Woman of mystery: how Parisian women make millions
'27.07.2017'
Source: Wonder
Over the past decade, the abstract French woman has become the most respected expert in the field of lifestyle. Everything related to "French women" and "Parisians" is being successfully sold. Even a collection of banal advice on how to wear a little black dress and choose croissants will instantly be snatched from the shelves of bookstores, as soon as you put the Eiffel Tower and a woman's silhouette on its cover.
As on the myth of the Parisian earn millions, understand edition "Wonder».
The female figure has remained the symbol of France for almost three centuries, so there is nothing strange in that along with cheeses and champagne the myth of the ideal woman turned out to be one of the main export products of the French state. But if during the XVIII – XIX centuries the brave folk heroine Marianna was the personification of the best qualities, then with the development of the fashion and beauty industry, her image in the minds of the broad masses was supplanted by a set of cliches, flat stamps and unattainable standards.
Legendary French femininity systematically became a commercial brand and trademark. "Mysterious", "exquisite", "flawless in its naturalness", "sophisticated seducer" - so the French perfume and fashion houses from Guerlain to Chanel They promoted their products and the national female canon in the last century.
The literal translation of the advertising text, which in 2014 was accompanied by the release of a new lipstick KissKiss Guerlain, shows that the traditions of such positioning are strong to this day:
“Her age doesn't matter: she has an incredible style. And sex appeal. She swims through the streets of Paris on her heels. She looks elegant in everything and never overdo it. Her makeup is always flawless and natural; she is an expert in the art of carefree seduction. In her fingers, she pinches the weapon of her deadly seduction. ”
Yes, you did not think the word "seduction" is used here simultaneously in two adjacent sentences.
The image of a woman-child, deprived of any distinct personal characteristics, besides the notorious seductiveness and the ability to effectively wear a dress in a Vichy cell, was also praised successfully by French cinema. Any of the heroines of Brigitte Bardot and Jane Birkin are shrouded in a light esoteric mist, while for men she is always a “beautiful creature” and a “charming child”, and for rivals a worthless whimsy.
Its main function is to serve itself as an explicit object of desire and seduce again and again. To all the hackneyed notions about a real Frenchwoman as a kind of “trick” were the performers of the ye-yee music genre, like Francoise Hardy and Sylvie Vartan.
The image of the “true Frenchwoman” built the career of another Francoise, Sagan, and Catherine Deneuve. Is it any wonder that today's pop characters from Vanessa Paradis and celebrity street style Carolyn de Maigret to journalist Sophie Fontanel, who wrote a dozen methodological guides on behalf of a resident of Paris, mercilessly exploit and monetize their own French?
I must say that the mystery really at some point was one of the defining features of French women. The signature pose “there is no secret, we are just naturally beautiful and skinny” a priori provides any Frenchwoman with the status of a beauty enigma, an unattainable ideal, a goddess with a magic recipe art de vivre. And the magic, as you know, is great for sale. And this is a rather surprising moment: while in other countries there is an active struggle against racial stereotypes and cultural appropriation, in France the objectification of the national female image and its active commercial use continue.
The author of an impressive study "How to Sell a Billion-Doll Myth Like a French Girl"Rightly observes that today around the skillfully built image of the true La Parisienne A lot of money is spinning: the mythical inhabitant of the solar attic in Saint-Germain, running out in her beloved vest for fresh pasta to a nearby shop, helps to earn all the marketplaces of the country at once - from pharmacies to pastry shops. Not to mention the book, film, fashion and cosmetic industries.
A separate item should be a tendency to disguise foreign brands initially as French: if the proud name of the fricative “p” sounds in the brand name, this automatically means something “cool”, “delicious” and “sweet” at the same time. So - well bought.
However, such a social order in which a woman is forced to create a veil of mystery and understatement around herself is also conditioned by the national mentality. In anthropology, there are the concepts of “culture of shame” and “culture of guilt”: within the first person, people tend to do their best to meet social standards and at the same time carefully conceal the efforts and internal experiences, and the second, on the contrary, implies almost public reflection on any life circumstances. The sense of guilt poisons all spheres of life — from raising the offspring to food — to the average Anglo-American who lives in the realities of the “culture of guilt” correct, french style. Such a lyrical heroine has flexible relationships with categories of truth and lies: die, but do not confess how difficult your external well-being is given to you, your supposedly natural beauty and innate harmony.
It is significant that the prevailing pattern of perception of a French woman as the personification of natural thinness and grace harms first of all the residents of the country. In December, an article titled “The Perils of Being Fat, Female and French”, Which contains frank statements of the inhabitants of Paris regarding public opinion about excess weight.
"If you are fat, you will not have work, but if you are thin, you have charm and style, you will be appreciated," "This is real tyranny, in France, thinness is equal to success," "In stores they look askance, because I I don’t fit in with local standards, ”the text is full of such statements.
It would seem that such attitudes are unthinkable in the conditions of a developed civilization, where “diversity”, “tolerance” and “bodypositive” become defining concepts. But, paradoxically, the progressive world refuses to think about it, and the unviable clichés about the life of a French woman continue their confident existence.
All in the same article "How to Sell a Billion-Doll Myth Like a French Girl»Focuses on another unattractive fact: in fact, the image of the mysterious, sophisticated, able to break from the ship to the ball of the windy seducer is copied from the representatives of a very narrow, privileged stratum of society and has nothing to do with 99% of the country's female population.
In reality, the life of a modern French woman is hardly amenable to such a flat averaging, not to mention the fact that a substantial part of the female population of France belongs to very different ethnic groups. But, as it turns out, the collective dream of a superwoman endowed with Vedic knowledge of how to be refined and seductive is still relevant and economically in demand even in the era of confidently winning feminism.
