I lived in Paris from 2018 to the end of 2020. I loved a lot of things about Paris–the architecture, the metro, the parks, the boulangeries, the style. Especially the tasteful, uncomplicated style. I found that dressing like a Parisian is simple. It’s easy to spot a tourist in Paris, but it’s so easy to not look like one. My first week in Paris, an elderly French couple stopped me to ask me for directions. This felt like a stamp of approval. I must have looked un peu français, non? If you think you have to go to Paris to find French style, think again. Many of the clothes I brought from home, purchased from American brands you already know, served me quite well in Paris.
The key to French style
The key to French style is to be tasteful, wear clothes that fit, and stick to classics instead of trends. If you want to know how to dress French, you just need a few classics of French style in your closet. To keep it simple, here are 7 Things Parisian women really wear. (Want to know what Parisian women don’t wear? Scroll to the bottom of the post).
French Style Essential 1: A Striped Breton Shirt
It’s impossible to overstate the perfection of a Striped Breton shirt. You can pair it with jeans, skirts, or shorts. You can dress it up or down. The neckline highlights your collarbones. It is utterly classic and utterly French–first introduced as the uniform of the French navy in 1858, later adopted by none other than Coco Chanel.
It’s fair to say I’m obsessed with Bretons. So are true Parisiennes. In Paris, you see the classic striped shirt everywhere. (Oh, the men wear them too!) The first striped Breton I ever bought was in the town of Dinan in Brittany. I’ve bought several over the years since, and the one I keep buying again and again is the classic striped boatneck from J.Crew.
Here are my favorite striped Bretons. Both the JCrew and the Boden version are less than $50. The Everlane version is, at the time of this writing, $68.
Best Lightweight Breton: JCrew’s Classic Mariner Boatneck Breton is ligthweight and drapes beautifully. It’s really soft and flattering and makes a pair of jeans look instantly effortless and polished. I buy a new one in black and white every other year and pretty much wear it to death year round.
Best Heavyweight Breton: If you want a thicker version of the Breton, the Everlane modern Breton is perfect. The Everlane Breton is constructed of thick, high-quality knit in a boxy style with a wide boatneck. It’s utterly indestructible, and it’s great for fall and winter, especially under a trench coat. This Breton has the warmth of a sweater with the look of a Breton. I’m still wearing a modern Breton that I bought from Everlane in 2015!
Best Colorful Breton: British brand Boden updates the Breton with its trademark bright, fun colors. The Ella Breton features a modified boatneck–more rounded than its counterparts at JCrew and Everlane.
French Style Essential 2: White Sneakers – especially Stan Smiths or Vejas
Parisian women wear white sneakers with everything–black jeans, blue jeans, wrap dresses, sheath dresses, short skirts, long skirts, black pants, red coats…in Paris, it seems, anything and everything goes with white sneakers. Or baskets, as they say.
Adidas Stan Smiths— white with green trim–are the most popular by far. Yes, the most Parisian shoe on the planet is named after an American tennis star.
Vejas are a French brand, and they’re a little more special, in my opinion. They come in second in terms of popularity in Paris–probably because they’re a little pricier than Stan Smiths. Still, at under $150, they’re a great shoe to own and live in. Marion Cotillard loves these, and I’ve even seen Barack Obama photographed in them. Just as you know Stan Smiths from the trademark green heel cap, you know Vejas from the trademark V on the side.
I have three pairs of Veja sneakers. I think Vejas make almost any outfit look a little bit cooler. Although Vejas aren’t cushiony, they are comfortable to wear all day. (Note the pair on the far right, which once walked 30,000 steps in a single day after lockdown ended in Paris). And they’re also environmentally friendly. T
There are several styles of Veja sneakers, but I prefer the Veja V-12. It just fits my foot best, and I think it always looks minimalist and classy. The Veja V-12 has a leather upper and a suede heel and logo. It comes in bright white, and you can get the logo in a few different colors. I love the metallic rose, but you really can’t go wrong with any V-12 or the earlier version, the Veja V-10. They’re beautiful, comfortable, and last forever. They’re not always easy to find in the US, but Shopbop has several Veja styles.
True story: When I was walking in San Francisco recently in my Vejas, a woman stopped me and said, “I love your sneakers! Your feet look like little packages!”
Really, any bright white sneakers will do. During my first year in Paris I wore bright white Filas everywhere, and French people are constantly asking me for directions, so I must have looked like I knew my way around.
