The Footsoldiers of the Next French Revolution
By: Megan Hollyman
Tags: Society, Laïcité, Uggs, Fashion, Paris

Thinking myself relatively clued up on french style, it didn’t come as a shock when I arrived in Paris and saw that in fact very few French women wear berets — what was much more surprising was that in the final throes of 2021, there are UGGs absolutely everywhere.

It may just be the circles I move in, or the galvanising echo-chamber effects of social media, but I was under the impression that the fashion world had left UGGs (definitely and determinedly) in the late noughties. Now, 10 years later, they appear to be back, in the fashion capital of the world of all places. Questions abound — why? how? who? WHY? and I for one like to think that the answer lies in the reinvention of the elusive phenomenon that is the Parisienne.

Entire books — many of them — have been written on how to perfect the air of the archetypal Parisian woman (or perhaps, in true french style, implicitly reminding foreign readers of the impossibility of this task), whilst countless iterations of this red-lipped, trench-coated character have taken centre stage in all forms of media and art.

The pop-culture interpretation of French-girl chic is an image that I’ve long aspired to. I’ve completed the tousled bob, and painstakingly embraced the semi-undone ‘did my makeup in 15 seconds flat’ aesthetic. ‘The’ Parisienne embodied the effortless elegance that my awkward and uncertain teenage self wished to exude, and that is what started me on the path to my current mode de vie, teaching English in a Parisian suburb. Now, despite having enthusiastically pursued this image for several years, I’m beginning to realise that I misunderstood it.

To start with, effortless beauty is a myth. Life is messy and unexpected and some days it is impossible to control anything, least of all your hair. More importantly however, we must ask ourselves who exactly this image is supposed to depict. In my time here so far, i’ve not met a single person who could, practically speaking, fit into the mould that several decades of film and literature have cast. Perhaps part of the allure all along was the impossibility of the thing — but a growing movement, which includes authors such as fashion journalist Alice Pfeiffer and culture writer Lindsey Tramuta, is highlighting the oversights of this particular trope.

The Parisienne is a sort of heroine immune to all biological, generational and social norms… Generation after generation of Parisiennes share certain characteristics and answer to the same style criteria, which are implicit but omnipresent: social class, education, appearance, lineage, skin colour… (‘Je ne suis pas parisienne’, Alice Pfeiffer — my own translation)

Their argument is intertwined with a particularity of the French constitution, which, although perhaps well-intentioned, can be seen to propagate racial disparity — ‘la laïcité’. Similar to the notion of secularity, laïcité does not permit the french state to collect official data on race, ethnicity or religion, nor discuss these subjects in the public sphere. Although the goal is to treat citizens equally, this ‘colourblindness’ can render minority groups invisible.

As Pfeiffer points out in the first chapter of her 2019 book ‘Je ne suis pas Parisienne’, there is no one image that can be associated with a Londoner, or the ladies of New York. They have many faces. In fact (for me at least), part of the draw of London is its melting-pot culture; so diverse are the identities of Londoners that diversity becomes the identity itself. This is not so in France, where, under the law, the one and only acceptable cultural identity is ‘French’.

Unfortunately for the french state, we live in an age where distinct cultural groups exist by default. There will always be a set of people in France who are of Asian origin, or who practise Islam, or who are first generation immigrants, regardless of whether or not they are permitted to openly express these aspects of their identity. Further, the divisions between these groups are exacerbated in times of social change. Although the juggernaut that is COVID has effected significant practical changes on all of our lives, the burden has landed disproportionately on certain strata of society; meanwhile, the resurgence of Black Lives Matter has woken us up to the importance of representation.

The french goal of repressing ‘communautarisme’ (the formation of these culture-based identity groups) cannot answer to either of these aspects of modern life, and nor can the invariably white, perfectly put together femme that we know as the Parisienne. Unable to make themselves heard or seen, members of minority communities can only watch as they are (mis)represented, time and time again, by an image whose singularity is a continuation of that which laïcité necessarily entails.

The traditional Parisienne is a caricature whose aesthetic I will continue to admire, but times are changing and UGGs may well be a step in the right direction. I maintain that the nickname ‘UGGlies’ is not undeserved — but that is exactly what makes this worth writing. Sporting such monstrously fluffy footwear constitutes a small act of rebellion against the trope of the Parisienne, whilst still managing to convey its one valuable message: not worrying too much about what you look like.

Come 2022, the Parisienne craves the same physical comfort and spiritual healing that many of us now seek more actively. This, for some, will mean striving to exist outside of the excruciatingly narrow definition of ‘the french woman’, and it is this cast who will model the new epitome of french-girl chic; coffee, cigarettes, and UGGs.