is evoked by the piece of clothing, through its materials, its shapes, its colors, and it makes a reference to our collective subconscious and the imagery that we all see every day. So your clothes always send a message, whether you choose them on purpose or not. And what's interesting is that you can make that message play in your favor, and that's particularly useful in the places where how you are perceived matters. And so French women know very well what to pair with what, so they are perceived in the exact way intended. In this video, I'm going to show you how to read connotations the way a French woman does. French women read connotations through four different elements. Silhouette, materials, color, and details. And you can remember that order with the sentence, she makes chic decisions. If the silhouette is very structured, very pointy, has a lot of straight lines that don't move, it's going to convey a lot of strictness, a lot of stiffness, and the fact that you're very immuable. You don't move, you don't bend easily. A strict silhouette is going to be very helpful in places where you want to convey that you are very structured. So it's perfect at work, it's perfect in business, and it's perfect in environments where you want to showcase that you have a lot of education, or that your brain is very sharp. At the contrary, if the silhouette is very flowy, it's going to convey a lot of softness, a lot of femininity, a great ability to bend and to adapt. The shape of you literally moves easily and bends with the wind. So the more flowy the silhouette, the more bendable you are. It's great to have a flowy silhouette if you're on holidays, or if you're on a date, or if you're in any kind of environment where it's appropriate and safe to be the soft feminine girl. Obviously you don't have to choose between one or the other, you can mix them both together so that you convey at the same time that you are structured and that you're sharp, but also that you know how to bend when necessary. And that is the perfect sweet spot for the professional woman who needs to lead a team at work or run her business. Likewise, if my clothes are very close to my body and they reveal my feminine shapes, my silhouette is going to be more sexy, more feminine, more femme fatale, because I am accentuating the feminine attractive shapes of my body. On the other hand, if my clothes are very straight, they fall straight and they erase my shapes, I'm going to have a more masculine silhouette because my feminine shapes are going to be erased and therefore my silhouette is going to be closer to a masculine silhouette. There is nothing right or wrong in all of this, what matters is that you consciously choose what message you want to convey with your silhouette, and that is obviously going to be read together with the other elements, so that if you have a very feminine silhouette for example, you'll be able to compensate it with a material for example that says a bit more bold, a bit more rock, or a bit more masculine. Now materials are a powerful way to convey a story because materials are what reflects the light and what catches the eye on the outfits, so the kind of material that you choose is going to heavily impact the story that you're telling with your connotations. A great way to know the connotation of materials is to think about how they make you feel when you touch them and when you see them. Are they soft or are they rough? Are they shiny or are they matte? Their story matters as well, so for example with jeans, we have a material that when we touch it is quite rough and it takes the light in a matte way, and denim, the material that jeans are actually made of, was initially made for workers, miners, so men that had a very hard work railroad workers. So it also has in its connotation this history of hard work and roughness, so we are not putting on jeans if we want to convey that we are soft and delicate, but we can definitely put on jeans with a material that's much more soft and delicate so that we can tell both stories about ourselves. Silk is a beautiful example of a material that you could pair with a rough pair of jeans because silk when you touch it is very soft, the way it moves and behaves is very soft as well, and it also has a connotation of richness, royalty, because it's a rare material that has been used historically for expensive and royal garments. So if you want to express that you're a woman who is both soft and delicate but also a little rough and a little close to her roots, the pairing silk blouse and jeans is just one of my favorite pairings. If we look at leather, still in the materials, we're not going to tell the same story if we have leather in suede because suede is very soft when you touch it, it has that softness to it compared to pebbled leather which when you touch it has much more of a roughness. So whether I decide to wear a bag in suede or in pebbled leather, I'm not going to tell the same story about myself. Here I am much softer and here I am much more rough rock, a bit bold, a bit sassy. Now colors are very known to convey emotions. A blue is going to be much more calm, much more grounded than an orange which is going to be much more loud, much more poppy. So when choosing your colors you're obviously going to convey the emotion associated with the color. As a general rule, the brighter the colors, the more bold they are, the more you're going to convey a very high level of energy, you're going to convey a bold confidence, you're going to convey that you're joyful, that you like being seen and that you like being loud. Visually it doesn't mean that you shout all the time. If you choose more pastel colors then you're going to convey that you're much more soft, that you're much more timid, a little bit discreet because these are colors that are very used in a soft, whimsical, soft girl environment. And if you choose colors that are muted and deep then you're going to convey that you're calm and grounded and deep because these colors are the colors that are used in those kind of environments. So the color that you choose is going to highly contribute to the story that you're telling with your outfit. And you might be wondering, yes but what about my color season? What do I do if the colors that convey what I want to convey don't match my skin tone? The first thing that I want to say is that you're not bound by your color season. It's not like if you wear something that doesn't match your color season, all of a sudden you're making the biggest fashion faux pas ever and people are going to judge you and hate you forever or you're going to pass off as somebody who's not elegant. It's not that bad. The only thing that not wearing your color season is going to do is that it's going to create a little bit less harmony. But you see it all the time on red carpets. Celebrities are not always dressed in their color season and it's still completely fine. Even though it has taken a lot of space online, it's not something that you should limit yourself with. The main main thing if you worry about that harmony is to wear warm colors if you have a warm undertone and cold colors if you have a cold undertone because it is true that you're going to look better if your undertone matches the undertone of the color. But if there is a piece that you love and it's not in your color season but it conveys everything that you want to convey, in my opinion you should absolutely get it because this piece matches who you are and what you want to express. But if you want to really stick to your color palette and that's important to you, then use the colors that match your color palette but then compensate the meaning of that color with