French Style Essential 3: Small Crossbody Bags
Most Parisians don’t carry a bunch of stuff around in their purses, because they like to look low-maintenance. The desire to appear to be low-maintenance while being totally high-maintenance on the inside may be why Parisian women smoke so much. The purse just has to be big enough to fit your bad habit, your metro card, your phone, and a teeny-tiny Pocket edition of some slender novel with a watercolor cover.
A crossbody bag is the purse of choice, often with a chain strap. This small black crossbody (pictured above) from Kate Spade would be right at home in Paris. So would this pale pink chain crossbody bag. (Although the Kate Spade website calls it a “wallet,” Parisian women would consider it purse sized! Those gigantic contraptions you find at American department stores? Parisian women would consider those a carry-on for a weekend train trip.) A buttery tan leather crossbody bag works for any season in Paris.
Personally, I love chain straps because they help a purse to hang well, and it’s pretty and delicate without being over the top.
Most Parisians dress conservatively. They add color through blouses (see below), sweaters, and accessories, so a bag is a great place to invest in color. If you already have a neutral bag you love, you might consider making your next one more colorful. While you won’t see many French women wearing animal print dresses or boldly colored pants or skirts, they’ll wear an animal print bag , red belt, or bold red purse to round out a neutral outfit.
I’ve discovered that carrying tiny bags is quite liberating. Do I need my laptop? No. Do I need a phone charger? No, because Mr. Reluctant P. is very good about putting my phone on the charger every time I take it off, which is about 19 times a day. Do I need a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, a bag of almonds, a pen, a notebook, and three lipsticks? Well, okay, maybe.
If you’re used to carrying a big bag, it will be an adjustment. You really have to be selective in what you carry with you! You’ll probably need a smaller wallet than you usually carry, just one lipstick, and a very small book.
French Style Essential 4 – Crewneck Sweaters in Neutral Colors
If you want to dress French for fall or winter, you can’t go wrong with a crewneck sweater. One of the best places to buy high quality crewneck sweaters that look totally Parisian is Everlane. The Everlane cashmere crew is perfection and lasts for years. I took several Everlane sweaters to Paris with me, wore them frequently through two winters, and brought them back home to California, where they still get plenty of use every time the fog rolls in. J.Crew also makes lovely cashmere sweaters in a wide range of colors.
Another French style staple is the cardigan, worn alone or over a camisole. Everlane makes a beautiful, lightweight cardigan in many colors that’s perfect for fall and spring.
This classic cardigan, under $40 on Amazon, is available in several colors and would be right at home in Paris with a pair of jeans or skirt.
If you want to update your sweater look, Everlane’s cashmere polo is gorgeous and sexy.
French Style Essential 5 – Great Jeans
If you’ve ever watched Call My Agent, you’ve noticed that Andrea is usually wearing jeans. So is her young protege Camille. French women wear jeans just as much as American women do. The key is what to wear them with. Don’t wear your jeans with a baggy T-shirt. A cool sweatshirt is fine, preferably cropped.
Do wear your jeans with a pretty blouse, a fitted T-shirt and blazer, a cozy sweater or turtleneck, or a cocoon coat. Do wear your jeans with white sneakers, or with a nice pair of ankle boots.
Levis are a big deal in Paris, where the brand is much more expensive there than it is in the US. Straight cropped Levis with booties are a classic Parisian look. So are basic slim jeans with a nice cardigan or turtleneck tucked in.
Another great choice for jeans, especially if you’re curvy, is Everlane. When I’m not in a dress, I live in Everlane jeans. They have a super high waist and are made of really high-quality denim.
Of course, jeans always look great with a Striped Breton!
French Style Essential 6 – Casual Dresses in Small Prints
I already owned a closet full of dresses before moving to Paris. This included several wrap dresses, a Parisian staple. However, Parisians favor more loose-fitting wraps, often with a small floral print, much less business-like than the iconic Diane von Furstenberg wraps, more romantic. Wraps, and really any kind of fluid, loose-fitting dresses, are especially popular in summer. One thing you don’t really see much in Paris is boho style dresses.
While living in Paris, I purchased dresses during the soldes (the big sales that happen twice a year) from Ba&sh, Maje, and Sandro. These are all French brands that are special, chic, and beloved by French girls. Although they’re not inexpensive, if you shop in the Parisian way (quality over quantity), they won’t break the bank. Other terrific French brands are The Kooples, Rouje, and Sezane.
Other Stories on Rue Faubourg has some great dresses, and I love their sales. I brought home several with me from Paris. But you don’t have to go to Paris to dress like a Parisian.
Although Boden in a British brand, it carries some lovely shirt dresses, a classic of French style.
