Dressing Like A Frenchwoman Part 1

I've been going through a bit of a Francophile phase lately. First I read Bringing Up Bebe (and before you even ask me: no, this is not an announcement) and then I started reading about French women and their amazing style. Of course, I've known for a long time that French women are fabulous, but I never pinned down any solid reasons why until I read this article and this article.

There were a lot of pointers out there, but I'll get into the other ones next time because there was one that really made me do a double-take. French women have no problem repeating the same items, or even entire outfits, a few days apart.

I read that and actually said, "Say what now?" out loud to my computer. I mean, yeah, sometimes I wear the same yoga pants for three days when I'm home with my beads, or I'll wear the same outfit to dinner two nights in a row because it's not really dirty, but French women do this all the time?!

The French philosophy is that if you looked good on Monday, then you'll look just as good three days later--so wear that outfit again! French women also tend to have much smaller wardrobes than Americans, and they focus on classic, well-tailored items that are easy to mix-and-match. Meanwhile, in America we're taught that we need to have huge closets full of different clothes, even if we don't wear everything that often (or ever). Honestly, having too many options just makes me tired, and it makes getting dressed more difficult than it needs to be. How many of us have stood in front of a packed closet, yet still felt like we had nothing to wear? I'm raising my hand for that one...

Which leads me to a little experiment I just did. I tend to gravitate toward a handful of favorite items, anyway, so why not wear exclusively those for a while and see how it goes?

These are four outfits from the past week, and while they're not identical, the same basic idea is there. Skinny jeans with a blouse, covered by a blazer/sweater, and paired with my brown boots or blue flats. I even wore the same green necklace on three of the days pictured here, and have been carrying the same metallic tote bag for several weeks.

Those Frenchwomen are onto something, because instead of worrying about when I wore something last, I just grabbed what I felt looked best on me that day and rolled out the door. I consistently felt better about my appearance since I was wearing what I genuinely wanted to, not any "filler" to space out my favorite items long enough to rock them again. Nobody has said anything about my clothes being so similar, either. I really don't think they've noticed.

This was so fun, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to simplify. Feel free to come back and link to your pictures in the comments if you decide to give it a shot. I'll have some more French insight to share with you next week, likely with more real-life examples. Is anybody else into French fashion? Do you repeat similar outfits all the time? What are your favorite things to mix-and-match?