We don't know what it is about women's style books, but we love them (Amanda Brooks' I Love Your Style is still heavily dog-eared). Perhaps it's because they celebrate everything we love about women. Anne Berest, Audrey Diwan, Caroline de Maigret, and Sophie Mas have been friends for years, making up a Parisienne clique that is all too common—and necessary—in French society. "Without her girls gang, the Parisienne is incomplete," they confess. And they're right, everything is better with friends: cocktails, heartbreaks, and spontaneous countryside getaways.
In How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are, the authors—unmarried but attached, with children—take you inside what it really means to be a Parisienne woman today. They let you in on their secrets and flaws while also making fun of their complicated, often contradictory feelings and behavior. With deft advice from their experiences, their mothers, and their lovers, How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are will have you laughing out loud and tapping into your inner cool. Here, in their signature tongue-in-cheek delivery, a handful of our favorite beauty and lifestyle tips.
- Find "your" perfume before you turn thirty. Wear it for the next thirty years.
- Your look should always have one thing left undone—the devil is in the details.
- If you only own one sweater, make sure it's cashmere.
- Always be prepared, he could be just around the corner.
- Age should never be an excuse to go to bed early.
- Be financially independent, so that you love only for love.
- Spend a fortune on lingerie no one will ever see.
- And don't forget to daydream in the bath, just like when you were little.
Audrey, Caroline, Sophie, and Anne.