What is classic French, chic beauty? Are Marion Cotillard and Vanessa Paradis good examples?

Nobody knows?

I think the French style is over-hyped.

Supposedly, French women take such good care of their skin that they don't need to wear face makeup (foundation). They don't do crazy colors for lipstick or nail polish. They watch their weight more than American women. I think the rules are more rigid for French women, which can be a good thing: no stupid hair colors and yoga pants everywhere.

However, I think if you find a stylish American woman who knows how to apply makeup & do her hair, she's going to look as good as a stylish French woman.

I know she's italian but as far as style/hair/make up the best one to represent the french is Isabella Rosselini. Casual chic, simple hair combed back, elegant but casual, little make up (or what looks like little make up) neutral, tan colors or black.

Actually, never mind, no one can represent french beauty more than Juliette Binoche.

What the fuck am I? Old, wrinkly beldame?

I'd say that the classic beauty binary for French Women would have someone like Letiticia Casta on one end (Vuluptuous, ripe and "natural" coquette) and Ines De La Fressange on the other (urban, chic, slim and provocatively androgynous)

ines De La Fessange

I think of Stéphane Audran, thin, cool, and elegant.

Ines de la Fressange

It has to be Juliette

I think Italian women have better style.

Nobody beats Bardot in my book.

Here's BB more recently.

But the op was asking what is classic french chic beauty. All those women pics up so far are average at best. Not even pretty. BB was. She is the eg of classic French chic beauty. It’s not about ‘now’ or at least not as the first sentence says. Not one of those girls will escaping changes to their faces due to age. But in their best times they don’t hold a candle to Bardot in her time of beauty.

Madame Brigitte

r14 I agree that Bardot was gorge but you really gonna try to argue that Leticia Casta doesnt even reach pretty? Girl.

Saw her pic after I posted that. No. She is beautiful.

Francois Hardy, prototype for the "cool 60s Parisian girl" look that got big in the late 90s and 00s. big influence on the style of women like Sofia Coppola and Charlotte Gainsberg

R14 I’m sorry, if you think Deneuve, Bardot and Casta are “average”, especially compared to likes of Cotillard and Paradis….

French women can be chic voluptuous or thin, it’s about an air of elegance. They also tend not to go extreme on the plastic surgery and Botox like most Americans.

I always thought Fanny Ardant was absolutely stunning. So was Isabelle Adjani, but she’s half Algerian, so I wonder if that’s cheating. More comparatively “plain” actresses like Isabelle Huppert or Jeanne Moreau are still extremely elegant seeming and sexy. The icons who are from other countries (Charlotte Rampling, Romy Schneider) also have this elegant air about them.

Francoise Hardy is a great one. She was the most grown-up of that ye-ye girl cohort (Sylvie Vartan, France Gall, who both have their appeal…)

Anna Karina is another one of that era whose style is still emulated often.

I've always thought that actress Mylene Jampanoi embodied a modern-day chic French beauty—earthy, but also elegant. Her father is Chinese, and her mother is French-Breton. I think she is stunning.

....

R19 you have that backwards. I thought Cotillard and Paradis not pretty as BB.

Yelle comes to mind as a modern example

Sophie Marceau....especially in Braveheart, and that should end the thread

Air France safety video

Catherine Deneuve embodies classic French style. It's not my favorite fashion style and I've never really been a YSL fan.

Been to Paris a lot in my 20s and I do think people are good at dressing effortlessly stylish.

Emmanuelle Beart in her prime. Très belle.

Marion knows how to channel TRUE beauty!

[quote]R2 Supposedly, French women take such good care of their skin that they don't need to wear face makeup (foundation). They don't do crazy colors for lipstick or nail polish.

Yes. This lady’s good if anyone want to know about that philosophy of French style.

It generally avoids looking like you’re trying too hard. They do use foundation, for example, but only where it’s needed. Same with powder. It takes a certain confidence to use a more minimalistic approach like that.

[quote]This lady’s good if anyone want to know about that philosophy of French style.

She has a Russian accent, R30

Arielle Dombasle

Camille Cottin

Danielle Darrieux

Anouk Aimee, classic French look. Thin, elegant, wings of hair falling in her face that she brushes back with one perfectly manicured hand.

Deneuve wins this, i love how she plays factory workers, police women or rural politicians wife always perfectly coiffed and manicured. Binoche is a peasant in comparison.

French women smoke a lot, so I doubt it’s all about the beauty of the skin for them. If I had to define it, I would say their secret is elegance and having a strong sense of self.

French women stay thin because they eat smaller portions and the food they eat is less processed crap.

Let’s see, first there’s the less is more approach when it comes to makeup and their outfits. Next, it’s the way they carry themselves in an elegant and civilized manner. Also, no pajama pants are worn when they go to the grocery store. Big plus.

