A Woman's Paris ~ Joie de Vivre

By Philippa Campsie

Barbara Redmond

Secondhand and consignment stores offer a way to enjoy Paris fashion in a more relaxed atmosphere than the high-powered name-brand boutiques and the enormous department stores. Barbara and I have already mentioned Didier Ludot’s Palais Royal boutique in a previous blog, but there are little boutiques here and there in the centre of Paris and in the chic 16th arrondissement where one can try last season’s fripes et fringues.

Secondhand shopping took an interesting twist in the 1860s, with the Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III. She was the fashion maven to end all fashion mavens, and her collaboration with the English couturier Charles Frederick Worth is generally considered to be the origin of the tradition of haute couture. He was the first male designer to dominate fashion; previously women had made women’s clothes. He was also the first to include a label in every garment on which his name was shown, like the signature of an artist.

Worth had a lot of work to do to keep Eugénie in the height of fashion. She seldom wore the same dress or the same pair of shoes twice. She was known to order two copies of the same ballgown so that during a long evening of dancing at the Tuileries Palace, she could retire and put on the second identical gown and reappear looking fresh, while other ladies were wilting. She changed her outfit at least half a dozen times a day.

Empress Eugénie’s wardrobe

She kept her clothes in a large room containing big wooden wardrobes. Her dressing room was directly underneath this storage room, and when she was ready to change or get dressed, a maid would use a speaking tube to tell another maid in the upper room to send down the clothes through a trapdoor. The clothes were placed on a mannequin, and descended from on high as a full outfit, with undergarments and accessories accompanying the gown. Since skirts were huge at the time, the system kept her dresses from creasing.

This, after all, was the age of the crinoline, a structure of thin hoops of flexible steel, held together with fabric tape—the invention of a Frenchman called Milliet, patented in 1856. The crinoline replaced the multiple petticoats that had formerly given a bell shape to a skirt. Eugénie started wearing crinolines on Worth’s advice, and hers were the biggest of all. She was sometimes called La Reine Crinoline.

Empress Eugénie’s secondhand sales

Of course, even in a palace, a woman who seldom wears the same thing twice is going to have storage problems (and budget woes). Eugenie solved both problems by selling off her used clothes once a year. The clothes—dresses, shawls, hats, crinolines, even underclothes—were displayed for sale in a large room in the basement of the Tuileries. Most of the customers at this sale were women servants at the court. Whatever they didn’t buy went to secondhand dealers in the city. As for her shoes, Eugénie gave her once-worn slippers to the young girls at an orphanage she supported. She had a tiny foot and they fitted the children quite well.

All this furious spendthrift activity couldn’t last, and it didn’t. In 1870, after the disastrous Franco-Prussian war, the French threw out Napoleon III and his Empress, and declared a republic. Eugénie had to flee in the clothes she stood up in (for the record, it was a black cashmere dress, with a black hat and a waterproof cloak). For the rest of her life, she lived simply in England, doing charitable work. However, the sale of her jewels allowed her to live in comfort until her death in 1920, at the age of 94. She seemed to have a knack for getting value out of her cast-offs.

VOCABULARY: French to English translations

Armoire: Wardrobe.
Brocart de soie: Silk brocade. Eugénie often wore brocart de soie, because by doing so she supported the silk weavers in Lyon.
Châle: Shawl.
Fringues: Informal word for clothes.
Fripes: Secondhand clothes.
Garde-robe: Wardrobe.
Jupon: Petticoat.

Philippa Campsie teaches part-time in the urban planning program at the University of Toronto and runs her own writing and research business, Hammersmith Communications. Before starting her own business, she was editor-in-chief at Macmillan Canada. Philippa lived in Paris as a student and regularly travels to Paris and Normandy.

She is interested in stories of famous Parisian women throughout the ages and how they influenced the Parisian style we have come to love and know.

You may also enjoy A Woman’s Paris® post, How to spend your money even if you do not need to: the French biannual sales, by French woman Bénédicte Mahé who writes about the exquisite uniqueness of French sales that last for weeks each year and offer incredible sales.  These sales take place over five weeks during the late summer and for two weeks during the winter, and thus demands from shoppers: when to buy and what to wait for during sale season?

Paris Sales: Chic. Chèque? Choc! by Canadian writer Philippa Campsie who tells about the much-anticipated “soldes” (sales) in France, which take place twice a year, in January and July, for about six week stretches. Philippa recalls the novel Au Bonheur des Dames, by Emile Zola who describes a huge sale in his imaginary department store, just like a modern sale today; noisy, confusing, exhausting, crowded, hot, and exhilarating, both for the shoppers and the sales staff. Shopping: not for the faint of heart. 

Imperfect Perfection: The new French woman, by writer Kristin Wood who reminds us of the words attributed to Henry David Thoreau, the famous American author and philosopher who eschewed material excess and extravagance… “Simplify, simplify, simplify.” Kristin writes about the predicted trends of the “undone” makeup look, and the “de-blinging” of luxury items. What better place to introduce these two trends on a grand scale than in Paris? 

French Silhouette, a New Look, by Barbara Redmond who admires the Frenchwoman’s attention to the tiniest detail of her appearance, good taste and natural style—brushing fashion aside with her blend of reasonably priced purchases and small number of luxury pieces. Effortless chic. Simple style. Self-confidence. Including a link to Barbara’s treasured book, Parisian Chic: A Style Guide by Ines de la Fressange with Sophie Gachet. 

French Crown Jewels: Empress Eugénie, by Barbara Redmond who writes about pieces from Empress Eugénie’s private collection and the French Crown Jewels that were split up by the national assembly and sold at public auction. Stories of Empress Eugénie’s famous Bow Brooch, Pearl and Diamond Tiara, and private jewels. Including Barbara’s favorite book about the jewels in the Louvre, Paris. 

Text copyright ©2010 Philippa Campsie. All rights reserved
Illustration copyright ©2012 Barbara Redmond. All rights reserved.
barbara@awomansparis.com