‘Comment Shoppez-Vous?’ revisited

It’s that time of the month again, when I re-blog something from our years in France.  This one’s probably an odd choice, when shopping for anything but the bare essentials of life is pretty much denied us, but … learning something new is one of those educational opportunities we’re meant to make use of during Lockdown.  Though eight-years-old fashion vocabulary may not be all that helpful.

‘Comment shoppez-vous?’

May 18th, 2012

Stuck in a waiting room with a pile of magazines between me and my appointment time, my idea of hell is a choice between fashion mags and ones about cars.

Less so in France, at least as far as the fashion ones are concerned.  It’s not that I’m more interested in being stylish and chic here.  I simply have fun reading the articles and noting the ‘English’ words and phrases on almost every line.

Are you a sophisticated lady? Cool? Relax et sexy?  Show-off? Perhaps you aim for le twist sporty-glam, or like le mix et le match, le style ‘street’, or le fun et le trash.

Down at the shops are you looking for un look color block, le style boyish ou girly, arty-trendy, crazy doll, grungy girl?  If you’ve any sense, you’ll have made a shopping list, to make sure you come home with le jean,  le blazer, le trench, le legging, les shoes (with kitten-heel perhaps), and perhaps one or two it pièces.  Then you could really get to show off and expect le red carpet treatment.

When it comes to make-up, I hope you don’t like le make-up too much.  Light is so much more subtle.  If you’re a beauty addict perhaps you should be looking for un effet sixties, or un twist, using liner and shadowing your eyelids en smoky or flashy to achieve le total-look of your choice.  Then you’d look a real star.

It’s pretty exhausting really.  That’s why keeping up with fashion isn’t very high on my to do list.

Le look sexy-glam as seen in Le Figaro.

Author: margaret21

I'm retired and live in North Yorkshire, where I walk , write, volunteer and travel as often as I can.

22 thoughts on “‘Comment Shoppez-Vous?’ revisited”

  4. As I read and enjoyed this post, I couldn’t help thinking that the French are being rather lazy. Why not devise their own fashion lexicon? France being the home of couture after all …… Couture being a french word now in common parlance in the english tongue…. Parlance no doubt stemming from the french word parlez ….. I think I’ve answered myself here! I’m glad we can all give and take from each other’s languages at least!

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    1. Oh, it’s not just fashion. The world of business and shopping generally is fully anglicized. I wish I could find a post I wrote once that contained dozens of English words adopted by the french. And I discovered it’s the same in Spain. We of course find french words scattered in our English sentences to be so very chic too.

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  5. This is still so TRUE and of great actual entertainment value! I also always marvelled at “How many linguistic errors can you pack in ONE article?” when reading diagonally in a French magazine…. A timeless and spot-on article. Thank You Margaret.

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  6. I am in agreement with you about, she drops her voice to a whisper, fashion mags. I never bought them when I was young and only now begrudgingly buy the odd one for work. However, if you were to mention gardening magazines well . . .

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  11. France has anglicised quite a lot in interiors too. We can now ‘re-look’ furniture, sit in ‘le snug’ and rather strangely Art & Deco’s recent front cover had ‘Vive le Made in France’ ?

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    1. Oh, re-looker-ing was a thing when we were there too. But not as far as I know le snug, and le Made in France. Whatever next, eh?

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