Another great American brand for French-style dresses is Kate Spade, which makes dresses in pretty patterns and flattering shapes. One dress I took with me to Paris was a knee-length silk Kate Spade wrap dress in black and white. It’s no longer for sale, but the Kate Spade silk-blend shirt dress is perfection.
When we lived in Paris, there was a tiny shop right by the secret square (I forget the name), where I used to go every few months. I would always find one special item there–a dress, a bag, a scarf–at a very reasonable price. One day maybe I’ll remember the name. But the next time I go back to Paris I’ll definitely be stopping by.
That’s the thing about French style: it’s timeless, not trendy. The focus is on quality, not quantity.
As it happens, I brought this the floral silk dress pictured from home, just so I could spill hot chocolate on it at the iconic Angelina on Rue de Rivoli. I’ve had it forever. I never realize how long I’ve had my clothes until I’m going back through old photos and realize I was wearing them when my son was a toddler (he’s a teenager now). But that’s the thing about French style: it’s timeless, not trendy. The focus is on quality, not quantity. If you buy a dress today and can still feel confident wearing it in ten years, that’s French!
The Parisian dress silhouette: The key is to buy flattering cuts in classic, tasteful shapes. A cinched waist with a V-neck and a loose, fluid drape is a really popular silhouette.
By the way, when you look for dresses, don’t stick with solids! Parisian women love to wear florals–especially floral dresses and floral blouses. (But let’s not go crazy: you rarely see floral pants or a floral coat in Paris). The idea is to keep the pattern small. Anything by Trina Turk would stand out like a sore thumb (and not in a good way) in Paris.
French Style Essential 7 – Feminine Blouses in Floral Prints or Solids
It’s simply not true that French women only wear black. A colorful printed blouse with high-waisted jeans or a skirt is a mainstay of Parisian style. You should also have a white blouse in your wardrobe. Joie, a Euro-centric clothing brand, makes a perfect short-sleeved white silk blouse. These style staples would last many seasons without every going out of style.
This lady I spotted n the Marais happened to be wearing a frilly white blouse, but she added a colorful scarf and hat that say, “Hello!” There’s actually a lot more going on here than you would usually see on a Parisian, but I dig it. (See the tiny purse and absence of jewelry? Very French!)
Oh, and one more French Style Essential: Scarves!
The moment the temperature drops below a balmy 75 degrees Fahrenheit (don’t ask me what that is in Celcius, I still haven’t mastered the art of translating the temperature), the scarves come out. And then the scarves stay–all through fall, winter, and spring.
Even on sunny spring days, when you’ve removed all but your base layer and are starting to sweat through your Stan Smiths, they wrap their necks up in thick scarves. Either they’re terrified of being chilly, they don’t like their necks (I don’t think that’s it), or they simply cannot imagine going a moment without a scarf. You know how you feel about underwear–like, you can’t leave home without it? That’s the way Parisian women feel about scarves.
Kate spade has a lovely selection of silk scarves for spring and summer. For truly cold days, the Everlane waffle-knit scarf is made of a super-soft, chunky wool that will keep the chill out. Parisian women wear their winter scarves wound up like armor high around their necks, usually with their har tucked underneath.
One of the scarves I wore most often in Paris is one bought nearly a decade ago on Gilt, a pink silk Alexander McQueen skull scarf. As you can see from the photos below, I never really learned how to tie my silk scarf. It is not as easy as French women make it look!
(In this photo, by the way, I’m with my writer friend Cara Black, author of the Aimee Leduc detective series, which begins with Murder in the Marais and covers every Paris arrondissement. Check it out before you come to Paris, and be sure to read the one set in the arrondissement where you’re staying!)
My other favorite scarf is a red wool plaid scarf I bought at WH Smith (yes, the bookstore) on Rue de Rivoli one day when I underestimated how much the temperature could drop between our apartment and Mr. Reluctant P.’s workplace. We ducked into the WH Smith to have their cafe gourmand (the single best French invention, ever–an espresso & three tiny desserts) at the tea room upstairs, which, thank God, also serves coffee, albeit excruciatingly tiny coffee. There were British ladies in the tea room saying things like, “I think I’ll just have a spot of Earl Gray and some crumpets,” so we stayed longer than we needed to, because nobody ever says crumpets anymore and it all felt very Downton Abbey.
Just outside the tea room I saw a display of scarves made of Scottish wool, which made us both think of a trip Mr. Reluctant P. and I made to Scotland in January 17 years ago, a trip so cold I actually stood in a phone booth on an empty road somewhere in the Orkney Islands begging Icelandair to let us come back to Iceland, because I couldn’t take another moment of the Scotland winter. I bought the scarf and have used it many times, partially because it’s warm but also because it reminds me nostalgically of a place I once went to that I could easily escape, unlike Paris.