Natural femininity is celebrated, not the plastic and exaggerated Kardashian standard of what we would consider beautiful. No drawn on caterpillar eyebrows, 12 inch fingernails, and 2 pounds of artificial hair glued onto their scalps.

French women do plastic surgery, only they don’t usually go overboard in general. They flirt with disaster occasionally but almost always get back from the brink (you can tell from the lips, Huppert is a case study on this).

The French dress very plainly, and do not cover their faces with thick layers of makeup like women in Anglo-Saxon countries do. A lot less bottle-blondes, and less cleavage in France. I think actress Audrey Fleurot is a chic beauty.

Artemis Onassis Garofalidis said that the Princess was "a Paris woman" while describing her appearance and demeanor.

A lot of the ladies posted here are from a different era. What about modern French women? Are they wearing too much make-up like Americans and Brits?

Marie-France Pisier

R42, but she wasn't, she was American. We are NOT giving her up, she is one of the only ones we can claim with that kind of style, the French can't have her!

R44 so happy to see her on here. One of my favorite movies, Other side of midnight and that Noelle's them. She was kind of entrancing. Yes. A beauty.

What about Geneviève Bujold? FRENCH Canadian...but FRENCH? Does she count?

[quote]R31 She has a Russian accent

But she lived and worked in France for a decade.

She’s more forthcoming than a native Parisian would be.Native French women want to appear so offhand about their looks (though they put a lot of work into them) that they’re notorious for not sharing specifics/secrets.

Alexa Chung is on it:

For the mature caftan wearer:

N'est-ce pas?

Yeah that's interesting to note that France is still poopooing the overly contoured makeup à la Kardashian and their ilk and use big brushes to apply foundation and powder where contoured makeup starts by delimiting the volumes with a thin line before getting to work on each of these volumes/areas. I'm French and I have watched Drag Race France and I noticed that even among the drag queens, there were two opposite schools of creating your makeup: with and without contouring. I don't remember watching queens skipping the contouring step of makeup in US RPDR.

As for which actress best personifies French, chic beauty, I would have gone with Isabelle Adjani but not only is she half Kabyle; her mother was German so there's not a lot of French blood there, so my choice would go to Carole Bouquet: a gorgeous (if somewhat aloof) French woman. Just like she was to Carrie Bradshaw in the last episode of the show: likeable yet a bit standoffish.

[quote]R45 [Lee Radziwell] was American. We are NOT giving her up, she is one of the only ones we can claim with that kind of style, the French can't have her!

Lee was a mercenary whore, selling her cooze to the highest bidder.

The French understand that.

[quote]r51 my choice would go to Carole Bouquet: a gorgeous (if somewhat aloof) French woman.

Oh! She was the face of Chanel in the 80s. I don’t know if that was before or after she was a Bond Girl.

The fact she has a gap in her teeth is very French. In the American modeling world, only Lauren Hutton had gotten away with that back then. But the French (maybe because they didn’t have the disposable income Americans did) were like, “Okay, I have gapped teeth. And?”

Carole has become a very good actress- she kills it (Literally) in a tv series called, "La Mante", a very Silence of the Lambs/Se7en type theme.

Would you add Berenice Bejo or Audrey Tautou as the gamine type of French beauty?

Laetitia Casta is my favorite French beauty. This Cosmo magazine cover she did in 1998 was stunning.

As a non american (argentinean) female the contouring thing is beyond awful..I'm ok with using contouring to hide a major flaw you want corrected, and then only if you know how to do it well but these Z-er bitches, 90% of them anyway, look like they belong in a production of Le cage aux folles...don't get me wrong, I love drag queens and drag culture, but that's performative make up...it's not meant for every day. Glad to see french women not embracing it.

French women have that slight pussy stank masked by perfume. Non merci.

I think of french beauty and I think very pale face, dark hair, shoulder length or shorter, dark, doe eyes, a dainty nose and bee stung lips. She wears un trendy, classic clothing, in neutral colors (french fashion youtuber Justine Lecount says french women can sometimes be allowed to wear a more striking color but no more than one at a time), never too tight or slutty, in fact the baggier the better.

^^ add fucked up teeth

Interesting also is the fetishism about the "Parisian" way. It is not how to do your makeup the French way, it has to be Paris. Nobody cares for le makeup Lyonnais, Bordelais, Lillois or Marseillais, it's all about to nail it like they do in Paris.

It's not like you want to know la Mère Denis's makeup routine. Even if la Mère Denis became France's first and biggest advertising star (while being paid nickels and dimes).

[quote]Ca c'est vʀʀʀai çà

Remember when Carrie Bradshaw went to Paris and got slapped?

Only rich women fit the chic Parisian look. Lots of Paris girls dress like typical Americans.

Capucine

r63, Indeed- there is a very popular hip-hop/street culture look, but I still don't see the leggings/workout/trainers look there.

The hip hop look is big there yes but unlike the US, its not used there by anyone over 30.