letter from paris #27 FAD? CHIC?

My wife and I were sitting in our favourite little-around-the-corner brasserie enjoying lunch. Outside the window were the diehards who, even on an unseaonsably steaming sunny May day, will tolerate the heat just so they can smoke before, during, and after dinner. The French, in spite of the government’s attempts to curb the habit, continue to puff away merrily. At home puffers stand on the sidewalk in front of their offices, and they dine al fresco if possible. But that's Toronto. In Paris - strangely, I don’t mind. Somehow they are, being French, entitled. I wonder though what happened to the lethal non-filtered Gauloise with the wonderfully dark smoke and the deadly, pungent scent.

Today I watched while they puffed. Two youngish men (anything under 50 looks “youngish” to me,) were lunching. One was clean-shaven. The other sporting the almost de rigeur look of a five day growth of beard. I don’t see it around our place at home, but we are in the downtown business district and I suppose the up-and-coming financiers don’t do the “ulta-masculine" unshaven look. In Paris, I see it everywhere. Contestants on TV game shows invariably have that stubble. News readers do not.

Where do fads begin? Where does it start? Was it really Clark Gable in “It Happened One Night” who appeared without an undershirt that led to the downfall of that piece of men’s apparel? Was it John F. Kennedy who appeared hatless who put an end to generations of fedora-wearing. In both those cases the ground-breaking fashion statements were made by celebrities. But the unshaven look? My best guess is that most men shaved every morning until Don Johnson appeared on “Miami Vice” with several days’ growth of beard. Interesting that Gable and Kennedy both went on to great heights. Don Johnson does keep working, but he is less than a marquee celebrity.

His gruff, manly, no-nonsense attitude was exemplified by his flouting the rules. It became chic to go with stubble. Personally, I find it rather silly, and I expect that women, especially in France, where they are two-cheek-kissed regularly, don't enjoy the scratch on their delicate skins. But wait a minute! It is altogether possible that the French men are on to something. Rubbing a bearded cheek against one that is smooth may be a new and exotic kind of foreplay. I have not asked the women of Paris whether it is so or not.

Paris style is Paris style. I especially enjoy the fact that nearly everyone, both men and women, "accesorize" with silk scarves. For many men they long-ago replaced ties. (Another lost or dying fashijn perhaps.)Last year's best-selling book "The Tipping Point" could probably make the point that at some juncture someone picked up the unshaven look and suddenly everyone was watching. Maybe an infusion of Paris is that tipping point. It is still the world’s fashion capital, in spite of New York’s pretension to the title, and Milan’s insistence that they are the trend setters. The five day growth is alive and well in the land of Dior and St. :Laurent and Chanel. Vive la everything!