Parisian women don’t wear…
Anything over-the-top, too tight, sparkly, gaudy, or studded, is so not French. Basically, if Emily in Emily in Paris would wear it, it’s definitely not French! If Andrea, the tough, sexy talent agent on Call My Agent would wear it, it’s très français. Another great, accurate representation of youthful French style on Netflix is The Hook Up Plan.
French women tend to be both frugal and tasteful, which is why you probably won’t see them toting a giant Louis Vuitton bag. (Vintage Chanel on the other hand? Definitely!) They invest in core pieces. They may only own five blouses, for example, but at least one of them will be silk, and one will be a striped Breton.
A Note on Skirts, Parisian Style
Parisian women don’t wear anything exceedingly tight, and they don’t often do low-cut. They show legs, not cleavage. The one place they show skin is the mid-thigh and downward. Short skirts are everywhere, and it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the weather. Rain, hail, sleet, and snow do nothing to raise the hemlines. As long as your sweater or blouse is tasteful and your shoes aren’t stilettos, you can wear micro-skirts until the cows come home and fit right in.
It’s also worth noting that short skirts are considered age-appropriate for women of all ages in Paris, as long as they have the legs for it! With all that walking they do, many Parisian women can rock a mini-skirt well into their sixties. You’ll see more older women in mini-skirts in the fall and winter, when they can wear tights. Really, in Paris, it’s all about being tasteful, showing your body in its best light.
And One French Style Surprise – Black and Navy
Maybe your mother told you black and navy don’t go together. Clearly, she wasn’t French.
For Parisians, black and navy do go together. I used to think they didn’t, but then I lived in Paris, and now I’ve embraced the combination wholeheartedly. Not even Mr. Reluctant P. can dissuade me.
In Paris, these two neutrals are made for each other. Navy blazers with black jeans, black sweaters with navy skirts, navy chaussettes with black chaussures…it’s all fine. In America, if you wear navy on black, people assume you got dressed in the dark. In Paris, if you wear navy on black, people assume you understand the subtleties of color theory.
So that’s it–seven things French women really wear. If you want to dress like a Parisian, keep it simple!
If you like this post, you might also enjoy 8 Great Gifts for College Students, featuring terrific Black Friday deals.
Shop the highlights:
Best shoes for walking around Paris
Bags French women wear
- Kate Spade small black crossbody bag
The classic French shirt–a striped Breton
- JCrew classic Breton
- Everlane Modern Breton
- Boden Ella Breton
The only sweater you need to look like a true Parisienne
- the cashmere crew from Everlane
- the lightweight cardigan from JCrew
- the $35 crewneck cardigan on Amazon
Did you enjoy this post? You might like How to Dress French for Fall: 5 Easy Pieces, French Style Essential: Bag Edition, and 7 French Beauty Products I Use Every Day.
Want more posts like this? I retired The Reluctant Parisian when I moved back home to California, but I still share Paris Stories at The Wandering Writer. And I’m serializing a Paris novel here.
I’m the author of six novels.
The most recent is THE WONDER TEST, which I finished while living in Paris. (The next Lina Connerly adventure will be set in Paris.) Most of by books have been translated into French, including THE MARRIAGE PACT, which is is available in 31 languages and published in France as Piege Conjugal. The Year of Fog, published way back in 2007, was a major bestseller in France as l’annee brouillard and a finalist for Elle Prix des Lectrices.
Susie Hara
Ever since your earlier post about white tennis shoes, I think of you every time I see a woman or girl wearing white tennis shoes–it’s usually the under-20 set. I love your Californian take on Paris–I completely relate. Paris is a beautiful city, but I love San Francisco. And–I am a fan of both Cara Black and Michelle Richmond and am thrilled to see you together in the photo, in the city of love. C’est ca.
Stephen Perry
As always, M-wah, you rock.
Absolutely love your writing.
Michelle
Thank you so much, S-Wah!
Michelle
Thank you, Susie! Yes, it was great fun to get to see Cara in Paris, not once but twice! I enjoy her books even more now because they inspire me to visit other neighborhoods.
Leonce Chenal
Great post! You’re so right about French women who wear white sneakers with everything! Stan Smiths sneakers were probably trendy 2 years ago, now I feel that the “ugly shoes” or “dad shoes” are more and more popular in Parisian streets 🙂
xoxo
Michelle
Thank you, Leonce! C’est vrai, I do see more bulky white sneakers now. But never a day goes by that I don’t see a few pair of Stan Smiths!