the silhouette and with the materials and with the details. If you're a summer and pastel colors are what suits you best, then compensate the soft feminine little timid connotation of those pastel colors with lines that are very strict. Now details is a part that I love because with details you can convey a lot of subtleties about your personality through the choice of an accessory, through the shape of an earring, through the shape of a sleeve. To give you an example, when I started my career as a lawyer I wore a lot of these types of earrings because back then I was together with an Indian guy and I was all about India and the arts from over there. I wanted to show that I really connected with that culture and also that I was traveled. This was also a great way for me to differentiate myself from the other lawyers because I had this little something of personality and I've taken all my interviews with the classic lawyer attire but with earrings like this and I've always gotten the job. And that is by the way an outfit formula to have a classic base and then have a pair of earrings that tell most of the story. That's something I do all the time. So I'm not going to tell the same story if I wear my classic base with these Norse mythology earrings than if I wear the same base with these more Egyptian eastern earrings or if I pair the same outfit with this single earring right there. With an outfit formula like this one I can show that I'm reliable and that I'm professional but also that I have a little bit of something to my personality so I'm just not all plain. Now how do you know which details tell what story? That requires a little bit of education and that is why that's a differentiating factor when you meet people from higher strata of societies. If those people from higher societies see that you know your connotation they're going to put you together with them because they're going to assume that you have that kind of knowledge. So I'm going to give you a couple of examples so that you can understand the logic and that's already going to do a great deal for you to be able to read the meaning and the connotation of the details on your clothing. What I mean by details are for example the kind of colors or necklines that you're going to have on your clothes, the kind of cuffs, the kind of shape for the sleeves. This shirt for example has a lot of references to the fashion of the 18th century. You can see here for example very similar necklines to what I was just showing you with the little ruffles identical very close to the shirt that I was showing you just now and that's what fashion designers do all the time. They create their garments by bringing connotations, stories and elements from different times in history and from different cultures and these make their way down to the Zara's and the H&M's and the fast fashion and that is how you find yourself with ruffles on your collar or on your sleeves. Likewise if I were to tie a bow here I would reference the lavalier of the 17th century in Europe which men used to wear at that time. The lavalier has then been used in the 30s 40s to express a very proper kind of feminine so it also has that connotation into it and that's why if you imagine you know the breeze of the world they would have a little lavalier like this and as I was saying earlier the details don't have to be referencing a historic period they can be referencing contemporary aspects of certain cultures so here with that damask for example which is a much more eastern kind of pattern which is not the same at all as this kind of flowers which is much more European and the kind of flowers you would have found on the dresses back in the 17th and 18th century. It's by mixing those connotations that you can have a lot of fun expressing who you are and engineering how you want to be perceived by others and that is such a powerful skill to have because you know that wherever you go you are conveying the exact right message that the people there are going to appreciate. Now I wanted to finish this video by showing you a couple of examples on Pinterest so that you can practice together with me how to read connotations on different outfits. So here for example in terms of silhouette we have a rather feminine silhouette because the waist is marked so even though this lady has more of a rectangular body shape she has marked her silhouette to add some femininity. She also added some flow here with her top which also hints towards feminine but she has compensated it with the roughness of the jeans which is very interesting to the eye. She has chosen those cute flowers that add a little cute whimsical aspect to her outfit. She also is wearing pointy shoes that add some structure which is great because otherwise this outfit could be a little bit too laid back. Had she paired it with sneakers it would definitely be very laid back and we would not be elegant anymore. But here the pairing with the feminine top and the rough jeans tells a great story about a woman who is feminine but also grounded and close to her roots. Here we have another great pairing we also have a rather rectangular silhouette it's rather straight but she has marked her waist to add some femininity. She has paired the rough jeans with a soft knit so we have that beautiful contrast between I'm soft and feminine but also I'm rough and I know what I want. She has chosen a red color for her pullover so she definitely conveys that she's bold, she wants to be seen, she's confident and she has paired it with a clutch that is woven. A woven leather has a very craftsmanship complex connotation so it definitely conveys that she has an eye for quality and it also shows that she knows what is trending currently because this is definitely a kind of leather that is trending. She's wearing heels with an open toe so that is definitely adding some femininity a tiny bit of sexiness to her outfit but because the rest is very understated we're not seeing a lot of skin we don't have any other sexy element it just adds some femininity to the outfit and the combo is perfect at showing a woman who is confident who is soft but also you see that you can't mess with this woman. And then here completely differently we have a very interesting mix of very classic with those classic trousers the Mary Janes are more preppy 1950s fashion so a little bit of vintage. We have patterns that are definitely more on the eastern side so we have a reference to a different culture than she is from and we have a rather classic bag that is a trendy bag so that also adds a bit of fashionista to her outfit and she has chosen colors that are very soft on those pastels so she's conveying here that she's a nice soft girl who is traveled but also who has some structure. Reading connotations is a skill to develop it is really something that you train your eye for that is what I've been doing my whole life and that's why it's so easy to me. So if you do the same starting today asking yourself what are the different connotations in that outfit you're going to develop that skill very quickly. In the meantime to make it easy for you to get dressed elegantly without doubting if you're pairing the right and wrong connotation and the right and wrong shape etc I have put together outfit formulas that you can download from the link in the description they're completely free so that you can be sure when you get dressed to pair elegant elements together and these are the formulas that I use every day. I didn't make them up these are the ones that I use when I get dressed in the morning so I hope they'll be useful for you. Thank you for spending this time with me I will see you very happily in the next one. A bientot!