FRENCH ELEGANCE

Style

DRUGSTORE DANDIES

Jean-Emmanuel Deluxe gallops through seven decades of French elegance, from the Zazous to Vanessa Seward

Not unlike in the UK, the French pop revolution injected new energy and shaped a new paradigm for local youth to emulate. As yéyé pop reinvented anglo-saxon sounds along with swinging London, there was also a ‘swinging Paris’. It had similarities with what was happening in the English capital but also had its uniqueness; a French flavour which still fascinates today, well beyond the Seine and the Channel. A sophisticated style that honours Parisian women and elegant gallic people of all shapes and sizes.

IN THE BEGINNING: THE ZAZOUS

There’s zazous in my neighborhood. I’m already halfway like ‘em. André Jaubert In 1938, French singer Johnny Hess, inspired by Cab Calloway’s song Zah Zuh Zaz, shouted frantically in his song I Am Swing the following chorus: ‘I am swing, I am swing, zazou, zazou, zazou zazou dé’. The song became the 1939 hit song and was featured in the 1942 film Mademoiselle Swing about a young swing fanatic who is bored to death by her provincial life and seeks some adventure.

Along with their love for American jazz, Zazous became known during the occupation for their Anglophile and Americanophile attitudes, which were not to the liking of German occupiers. Boris Vian (French writer, poet, musician, singer, translator, critic, actor, inventor and engineer) wrote, “The male got a curly and scruffy hairdo and wore a sky blue suit whose jacket fell down to his calves [...] the female also wore a jacket which protruded by at least one millimeter from a loose pleated skirt in Mauritius tarlatane fabric”.

Flash forward to the post-war years, from the taboo club cave up to Saint Germain’s cafés. Boris Vian looked like a proto Mod and Juliette Greco like a beatnik girl worthy of the girl on the cover of Rod McKuen’s Beatsville LP. Anglophilia really started in Paris during the sixties. While English mods came from the lower classes, their French cousins originated mostly from the capital’s upper crust. A well-groomed crew who chose for their HQ Le Publicis Drugstore on the Champs Élysées. Ironically, Jacques Dutronc used to call them the ‘Minets’, “who eat their purr at the drugstore”. But it would be wrong to dismiss these young Anglophile and Parisian dandies, such as Boris Bergman, a great Russian-Jewish-Anglophile lyricist, who grew up in London and then expatriated himself to Paris. He wrote the English adaptations of Serge Gainsbourg’s songs and was a lyricist for Sophia Loren, Anthony Quinn, Marcelo Mastroniani and Juliette Greco. “I was already part of a Saint-Michel band,” Bergman recalls, “then all the various gangs merged at the Drugstore. There were a lot of ‘our betters’ kinda kids. I was quite apart as I sort of came up from the gutters.”

“I was in the same class as Michel Taittinger

“Minets: pseudo beatniks and dandies hating everything French – that drugstore gang is above all anti-yéyé. These few young people were offbeat aesthetes who were into clothes and pop culture. They were a strange kind of mix between Barbey d’Aurevilly and Pete Townsend”

(co-director of Godard’s Rolling Stones film, 5+1 and heir of the Taittinger Champagne brand). It was an ‘Absolute Beginners’ gang. Some of them rose up to greater things; there was the future press photographer Serge Kornilov, future producer of Vanessa Paradis Marc Lumbroso, as well as famous rock critics François Jouffa and Jean Bernard Hebey. Marc Kalinowski, who would became a great sinologist, was there too. If only I knew back them what we all would become!”

The Drugstore youth wore Maurice Renoma’s ‘English blazers’ outfits. Boris Bergman adds, “At the time I was importing Penny Loafers to make end meet.” Jean Monot, in his Les Barjots book, wrote, “Minets: pseudo beatniks and dandies hating everything French – that drugstore gang is above all anti-yéyé”. These few young people were offbeat aesthetes who were into clothes and pop culture. They were a strange kind of mix between Barbey d’Aurevilly and Pete Townsend.

HERE COMES RENOMA!

Sixties girls like Brigitte Bardot (right), Jane Birkin and Françoise Hardy loved to wear Paco Rabanne, Courège and, a little later, Jean Bouquin (Saint Tropez hippy chic) garments. Aged 23 in 1963, Maurice Renoma opened his first store at Rue de la Pompe in Paris. Before that he had already dressed the Drugstore’s hipsters, for whom he had imposed the curved cut: “Curved clothes give a chic allure to men and women. When curved, young people feel good about themselves.” Among Renoma’s famous customers who became his ambassadors you could spot: Jacques Dutronc, Serge Gainsbourg, the Beatles, Andy Warhol, Salvador Dali, Catherine Deneuve, Elton John, Jim Morrison, Françoise Hardy, Bob Dylan, Pelé, Keith Richards, Yves Saint Laurent, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing and François Mitterrand. Renoma made a mark on his era and, if his work is still relevant today, it’s because he always preferred real avant guard to hype.

