Here is another book I requested from the library in my search for the "French method." It wasn't at all what I was expecting (the principles of style, preferably 21st century style?), but once I flipped it open and started reading, I was captivated.
The essence of style is French; at least, that is what almost everyone seems to believe. This book, The Essence of Style, takes us back to the reign of King Louis XIV, to the years between 1660 and 1715. Facing trade imbalances with other European nations, the King and his finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, forcefully set out to make their country a mercantile superpower by basically creating a new industry- the luxury goods industry- and using marketing to create an appetite in their own citizens and the rest of the world that could only be filled with all things French. The industry may not have come about naturally, but it was a natural and obvious choice for the king. Besides having an eye for aesthetics, he centralized his government and thus had a fawning court at Versailles who would outdo each other in hairstyle, in clothing, in entertaining, in decorating, to gain the king's approval, all the while buying all the domestically-made things that he wanted them to buy. In addition, the central location of all these nobles created a fashionable scene in Paris that common people coveted and copied to the best of their ability. Foreign dignitaries brought back word of the style in Paris to their home countries, and the French tourism industry was born.
It's an insightful and entertaining story of the origins of French fashion, which I would recommend to any student of apparel design, merchandising, interior design, or culinary studies, or anyone who purchases luxury goods and wants to appreciate them more fully.
Basics ::
Title :: The Essence of Style : How the French Invented High Fashion, Fine Food, Chic Cafés, Style, Sophistication, and Glamour
Author :: Joan DeJean
Publisher :: Free Press
Year Published :: 2005
Contents ::
Introduction Living Luxe
- How Much Is Too Much? The Rule of Celebrity Hairdressers
- Fashion Queens The Birth of Haute Couture
- Fashion Slaves Marketing la Mode
- Cinderella's Slippers and the King's Boots Shoes, Boots- and Mules
- From the French Cook to Crème Brûlée How Cooking Became Haute Cuisine
- The World's First High-Priced Lattes Chic Cafés
- The Night They Invented Champagne When the Bubbly Became an Overnight Sensation
- King of Diamonds Diamonds, Diamonds, and More Diamonds
- Power Mirrors Technology in the Service of Glamour
- Bright Lights, Big City From Streetlights to Nightlife
- Waterproofed Walking The Original Folding Umbrella
- A New King of Shopping Antiques, Fine Furniture, and Interior Decoration
- "The Most Sweetly Flowered King" Perfume, Cosmetics, and la Toilette
Coda: "The Most Magnificent Party Possible" Entertaining Versailles Style
Chapter Summaries ::
Hairstyling developed prestige during King Louis XIV's reign. King Louis XIV's mistress, or one of them, the Duchesse de Fontanges, started a major hairstyle trend, when she tied some curls so that they spilled onto her forehead just so. The King asked her to wear her hair no other way, and the rest of the ladies of the court started copying it the next day- and for quite a while afterwards. For the next few decades, this style, the fontange, became more and more elaborate. Women were ridiculously dependent on their coiffeurs to make them look acceptable, even begging their favorite coiffeurs travel with them.
The ladies of the court actually got together with their tailors and couturieres and planned their upcoming styles. The whole look was designed to coordinate, including accessories. What they wore was published in great detail in Le Mercure Galant, a newspaper that was one of the first to combine text and pictures, and in this way women in far-off provinces kept up with the styles in Paris. The mantua was a very popular new style. It was a loose garment derived from a noblewoman's housecoat, sometimes purposely made to gape. This was the first style that originated in France, and it's the same sort of seductive look that French women are known for today. It marked the first time aristocratic women wanted to look dressed down, and the first time a fashionable garment was considered comfortable. Since it was loose-fitting, it was easily mass-produced in cheap fabrics. Women of all social classes (all around Europe) were wearing the same thing.
Fashion advertising began in the form of fashion dolls and fashion plates. Fashion plates showed specific ladies (and gentlemen) of the court in their homes surrounded by luxury (and often in sexy poses). Other models were war heroes and the stars of the Paris Opera Ballet (the first women to show their ankles and calves in public). Fashion plates were selling a lifestyle- the French lifestyle. It worked, for England imported more than 20 times the luxury goods (particularly those newly important accessories like gloves, sashes, stockings...) it exported to France.
King Louis had great legs and loved starring in his own ballets, so he was obsessed with pumps that drew attention to his legs. Boots were out. Men wore shoes with a high tongue that folded down to reveal a scarlet lining, fancy buckles, red high heels, and diamonds. Women's shoes gained some importance too. They got to wear wedges for the first time, and the mule was invented- similar to a bedroom slipper and easy to slip off, it had clear sexual overtones. Shoe styles changed every season. Cinderella was written at this time; only in this version, the Prince was in love with her shoe itself.
Coffee was introduced to the Parisian court by the Turkish ambassador who mended relations between the two countries by charming the society ladies. With these ladies in mind, a Sicilian named Francesco Procopio opened the first shop we would recognize as a café in 1675. It was nicely decorated and meant to show off beautiful people; alfresco tables and chairs came soon after. Other cafés followed, and there were 350 of them in Paris by 1715.
