Everywhere in Paris, you hear talk of “la mode Americaine.” And you don’t have to speak French to read the signs:
Gap billboards at main intersections, Nikes worn by trendy teenagers, Urban Decay nail polish sold at the upscale department store Printemps, the hot new restaurant Man Ray owned by American movie stars such as Sean Penn, eateries serving fusion food alongside the traditional bistros. California surf label Quicksilver is splashing onto the Right Bank. French youth sporting baggy Carharts and hooded sweatshirts are bopping to American hip-hop and techno at funky clothing store Le Shop. And the fashionistas’ favorite boutique, Colette, is carrying Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, Kate Spade, and even cosmetics from New York’s Kiehl’s pharmacy and Bliss spa.
Five years after the French National Assembly banned Englishisms in official and commercial contexts–that”s why the Sony Walkman is called le balladeur and CD-ROM is spelled cederom–this insatiable appetite for all things American seems a particular travesty. But the roots of American culture in Paris run deep, dating back at least to the days of Gertrude Stein and Josephine Baker in the 1920s, through the Jerry Lewis phenomenon, right up to Euro Disney and hip-hop.
What makes the latest wave so different from previous incarnations is that Americans seem to be striking right at the heart of French culture–fashion. It’s not a matter of importing a facet of life that had been missing in France, be it fast food, aerobics, television or high technology. If there’s one thing France has always been synonymous with, it”s style, from the perfumed women who stroll the Champs-Elysees to the toddlers dressed in Jacadi who play in the Tuileries. And if there”s one thing the French have always sneered at, it’s American fashion, which they have viewed as somewhat of an oxymoron.
But with Michael Kors at Celine, Marc Jacobs at Louis Vuitton, Peter Speliopoulos at Cerruti, Narciso Rodriguez at Loewe, even Alber Elbaz (though a native Moroccan, he trained with Geoffrey Beene in New York) at Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche, Americans have taken over some of the most venerable fashion houses in Paris. And the funny thing is, they not only have handled their challenges with total elan but also have managed to change the course of what fashion has come to mean.
To be fair, the French have become more open to a cultural fusion in popular culture and fashion. One of the latest–and unlikeliest–new soul groups to climb the European charts and cross over to these shores is Les Nubians, two sisters from Bordeaux (by way of Chad), who mesh jazz, French poetry, R&B, African rhythms and hip-hop into a sultry groove.
“We don’t consider ourselves French per se,” says Celia Faussart of Les Nubians. “We’re citizens of the world. And we think the conservative, provincial attitude that has dominated France is beginning to fade. It’s more about a global influence. And America has always represented this mix.”
As Xuly-Bet designer Lamine Badian Kouyate puts it, American culture reflects a cultural vibrancy that he has found particularly inspiring. “Everything from jazz to (painter) Jean-Michel Basquiat to hip-hop to sports have figured into my fashion sense,” says Kouyate, a native of Mali. “I don’t design from a vacuum.”
Though the French fashion houses traditionally have prided themselves on creating impossibly chic cliques, fashion today can”t afford to be that insular. And the most successful designers know that they must reflect a lifestyle more than just a look.
“Fashion is about traveling, whether it’s to Chicago for a trunk show or to Vienna to a fabric mill,” says Michael Kors, recipient of a 1998-99 American Fashion Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America. “So it’s impossible to be a designer and stay in a little room somewhere in today”s world.”
Not surprisingly, Kors’ sensibility suits a modern, jet-setting woman. His clothes, rendered in the finest cashmeres, furs and even feathers, are luxurious and cosmopolitan. But the lines are clean, uncluttered and very sporty. For fall, Kors was influenced by the apres-ski chic of the ’70s for Celine and by the Native American-meets-hipster culture of the Sundance scene for his own label.
“It’s my mood in two different ways,” he says. “I don’t suddenly become a different person when I’m designing for a French house. But in the back of my head there are always two points of reference. One is meringue, ruffles and cha-cha-cha, and one is speedy, fast, frenetic. And I”m constantly stealing from both worlds.”
Kors says the allure of American culture to a Parisian goes beyond being able to order onion rings at Chili’s at 1 a.m. or buying iceberg lettuce at the Champion supermarket.
“It’s very much about problem solving,” he says. “And Americans have always had this feet-on-the-ground sensibility, this lack of pretension. Paris has always had foreigners working there, from Karl Lagerfeld, who has been there for 30 years, to more recently the Japanese and the Belgians. It’s just that the comfort issue has opened up and that’s what Americans do best.”
And when you look at what designers showed for fall in Paris, American sportswear was de rigueur: the tight jeans at Chloe, the motorcycle references at Chanel, the buffalo plaids at Celine, the Maine fishermen’s caps at Louis Vuitton and the double-faced cashmere hooded sweatshirts and baggy pants at Hermes, which seem a most opulent version of J. Crew. And if you think these looks are relegated only to the runways, think again.
France’s First Lady Bernadette Chirac wears pull-on cashmere pants and hooded pullovers from Celine. That’s a far cry from the ornate prissiness of the stereotypical Frenchwoman, but it”s in sync with how women are starting to see themselves for the 21st Century.
