Joel Ruiz, brand manager, Australia and NZ, Hublotīrahimi says he would never wear clothing or sneakers with logos. We wear clothes that fit well and suit us – and you really cannot go wrong with that. It’s not about showing off, it’s more about respecting yourself.” In fact, French men are never too overdone, they don’t try too hard. “It’s not about the most expensive things, or wearing head-to-toe labels.
“You can be Australian and have French style,” he says. These basic building blocks of style are timeless and transcend geography, says Brahimi (who is, funnily enough, Stahl’s former brother-in-law he was married to her sister, Sanchia). “I think of what my dad wore: shirts from Charvet, cashmere sweaters, good shoes.” “When I think of French style, I think of classic, minimalist pieces,” he says. Chef and restaurateur Guillaume Brahimi has lived in Australia for 30 years, but still dresses like a Parisian.Ĭhef Guillaume Brahimi: “When I think of French style, I think of classic, minimalist pieces.” It is an idea that prevails to this day, with the Federation of Couture and Fashion, which oversees the local fashion industries and ensures maisons maintain exceptionally high standards.Īnd while French dressing clearly still flourishes in its homeland, it crosses borders, too.
#The effortless chic professional#
His finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, organised the fashion industry into professional guilds, ensuring quality control and allowing it to flourish. It began, formally, at least, when Louis XIV used fashion as a political tool to encourage competition among his nobles, holding extravagant functions that required luxurious attire at each one, and emphasising the importance of appearance.įrench actor Vincent Cassel and his wife, actress Tina Kunakey, have pared-back elegance taped.
It’s somewhat ironic that so much of French dressing is about insouciance and an apparent lack of care when in fact, the idea of France as a style capital dates back centuries. That the French take fashion seriously is very much by design. “So they might wear a Breton stripe at night, with fantastic jeans and heels.” Stahl herself is “very much a blazer and jeans, Chanel ballet flats kind of woman”. “There is this way of dressing that is about mixing various bits and pieces in a very nonchalant way,” she says. “And what is more French than a Breton striped top?”įor Stahl, dressing well is dressing like the French. “I wanted to give something out to people so they would remember the school,” she says. She came to the idea while promoting her language classes. More recently, she founded Jac Cadeaux, an Australian fashion label with a decidedly Gallic flair. She ran her language school for more than a decade, where the likes of Bettina Hemmes, Sarah Murdoch and Erica Packer came to learn French and feast on pastries (made by Stahl herself, a self-taught pâtissière).
Words such as “timeless” and “classic” are oft-used – but how exactly does one dress like the French? And is it even possible for those outside France to do so?įrench model, fashion designer and perfumer Inès de la Fressange embodies effortless chic. The French themselves speak of je ne sais quoi when it comes to style, giving few hints as to what, exactly their brand of sartorial magic is. The notion of French style has been exhaustively explored and oft-mimicked, but remains somewhat opaque. It is knowing what looks good on you, and developing your own sense of style.” “It’s about not bowing to this season or that one. “French women dress in a way that is quite timeless,” says Stahl. Stahl – while not French herself – lived in Paris for four years, before returning to her hometown of Sydney to found a French language école in her home in the eastern suburbs. “To me, French dressing is about refusing to take part in trends, or wear clothing that simply does not suit you,” says Claudia Stahl.Ĭlaudia Stahl, founder of Jac Cadeaux, in her Darling Point home. Reams have been written about what exactly constitutes that certain je ne sais quoi that is the French sense of dressing, but ultimately, it boils down, like a fine bouillabaisse, to those three words: elegance is refusal. When Coco Chanel said elegance is refusal, she defined – in a wonderfully apt, three-word mantra – French style.
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