In 1651 a groundbreaking book, Le Cuisinier français, was published by a professional chef named Francois Pierre. It came right out of the blue; no cookbook had been published in France for 100 years. It was the first modern cookbook, the first to give directions for basic cooking techniques and to codify recipes. Pierre published the sequel, Le Patiessier francais, two years later, the first-ever baking cookbook. These books were reprinted and translated many times in the next fifty years. Cooks all over Europe learned how to cook fine food from these books, and France was inextricably linked to haute cuisine. French chefs deserved the reputation; they created new conventions, such as dessert at the end of the meal, and elegant table settings for a banquet. People wanting a banquet of their own could hire a traiteur, and later the traiteurs opened their own restaurants.
Champagne was created in an abbey of all places by Dom Pérignon. Perhaps it was the French's obsession with novelty, but within five years, champagne was being applauded as the "noblest" of drinks in entertaining books and a star ingredient in cookbooks. The champagne fermentation process was hard to control; much of it was wasted when bottles exploded. The drink was extremely expensive, thus exclusive and stylish. Wanting to make the most of this treasured experience, connoisseurs created many rituals surrounding champagne, such as drinking from a tall, narrow glass to preserve the bubbles, and chilling the bottle for 10 minutes before opening.
King Louis wasn't called the Sun King for nothing. He adored everything sparkly and shiny. Diamonds were his best friend. His crown jewels were worth $600 million, most of them diamonds. He had thousands of them, all of them well-above-average-sized stones. He popularized the brilliant cut for diamonds, and he asked for minimalist settings for his diamonds so that nothing would overshadow their radiance.
King Louis relied on mirrors to make the sparkle from his diamonds and champagne multiply. He didn't like importing mirrors from Venice, but only Venetians knew the secrets of mirror-making. So basically Colbert kidnapped/bribed several Venetian glassmakers and managed to keep them long enough for some French craftsmen to learn their trade. The finance minister foresaw big technological breakthroughs in mirror-making. At the time, they blew glass, and it couldn't create a pane of glass larger than a few feet in dimension. It wasn't until after Versailles was built that French glassmakers invented a technique for pouring molten glass, creating huge, glorious mirrors that the French exported all over Europe.
Paris was the first city to be lit at night, long before electricity. It was done at the decree of King Louis. There were a variety of financial reasons for wanting the streets to be lit at night. The new Paris culture was all about seeing and being seen, and of course you needed some light to do that. Business hours were extended. For the first time, people could and did shop and eat at cafés late into the evening. Gangs no longer had the run of the place after dark, decreasing crime and property loss.
Practical umbrellas appeared late in King Louis XIV's reign, and they were for rainy days what the streetlight was for the night: a way to extend consumers' shopping and going-out hours. Nothing ruined fashionable hairdos and skirts like the rain. A French inventor named Jean Marius invented the first folding mechanism for an umbrella; King Louis was so impressed, he issued Marius exclusive rights to produce the folding umbrella for 5 years, highly unusual at this time in history.
Wealthy Parisians, needing something to do out and about, started going to fairs. Formerly, these had been low-class circus-type events, but fairs quickly became more upscale; even the King visited and shopped there. Fashionable people, acclimated to copying the king and trying to be at the front of each trend, shopped for furniture the same way they did clothing. For the first time, new furniture was made that was either "antiqued" or made in an ethnic style- Chinese in this case, and people mixed styles for the look they wanted.
Perfume is the one luxury item that fell out of favor with King Louis XIV. Oh, he used fragrances all right, and he even licensed the first parfumeurs guild. However, he overdosed on perfumes in his younger years and developed allergies. Everyone knew better than to enjoy fragrances when the king couldn't, so the French perfume industry didn't catch up with its rivals until the reign of Louis XV. However, by that time, France had such an aura about it, that French perfume quickly rose to the top.
My Final Thoughts ::
It came as a surprise to me that French culture didn't develop organically. It was very intentional and top-down. Kind of satisfying to know that the French people don't just "have it in them."
All the aesthetics were determined by one person- the king- and so a clear style emerged that was cohesive across the board. Strangely enough, even without a monarch, French people today seem to appreciate cohesiveness much more than, say, Americans. A crowd of Americans is a jumble of colors and shapes and patterns, while a crowd of French is a visually harmonious scene. Even their clothes seem consistent with their architecture (which is also cohesive in itself). They look good, but that is because they don't deviate from a standard that's already been set of what looks good. Most of them are actually fashion followers; they don't try to create a new look all their own. Personal differences in style are subtle.
America will never be as stylish as France. We have no "fashion monarch" (I just made that term up.) Yes, we have celebrities that dictate fashion, but they vary radically in personal style, and they all have their own followings. We're individualistic. Even our buildings are designed to stand out and stand alone, as if the builders forgot we're going to view it along with everything else in the landscape. Perhaps that diversity is what compels me to like French style; compared to what I'm usually surrounded by, it's different!
