Paris, home of sleek, chic femmes non?

Ah, Paris! Fashion capital of the world. Home of sexy-sleek women with sultry-sexy sex hair, wearing sleek-chic suits and chic-sleek heels. While steering slick-sleek SmartCars (or sometimes Minis or Maseratis) (or pigeon-poop spattered Renaults . . . in that kind of slick-sleek Jackson Pollock-y pigeon-poopy way…) between visits to slick-sleek boutiques employing super-chic-sleek salesgirls. Paris. It’s one big museum, a catwalk the size of a city, a living, breathing, come-to-life issue of Vogue . . . and while wandering and whirling and twirling and swirling amidst all the scarves and the suits and the silks, you can’t help wondering: “Where did she get those pants?”

And: “Who does she think she is, wiggling around in them that way, as if she were God’s gift to butt floss?”

And then: “Bitch!!”

And finally: “I’m gonna get her arrested.”

Whaaat? Wait:

Ladies, chances are you wear the pants in your family. Even though, you know, you let him think he does. (And if you do, don’t worry, I’m feminist-lite  – toute l’attitude, half the calories! – but a realist, too, so you won’t be getting any lectures from moi.) But be careful when boasting and bragging and gabbing about it to your girlfriends, be sure you really know who your real friends are. Really. Because if any, or all, or some, or even one of them is having one of those “I feel fat and worthless” kind of days, and then thinks your ass is cuter than hers, well . . . She just might get jealous. She just might crave sickly-sweet-scrumptiously-satisfying revenge. And the next thing you know, you and your heart-shaped, Comme des Garçons-clad derrière have wound up in jail. A French jail. Manned by French cops. And that would be bad. Because French jails are bad. (Just ask the E.U. – they’re frequently fining France for it.) People are always committing suicide in French jails, and not in that glamorously-addled-Valley Of The Dolls-Patty Duke “I’m Neely O’Hara, dammit!”-champagne-and-sleeping pills kinda way. So when it comes to French jails, try to stay out.

Whaaaaaat? Wait. Here’s what I’m talking about:

Let’s go back in time, back to the turn of a century, back to the fall, in Paris, in 1799. Le préfet de police de Paris (that’s ‘police chief’) signs a law prohibiting women from wearing pants, unless they could prove they’d ditched their skirts for medical reasons. Clearly, Monsieur le Préfet was a leg man. The law remained on the books . . . until 1968, when somebody asked the new Monsieur le Préfet to take it off. (The law, not his pants.) But he was a leg man, too. So he refused.

The law’s still technically on the books, even though – sure, O.K., all right, fine – technically it’s not being enforced. Kinda like that new law they’re trying to push through – you know, the one that says you can’t wear a burqa? Sure, if anyone’s gonna tell everyone what everybody should wear, it should be France, but for a country so fascinated with fashion, you’d think they’d be a little more flexible, a little more open-minded, slightly less coincé. I mean, for us girls, it’s difficult enough. If they keep coming up with new and exciting restrictions, things’ll be even harder. Don’t they know that each morning it’s already a struggle, as we groggily face the godforsaken closet and ask that scary-searing the-outcome-of-the-entire-day-depends-on-it question: What am I going to wear?

And if we can’t wear pants or burqas, what are we supposed to put on…mini-skirts? Every day? All the time? Tous les jours ? Try that in my neighborhood. Go ahead, you’ll see what I mean. My neighborhood is made up of an entire quartier of leg men, from the préfets and garbagemen and gadabouts right on down. Wear a mini-skirt in my neighborhood and you’re guaranteed to make new friends. Oh sure, all right, O.K., fine – no one’s denying that it’s a little flattering. Especially on those “I feel fat and worthless” kind of days. And when we’re not trying to abuse them and lose them and bail on them and bail them out once we’ve got them arrested for wearing pants when we’re having one of those “I feel fat and worthless” kind of days, you gotta admit we need friends. But most of these ‘friends,’ the ones in my neighborhood, aren’t the kind you want or need. Sure, they can spit real good to impress you as they’re out there barking and hollering and hooting at you in the street, but that’s about it. We all know that with relationships of the deep, meaningful, profound, earth-shattering variety, good spitting skills count, sure, but they only take a couple so far. So when it comes to the wearing of pants or burqas or mini-skirts or otherwise, I’m all for a little liberté.

Carla looking demure for a change...

But Ladies, when it comes to liberté, my ferociously-acute feminist-lite realistic instincts tell me that we’re really not gonna get it. I mean, everyone knows that since Nicolas Sarkozy took l’Élysée, la France has become more flicquée. That’s ‘copped-up,’ not ‘mobbed-up’ in case you’re wondering, but hell, admettons, it’s the same damn thing. And poor Carla Bruni – la première dame, current rock star, ex-top model (French accent obligatoire) and present First Lady of France – poor Carla seems to have silently succumbed to the situation. For the Bastille Day Parade? You know, the one on July 14th? The one with all the horses and légionnaires and planes and tanks and guns? No pants, no siree, non, nope, nein, at least not on Carla. (She wore a dress, a simple one, and – gasp! – flats!!) So don’t look to Carla –she has no pull. Or, apparently, any pants.

One more thing: You know about the plan d’austérité, the big deal that France and Germany and Spain and a bunch of other countries have been going on about, ever since it all hit the fan with Greece? Where they promise – promise! – to cut government-funded housing for bureaucrats and government-funded cars for bureaucrats and government-funded government funding for bureaucrats to make it look like they’re really, actually, in truth, honestly – promise! – frugalling-up?  Well, it’s hit fashion, too. The austerity plan, that is. Because on Carla? At the Bastille Day Parade? In her simple dress and simple flats? Not one single-simple rock, no stones, no jewels, surtout pas de bijoux. It was a shame, really, because aside from the colonial-style marching demonstrations from all of the ‘special guest star’ West African ex-colonial armies? There really wasn’t much to bitch about.

But the larger, farther-reaching, paramount, all-important issue is: If Carla Bruni can’t wear pants or burqas or bijoux, what’s to become of the common (wo)man, the proles, Jo(sephine) Blow, le petit peuple ? The next time we’re groggily standing in front of our closets, how will we resolve that life-altering question: What am I going to wear?