French Fashion Faux-Pas

so paris is known as the city of light and the fashion capital of the world....or so the French would like you to believe. now....maybe its just me and trust me, i dont people watch as much as others do, but honestly, ive seen the some of the most questionable fashion and clothing ensembles in the city of la mode. and such questionable fashion faux-pas have been made mostly by men (the women seem to know how to look fabulous without trying)... and i want to scream out..WHAT IN TARNATION IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?? now, you need to understand that French people will say that they are all about appearances and these days, i dont even dare to take out the garbage or get the mail in my sweats (the boy is always super horrified when he sees sweatpants-clad women in the supermarket in the U.S.), and with that aside, they may not be in sweats, but some have questionable tastes....

some of favs so far have been:

(a) the guy in a flaming bright hot-pink sweater with white tight pants (and he was on my tram....and got off in the financial district of paris!),

(b) or this one time i saw a guy carrying a small Coach shoulder with a really tight tight t-shirt (it should be noted here that they don't sell Coach in Europe...so this guy brought it back from the U.S.????),

(c) and the best (and worst) so far was when i saw this guy wearing the exact same light green military-style jacket I had bought from the women's section at Zara.....and the worst part was that he looked better in it than I did!

now i'm all about "to each his own", but aside from the extreme examples i've noted above, i've seen some pretty pretty bad normal menswear choices as well. and i'm talking about mismatched suit pieces, shoes that just DONT go with a suit, thick athlete-type socks in dress shoes, shirts that just dont go with a tie, horribly-patterned ties...and the worst, a nice suit jacket with jeans (and i'm talking about a formal suit jacket on top of jeans!).

seriously, in general, all you american guys can applaud yourselves for dressing much better than the french and in all senses...formal and casual. i can bet a million dollars in most cases, the american joe cleans up better than a french frog....thank god for banana republic and j.crew in the U.S.! and what is this French obsession with converse sneakers and flicking the collar up??? and the ones who do look pretty damn put-together are usually in management-type positions and spend a fortune on their clothes or shop in the U.S....its really the two extremes here....

now, you can probably tell that i have a pretty classic taste in clothes....i love fun clothes and all, but for guys, i'm all about the classic, timeless, clean look. you dont need to look like you are going to meet the president every single day..but come on, some common sense please...even if you are wearing jeans! i know i know i know..i was spoiled horribly as i attended a super preppy high-school where the guys were required to dress-up in a tie and shirt at least once a week and i didnt realize this was strange until i got to college.

but i'm not going to apologize for it, the boy has recently started to understand my views and how the euro look just doesnt fly when we are in the U.S. or when he's just around other americans (and he shopped accordingly during our last visit!!). i dont mean to sound like a clothes snob....but i honestly want to slap my forehead when i see these young guys on my metro getting off at the financial district....and hope to god that they arent going in for a job interview....and this makes me sound like an 80 year old grandmother...but where are these people's mothers and why havent any of them been taught to tie a tie properly??

After a short hiatus...here I am again!

so, i swore to myself that when i started this blog that i wouldnt become a sporadic blogger....sadly, by default, i've become the sporadic blogger. but i will do better...i promise!

anyway, so whats been new and happening? well for one thing, i've had more visitors in the last week or so than i've had in a looong time (it usually happens like that)....and for some odd reason, they all decided to visit Paris during the worst transportation strikes of the year (so far...another strike is scheduled for mid-December! again!)....i think it had something to do with it being the week of Thankgiving and flights to europe during Thanksgiving week are super cheap (note all who ever want a cheap flight to europe). Sooo last week, one of my favorite and more fun cousins and her husband were in town for a few days before they headed off to Belgium....and they were one of the first family members aside from my sister to have met the boy....thankfully, it went well. maybe too well....

this is my cousin-in-law (can we call it that?) Chris with my boy toy

needless to say, we closed down the bar that night...and it was a sunday night too! and people who know me know that i'm a cheap date, a really really really date. so you can imagine me with my French wine-drinking boy-toy, my Irish-Italian-American cousin-in-law, and my actual blood cousin, Karen, who can drink like normal people because she doesnt lack the enzyme that makes Asians turn bright red and break-out in hives (i.e. like me!). so it was fabulous to see my cousin again (who i consider a psuedo big sister) and the boys hit it off so well that i didn't even have to worry that nobody would get along! and we ate lots of yummy french food and drank lots of beer (not at the same time! quelle horreur!) and on their last day in paris, we went and had yummy yummy African hot chocolate from this place called Angelina's and it tasted like melted chocolate bars with yummy cream on top. hmmmm...totally worth all the euros (i dont even convert anything anymore).

so after chris and karen, my friend nick from college was in town visiting his sister. i've seldom heard from him since college and i recently re-found him on facebook...but we were both greek and ran in the same circles and we even lived in the same dorm for a year....which means that we practically saw each other naked (we had unisex bathrooms at UChicago)....but in all he's a good boy to know :) (and he's out on the prowl too! watch out!)

this is nick!

so we were out driving around with nick and his sister dani and showing them all the sights at night when i decided that we should head over to the bois de boulogne. now if you've either read or seen the davinci code, you'll know that the bois de boulogne is a woodsy area near a posh part of town called Neuilly-sur-Seine and had a reputation of being quite seedy at night where all sorts of illicit business transactions are taking place. so apparently, back in the day, it used to be just an experience to drive through it and see all the wo(men???) trying to entice to you stop and the street would be backed-up for miels. so now i've been hearing about bois de boulogne since i arrived nearly 2 years ago, but back then, the boy didnt have his car yet (most parisians dont), do i had to just sit tight and listen to the hype.

anyway, so this was to be my first drive and experience.....and i was so disappointed!! we did see some great body(??) work, but apparently the place has cleaned up quite a lot since Sarkozy was the Interior Minister....and these days you have to be brave enough to park your car and actually go deep into the woods to see the action! such a letdown....:(

anyway, note to all...i'm not normally into such activity...i'm actually quite innocent...and this post to all the people who've heard about bois de boulogne!

So here I am! after lots of talk and two years in Paris..

as this is my first posting, i thought i'd introduce myself a bit. as the title of the blog suggests, i am an ABC (i didnt invent the term...its what my grandmother loves to call me and my other cousins who were born in the U.S.) who turned my life upside down when i moved to Paris nearly two years ago to be closer with my French boyfriend. as expected, there were many many bumps along the way and of course, many stories to tell and still more to come as i navigate my way through my twenties in a completely difficult culture... so in any case, i hope this will be a means to stay closer with the friends i left behind in the US as well as meet new people in the blogging world!