FRENCH NEW WAVE

In the early seventies, as everyone was stuck in hippy antics, a fringe of trendy young people reacted. These beautiful people lived way beyond

their means. They made Gustave Flaubert’s “The superfluous is the greatest of needs” their motto. In England, the Glam Rock scene affected both sophisticated artists and teenyboppers. In contrast, French ‘decadents’ were much less numerous, very elitist and mostly based in Paris.

Yves Adrien is a mythical author and an unlikely rock critic fascinated by Sainte Thérèse de Lisieux. Yves Adrien wrote about the French post-May ‘68 hippie youth, “Teenagers prefer bubblegum pop to Marxism, it’s more fun ... Imagery of the experience goes beyond any logic based on reasoning. This is the teenage force. The leftist adventure is not, in the musical/electric concept that concerns us, more important than the twist dance craze fashion or platform boots.”

For those who liked it camp, there was the Gazolines (above), a dissident group of the FHAR (Homosexual Front of Revolutionary Action) who challenged with glitter and joie-de-vivre the greyish leftist demos of the day. Among them were the sublime Marie France, but also Maud Molyneux, Helene Hazera Jenny Bel’Air and Paquita Paquin. Their tongue in cheek slogans were “Make-up is a way of life, proletarians of all countries, caress yourselves!” and “Nationalise glitter factories!” The Gazolines disbanded themselves around 1974 and Jenny Bel’Air became a physionomist at the Palace, and Maud Molyneux a feared critic at the Libération newspaper. At the Palace, under Fabrice Emaer’s direction, old faces of ex-Gazolines

“These beautiful people lived way beyond their means. They made Gustave Flaubert’s “The superfluous is the greatest of needs” their motto. In England, the Glam Rock scene affected both sophisticated artists and teenyboppers. In contrast, French decadents were less numerous, very elitist and mostly based in Paris”

mixed with new figures such as Edwige (ex Punk queen and Jean-Paul Gauthier muse), Jérome Braque (an electro-pop artist and tongue-in-cheek dandy), Djemila Khelfa (who makes Kate Moss seem like an altar boy), Alain Pacadis (the ‘teddy bear who smelled bad’, according to Lio), the great photographer Philippe Morillon, Jacno, Elli Medeiros, Fifi Chachnil, Pierre et Gilles, JeanCharles de Castelbajac (who designed many artists’ clothes at that time) and so many other creatures of the night. The brilliant composer Jérome Braque recalls, “We were spoiled children. Daring to say no to golden opportunities and dressing up in clothes from St Cloud Flea market. I even had a tuxedo I got recut to my size”.

To evoke French elegance, both modern and resulting from the sartorial revolutions mentioned above, we should conclude with the mythical modern couple formed by stylist Vanessa Seward and über cool composer and producer Bertrand Burgalat. In her book The Gentlewoman’s Guide, Madame Seward-Burgalat offers us a breviary of feminine elegance.

In a alphabetical form, there’s mention of Lubeck (a Young Catholic Girls institute from where many of the pupils would go on to work for Dior, Chanel and Vogue); of anti show-off attitudes; of neo-bourgeoisie. As a Parisian born in Argentina and raised in London, Vanessa Seward is the essence of style when she writes about silk pyjamas, Marine sweaters, lack of fortune and sensitive luxury. Way beyond the fabric, the essence of French elegance is an art of living and therefore of dying. Boris Vian sang, “And when I would be dead I want a Dior shroud”. n

“Teenagers prefer bubblegum pop to Marxism, it’s more fun ... This is the teenage force. The leftist adventure is not, in the musical/electric concept that concerns us, more important than the twist dance craze fashion or platform boots”

www.vanessaseward.com www.tricatel.com

FRANÇOISE HARDY – As she never cared about clothes and has always been unaware of her beauty and her charm.

JEAN D’ORMESSON – A very mediocre and pontificating writer, but very well fashioned (his wife was rich).

STÉPHANE AUDRAN – Because she was witty and intelligent, that’s what made her so attractive.

HÉLÈNE ROCHAS – “One of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen”, John Fairchild.

VALÉRY GISCARD D’ESTAING – He made a lot of mistakes, but he was always perfectly dressed.

HUBERT DE GIVENCHY – A rare specimen of fashion designer who doesn’t look pathetic.

...AND BURGALAT’S REPLY TO THE SIMPLE QUESTION: WHAT IS FRENCH ELEGANCE?

French elegance is like French music; it’s ok when it is not calculated. If there is a French spirit, it cannot be codified or claimed, otherwise it becomes folklore. I don’t think Alain Delon, Jean Gabin or Lino Ventura cared that much about clothes, but they wanted to be well dressed out of respect for the public.