“American women set the trends for the rest of the world,” says Peter Speliopoulos, whose fall collection for Cerruti was sharp, chic and treated in high-tech metallicized fabric, as well as fur and pony.
Speliopoulos, who worked for Donna Karan, the designer who best defined the new working woman of the ’80s and ’90s, feels millennium women express a dichotomy. While becoming ever more daring and more comfortable in their increasingly powerful roles, they are also holding onto a sense of the past, and craving things that feel natural and even spiritual.
In their high-heeled boots and graphic-pattern skirts pierced with shots of fiery red and acid green, Speliopoulos’ models hit the runway exuding an energy that was all about self-assurance and individuality. The clothes’ colors alone elicited “oohs” and “aaahs.”
The patterns had a crazy-quilt effect, both vintage in appeal and high tech. The Cerruti fall collection expressed a reaction against the mass-produced, monochromatic minimalism that has come to define the late ’90s dress code, from the uniform simplicity of Prada to the knockoffs available at the Gap and Club Monaco. And strangely, it was as American and one-of-a-kind as Grandma’s patchworks.
“When I design, I think of an ageless woman with a youthful spirit,” Speliopoulos says.
To him, it also has to do with a sense of natural, even rough-hewn beauty that is distinctly American. Compare the stark beauty–and long-lasting style influence–of Lauren Bacall and Katharine Hepburn with the kittenish coquetry of such French icons as Catherine Deneuve and Brigitte Bardot. Sure, the U.S. is the country of Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield, but their expression of overt sexuality in style of dress vanished along with the era of big Buicks and their protruding tail fins.
To Alber Elbaz, those cosmetic differences are still visible. “There were the same girls on the runways of New York and Paris, but they looked totally different,” he says. “And their whole body language changed with the jewelry, accessories, hair and makeup in Europe.”
Not surprisingly, Elbaz kept the makeup for his debut for Rive Gauche simple. The focus was the mouth–strong, assertive lips and little else. And the brunt of his collection was the classic Rive Gauche suit, the perfect symbol of the modern woman.
“Because I lived in America so long, I couldn’t help feeling that my collection was very American,” he says. “But I tried to tell a story and pay homage to the house, and that was French.”
Ironically, the Yves Saint Laurent version of French chic is also very American–strong silhouettes consisting of long, lean gabardine pants, the famous “boule” jacket with its billowing sleeves, and plenty of pinstripes and black. He also had his models walk quickly in one direction on a steel runway–to symbolize the Eiffel Tower.
When Elbaz first joined the house, Yves Saint Laurent President Pierre Berge told him: “Coco Chanel gave the ladies freedom; Mr. Saint Laurent gave them power.” And indeed, Elbaz’ take on millennial women is that they definitely wear the pants.
“I guess the American influence on fashion is simplicity, an ease in attitude,” says Marc Jacobs. “Many have a lot to do and less and less time to enjoy life’s pleasures. Nothing says `American’ like a T-shirt and jeans–in any of its forms.”
And it’s not reaching too far to view Jacobs’ pairing of a cashmere sweater with a boiled-wool felt skirt in a blue chambray color as an upscale version of the American staple. Same goes for Rodriguez’s cashmere jeans and fur motorcycle jacket with sparkled top for Loewe, a Spanish luxury goods line known for its leathers.
“There’s a practicality to American fashion that is needed worldwide,” says Rodriguez, who attributes the American fashion phenomenon to Tom Ford’s huge success at Gucci. “It’s great to be entertained by fashion, but you also have to dress real women; that’s what I focus on.”
In many ways Rodriguez meshed the bejeweled European sensibility with the classic and clean American aesthetic, covering garments in garnets, rendering jeans in cashmere and taking a simple American shape such as a motorcycle jacket and interpreting it in fur. Rodriguez, who once worked for Calvin Klein, says the designer gave him his penchant for the sleek and understated.
“This concept of American sportswear has come to mean so many things, from a little black cocktail dress to a beaded camisole with a simple pair of slacks,” he says. “I treat my eveningwear as sportswear.”
Perhaps it’s that blurring of the barriers between day and night, masculine and feminine, and cultures that millennial dressing is all about. To Rodriguez, fashion is a fusion, an ethnic melting pot that has always existed in America.
“It’s a feeling I get from an old lady in Madrid, or a kid on a moped in Milan or a waiter in Paris,” he says. “It’s tapping into the fast, spontaneous life on the street. It’s not so much about what people are wearing, but what you’re feeling.”
Or as Speliopoulos puts it, it’s an ability to see beyond fashion for fashion’s sake into a larger context.
“I think we have to be honest here and say that America has been ahead of Europe by 10 years in terms of how modern technology is applied to lifestyle,” he says. “Pop music is an American invention that I think is the definition of modern. Maybe (the French are) not seeing our everyday people reflected in film, TV and video, but it’s largely a liberating, creative and enterprising influence, especially to a country (France) that doesn”t seem to have much of a youth culture.”
Whether it’s a matter of a new generation fed up with the seemingly archaic traditions and cultures of its country or simply a matter of youth–and the young at heart–wanting to dress like American pop stars, one thing’s for sure: La mode Americaine has officially hit France. And Paris ill probably never be the same again.
