Today, I want to republish – and to have it translated in english for the first time ! – that text I wrote in …2007 about the sales in Paris. I can’t believe I still have that scarf :-)

At the time this post is being written, I’m drowning in a sea of Rykiel pants that retrace the past 20 years of fashion, everything from its proudest moments to its most obscure. This is the opening of the Paris sample sales where the only thing missing is the present, which is to say, this winter’s collection, which I dream about night and day.

I still lug around a bag full of at least three pairs of 6ers*, a long cardigan that my friend Nina says is journeying from hell to heaven, striped, of course, and a whole bunch of  happy happy Rykieleries that I plan to slip on as soon as I get them paid for.

Right then I run into Géraldine in the most sublime scarf. The painful sting of jealousy is quick to follow. Lead only by greed, I swan dive into the box of scarves and come out, proud as can be with a green silky soft floral scarf with my initials right on there. Around my shoulders it goes and Géraldine has nothing to say but wow**.

It feels so it. I need this scarf. How much is it? Not that I really care… This has to be mine. I head over to one of the saleswomen. I grab her by the collar and I threaten her with the power of my 6ers if she doesn’t tell me the deal.

Her: Surprised look.
Me: Hagard look.
Her: Knowing sardonic gaze.

Her: “But this isn’t a scarf! It’s the fabric we use to cover the bottom of the bins!”

Me: I feel like Jessca Stam must have felt on March 4th, 2006***.

A few steps behind me, Géraldine can barely hold it together she’s laughing so hard.

Okay so what do you think I do?

I go and find the manager and I tell him he needs to give me the bottom of the bin fabric. She says no. I say yes. She says no way. I say I’ll pay! She says we don’t even give these to employes. I say name your price. She says okay fine, wait here.

She comes back with a little box and says, “On the house.”

I always say that in life, there are those who carry around a loaded gun, and those who dig****.

Me, I dig.

———————

* 6 inches of heel.  Géraldine says it’s a little drag queen. “Garance, put those down before you get hurt!”

** This is the kind of vocabulary that comes out during the big sales in Paris just by the mere power of the low prices around you: “wow,” “ugh,” “no way,” “too expensive,” “I’d break it,” and of course, “I just don’t know why that exists.”

*** Thank you to M1 for her links to these videos of models falling on their faces. It’s terribly cruel, terribly funny!

Don’t tell me you haven’t seen The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly.

Translation : Tim Sullivan

Today, I want to republish – and to have it translated in english for the first time ! – that text I wrote in …2007 about the sales in Paris. I can’t believe I still have that scarf :-)

At the time this post is being written, I’m drowning in a sea of Rykiel pants that retrace the past 20 years of fashion, everything from its proudest moments to its most obscure. This is the opening of the Paris sample sales where the only thing missing is the present, which is to say, this winter’s collection, which I dream about night and day.

I still lug around a bag full of at least three pairs of 6ers*, a long cardigan that my friend Nina says is journeying from hell to heaven, striped, of course, and a whole bunch of  happy happy Rykieleries that I plan to slip on as soon as I get them paid for.

Right then I run into Géraldine in the most sublime scarf. The painful sting of jealousy is quick to follow. Lead only by greed, I swan dive into the box of scarves and come out, proud as can be with a green silky soft floral scarf with my initials right on there. Around my shoulders it goes and Géraldine has nothing to say but wow**.

It feels so it. I need this scarf. How much is it? Not that I really care… This has to be mine. I head over to one of the saleswomen. I grab her by the collar and I threaten her with the power of my 6ers if she doesn’t tell me the deal.

Her: Surprised look.
Me: Hagard look.
Her: Knowing sardonic gaze.

Her: “But this isn’t a scarf! It’s the fabric we use to cover the bottom of the bins!”

Me: I feel like Jessca Stam must have felt on March 4th, 2006***.

A few steps behind me, Géraldine can barely hold it together she’s laughing so hard.

Okay so what do you think I do?

I go and find the manager and I tell him he needs to give me the bottom of the bin fabric. She says no. I say yes. She says no way. I say I’ll pay! She says we don’t even give these to employes. I say name your price. She says okay fine, wait here.

She comes back with a little box and says, “On the house.”

I always say that in life, there are those who carry around a loaded gun, and those who dig****.

Me, I dig.

———————

* 6 inches of heel.  Géraldine says it’s a little drag queen. “Garance, put those down before you get hurt!”

** This is the kind of vocabulary that comes out during the big sales in Paris just by the mere power of the low prices around you: “wow,” “ugh,” “no way,” “too expensive,” “I’d break it,” and of course, “I just don’t know why that exists.”

*** Thank you to M1 for her links to these videos of models falling on their faces. It’s terribly cruel, terribly funny!

Don’t tell me you haven’t seen The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly.

Translation : Tim Sullivan