I had no idea. Yet my wardrobe of saggy-ass sweats and what’s-become-of-me tops certainly contrasted with the outfits fresh from the dryer that Madame de Glasse was folding. Among them: a tiny lime-green thong, a demi-brassiere of transparent lace, and a sweet, sexy skirt no bigger than a wisp. Was it true I had no clue? That the art of feminine fabulousness French women take for granted had shut me out?
There I was, roving around Paris in my take on cute – relaxed-fit jeans and U.S. Army tee, while other women, frump-free women, were gracing sidewalk cafés in revealing décolleté, clicking down streets in chic kitten heels, or flaunting their flirty figures in tight-fitting everything. Meanwhile, whatever womanly allure I might possess, Madame de Glasse pointed out, was obscured by my prude-wear. My vavavoom was repressed by my unisex dress; my pizzazz, she said, was hidden far, far beneath the sorry fact I did not, it seems, act French.
“What makes French girls as serenely self-satisfied as purring cats…and catnip to the men who admire them?" asked Debra Ollivier, author of Entre Nous – A Woman’s Guide to Finding Her Inner French Girl.
“The stereotypical French girl,” she said, “is often insolently thin, casually chic, and fashionable despite a simple wardrobe. With or without makeup she is always put together and utterly self-confident, imbued with natural elegance and an elusive distance that is particularly, maddeningly French.” I guessed such a woman would not be caught in a jogbra. Especially dead.
“Chérie? Chérie?” It was Madame de Glasse, interrupting my reverie in a chirpy tone altogether more cheerful than that she used over my giant, white panties. “To change the subject,” she said, “have you been to that new gym at Beaubourg?” She meant Espace Vit’Halles at the Pompidou Center. “It is trés flash,” she said. “Make a visit and tell me of your adventure.”
“Yes, yes, I will; au revoir Madame de Glasse.” I scuttled my uptight self out of the launderette as fast as my heavy duffle of now shameful frump’s-clothes allowed. The French girl understands that sexy is a state of mind, maintained Ollivier. Sexy is a state of mind…sexy is a state of mind….
Back at my apartment, I pondered this pearl and dressed for bed in the tee-shirt, tights and full-body nightie the frigid night demanded. Surely Madame de Glasse, in my place, would not don her tiny lime-green thong and a babydoll peignoir! Then again, maybe she would. After all, such a get-up would guarantee she’d have a Frenchman keeping her far warmer than floor-length flannel ever could. If this wasn’t reason enough to find my inner French girl, I didn’t know what was.
“One is not born a woman,” said author/philosopher Simone de Beauvoir; “rather, one becomes a woman.” Simone had a leg up, of course: she was, already, French. But still: her words gave me hope. If I were not born a woman who is catnip, perhaps I could become a sort of cat’s meow – a woman so Frenchly serene and purring with self-approval that my laundry would tell of a total transformation. Hide my thighs? Disguise my derriere? Tent my tummy? Ha! No longer. My new dare-to-bare wardrobe of trim, tiny things would be as peek-a-boo as what have you. They would declare to Madame de Glasse, for one, that American shame has no place in my life now that my inner French girl is driving.
Then again, what would it take to achieve such body confidence? Such feminine self-acceptance? If only I could feel, as the French say, “bien dans sa peau” – good in one’s skin..