11 Unsung French Style Icons to Channel This Paris Fashion Week
When it comes to French style icons, it seems Birkin and Bardot get all the credit. Yes, the pair are certainly worth celebrating, but France has been home to plenty of other trendsetters over the decades who are worth championing—and they’re not all fair-skinned or blonde-haired, either.
Here, Vogue.com looks at the Gallic trendsetters of yesterday and today, from the glittering ’20s stage costumes of Josephine Baker, to the swinging style of ’60s icons like Anouk Aimée and Sylvie Vartan, to the pared-down taste of today’s models turned actresses like Aymeline Valade and Marine Vacth. With Paris Fashion Week kicking off today, it’s a good time to brush up on that French je ne sais quoi in all its forms.
Photo: Getty Images1/11Josephine Baker
Nightclub performer Josephine Baker might have been American by birth, but she came as close to being a proper Parisian as a foreigner could get, becoming a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur after World War II. (Charles de Gaulle himself bestowed the honor upon her.) Baker first arrived in Paris in 1925, gaining acclaim for her sultry dances at the Folies Bergère. Her costumes were as famous as her moves, too—her banana skirt ensembles inspired a Prada collection, while her sheer crystal dresses were a reference for Rihanna’s unforgettable see-through CFDA look. Today, you’ll find traces of Baker in some of Spring’s more soigné slip dresses.
Photo: Getty Images2/11Anouk Aimée
French actress Anouk Aimée is perhaps most famous for her Golden Globe–winning role in Claude Lelouch’s 1966 A Man and a Woman, but her offscreen style was just as noteworthy as her career-making role. In her ’60s heyday, Aimée preferred sultry yet simple pieces like cropped sweaters, fitted dresses, and flats. She was never one for accessories, choosing to complement her looks with a flick of winged eyeliner and expertly arched brows.
Photo: Getty Images3/11Sylvie Vartan
Chanteuse Sylvie Vartan rolled with the right crowd in ’60s Paris, calling Yves Saint Laurent one of her closest collaborators. That relationship bore some of the decade’s best outfits, like the two pairs of crystal-studded jeans Vartan and her then-husband, Johnny Hallyday, wore to perform a duet. Off the stage, she favored minidresses with girlish collars, Mary Janes, and plush furs, helping to define France’s nascent yé-yé girl movement. (Think of yé-yé style as the French equivalent of mod.) A just-released book on her taste, Le Style Vartan, chronicles her outfits in immense detail—all the better for re-creating them today.
Photo: Getty Images4/11Sonia Rykiel
The name Sonia Rykiel might conjure up visions of thin, patterned knits, but the wardrobe of the designer herself is much more varied. As one of Paris’s Rive Gauche trendsetters of the ’70s, Rykiel built up a reputation of being the woman with the best—and biggest—coat in the room. Underneath the voluminous outerwear, you’d find a mix of gamine pieces like jumpsuits and mannish trousers, styled with some of her namesake knits.
Photographed by Horst P. Horst, Vogue, 19705/11Betty Catroux
As Yves Saint Laurent’s go-to girl alongside Loulou de la Falaise, Betty Catroux helped define haute Parisian style in the late ’60s and ’70s. Her bright blonde hair and perennially tanned corps proved the perfect home for YSL’s safari dresses and separates, though she could also sport a Le Smoking with ease. Today, Catroux is still sitting front row at Saint Laurent shows, wearing creations by Yves’s successor Hedi Slimane.
