Must the French always insist on doing it better? And by “it” I mean life. Sure, their popular music is often regrettable and they aren’t exactly killing it in tech, but, damn, they look good not killing it. They also happen to look good long after most of us don’t. While I’m worrying about covering my arms or hunting down a summer turtleneck, Frenchwomen are celebrating their eighth decade by shimmying into a black lace bustier dress and posing spectacularly for photographers, as the fashion editor Carine Roitfeld, who’s 70, did recently.
Let’s also give a round of applause to Sylvie Grateau, the 61-year-old vixen played by Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu on Emily in Paris. Sylvie doesn’t turn her back on a sheer dress, a thigh-high slit, a corset top, or a neckline that dips to the sternum. On Sylvie, stiletto heels may as well be bedroom slippers. She’s sexy and flirty and confident in her power.
“I love her,” says Céline Kaplan, a Parisian who lives in New York and owns a public-relations agency. “I love the way she dresses,” says Valérie Leberichel, a communications executive at Gucci who’s worked at Givenchy and Celine. “She’s a very good example,” says Gaëlle Pelletier, an interior designer who creates the windows for many Hermès stores in France. Emily herself may be a fashion cartoon, but Sylvie? “She’s a role model,” says Marie-Laure Dubuisson, formerly of Byredo and currently the C.E.O. of Marc-Antoine Barrois fragrances, in Paris.
Who wouldn’t want to age like a Frenchwoman? Sign me up, but first, can A.I. fix my accent?
Lest you think aging well is something the French do lying down with a glass of Bordeaux in one hand and a Gauloise in the other—not exactly. The women I spoke to, all hovering around 50, want to give the impression that they barely lift a finger but “are working hard even if it doesn’t look like it,” says Leberichel. Or, to put it more bluntly, “this effortlessly French thing, it’s all bullshit because it takes a lot of work,” says Kaplan.
Aging, at least in the U.S., has been marketed as a kind of battle to be fought, even while we sleep, as if only the lazy look old. For years, beauty companies called their products “anti-agers,” an aggressive term that’s fallen out of favor and ignores little details such as time and gravity. In France, there is no warfare. “We have this mindset of positive aging, and we want to live well,” says Virginie Couturaud, the scientific-communications director at Dior.
Dior recently surveyed 5,000 people in France, the U.S., and China about aging. Those polled share an overall acceptance of the aging process, and they all believe they look younger than their chronological age. But the French were more relaxed about it than the Americans or Chinese. When asked if they’d like to be younger, 63 percent of women in France said yes versus 71 percent in the U.S. and 97 percent in China. “The Frenchwomen’s approach to aging is very moderate compared to the rest of the world,” says Couturaud.
“This effortlessly French thing, it’s all bullshit.”
“All the rules of aging, it’s very large, very strict, and it’s not a happy time,” she adds, citing Bryan Johnson, the American tech entrepreneur who spends around $2 million a year attempting to defy nature, as the antithesis. “For us in France, we don’t want to go in this fight, in this war,” says Couturaud. “We want to preserve this well-being mindset, to have a harmony with my chronological age and my biological age with my wrinkles.”
Yes, wrinkles. They don’t hate them. I lost my Botox virginity in a glamorous dermatologist’s office in Paris, which doesn’t quite fit the narrative. But the women I spoke to all accept Botox with equanimity, like coloring their hair. After a certain point, it’s just another item on the maintenance to-do list. Not so with injectable fillers. “When you see it, you are doing too much,” says Leberichel. “You don’t look young and you don’t look old exactly … The doctors don’t push it at all.” Instead, these women say they prize something more valuable than an unetched, static expression. “There is still that feeling that a face that can move and that shows some emotion is more important,” says Dubuisson.
These women all talk about sipping a little Ruinart, taking a little sun, eating a little cheese, but never touching processed food. They talk about a life of pleasure within reason, which, for me, sounds as difficult to master as the subjunctive tense.
“If aging well means no smoking, no liquor, no sun, then I prefer to age,” says Kaplan. “The enjoyment of the things that are forbidden done without excess is more important to the charm of a woman in France. To be at a dinner after a day in the sun and be funny, that’s priceless. There’s an insouciance to it that’s important.” It sounds irresistible. I’m adding it to my maintenance to-do list.
“The laissez-faire of the Frenchwomen,” says Kaplan. “That’s the anti-age. That’s the secret weapon.”
Linda Wells is the Editor at Air Mail Look
