Pretending to be in Paris

Mango coat
Uniqlo blouse (similar)
H&M jeans
Zara boots (similar)
Vintage handbag (similar)
Mango sunglasses
Stella & Dot ring
Location: Exchange District – Winnipeg, Manitoba

I’ve worn some iteration of this outfit a thousand times. It’s a classic that never gets old, even as styles and cuts change slightly. But one iteration that stands out vividly in my memory is from a day in Paris in the spring of 2013. We went out early to snapped some hasty photos in Le Marais. After, we had breakfast at a cafe called La Favorite.

La Favorite proved not to be a favourite, in the end. The breakfast was fine but the service was stereotypically French, rude and dismissive in a way that I’ve spent a lifetime arguing isn’t representative of Parisian reality… I digress. Still, that wound up being a memorable morning because the photos we took were included in my feature in Framework magazine. That was my second magazine feature, but by far my biggest at the time. It was such a point of pride for me. I still look back on those snapshots, and that outfit, which was so similar to this one but not quite the same, with a smile.

This really is the perfect morning in Paris look. It’s simple but effective. And all the pieces you need for it are most likely hanging in your closet already. Jeans, classic white shirt, trench coat. Of course, unless you already live there, you can’t wear it in Paris. But if, like me, you like pretending to be in Paris by eating croissants and picking up bouquets of cut flowers and listening to old Francoise Hardy songs, this is an outfit formula to add into your rotation.

To add to the effect of pretending to be in Paris, I popped an absolutely not current photo in among my outfit snapshots. I’ve been looking through our photo archives a lot lately, because it’s the closest thing to traveling that I can do at the moment. It’s amazing just how many beautiful, never published photos I’ve found. It’s made me realise in an entirely new way just how spoiled I was, being able to travel all the time and create so many memories that many of them are still waiting to see the light of day.

The photo was taken at Le Saint-Regis, a cafe that we do love on Ile Saint-Louis. It was a March morning in 2014. We were travelling with my brother and his girlfriend. I’d been up early for a photoshoot with a Parisian brand called Comtesse Sofia, who were headquartered on the island. My travel companions slept in at the apartment we were sharing in Montmartre, then met me for a late breakfast.

Everything about that trip was so meaningful, it’s hard to choose a favourite moment. We’d only been back in Vancouver for six months at that point and it didn’t feel right at all. Coming back to Paris, even for a week, and pretending it was still home went a long way to easing the transition back to Canadian reality. It made Paris feel less far away, less like it had slipped just out of our grasp. After that, we were able to go back every spring and feel like we were having a homecoming, but still acknowledge that Canada was where we had to live.

“America is my country, and Paris is my hometown.”
– Gertrude Stein

I shared so many photos from that trip at the time. We did every single one of our favourite Parisian things while we were there, pretending like we were living a whole year of Parisian moments in a single week. But some of the more banal ones, like cafe breakfasts, didn’t make the cut. What I wouldn’t give, now, to eat breakfast in Parisian cafe. What I wouldn’t give to take for granted that I could do it any old time.

Right now, all we have is pretending…

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