Helena Frith Powell - Two Lipsticks & a Lover

Smart and very funny.

Richard and Judy

Witty, and very elegantly written verbal Viagra.

Sunday Times

A fascinating and illuminating read.

Daily Mail

I devoured it. It is so funny and sharp!

Marco Redolfi, Head of PR of Dolce & Gabbanna

Frith Powell has managed to get as close as any outsider can to the riddle of what it really means to be French and female.

Kathryn Hughes, Mail on Sunday

Hilarious.

Best Christmas book for your best friend, B-Magazine

Funny, warm and charming.

French Magazine

Elegantly explains why Frenchwomen just get more attractive as they grow older and can wear lingerie, take lovers and flirt, whereas British women can, too, but generally dont.

Andrew Roberts, Observer

I absolutely love this book. Spot on.

Terry ONeill

Why is it that French women look just as glamorous in a T-shirt and pair of jeans as in a sleek designer dress? How do they look sexy, chic and timelessly elegant from eighteen to eighty? Pencil-thin, stylishly dressed and, always, impeccably groomed?

In search of answers, travel and lifestyle journalist Helena Frith Powell goes behind the scenes to investigate the famous French je ne sais quoi. Talking to fashion gurus, beauty experts and It Girls, professional seducers, lingerie designers and personal shoppers, she discovers a whole new world: indispensable wardrobe and beauty secrets; shopping done the right way and exercise routines promising lasting success; advice on sex toys, family life, relationships and clandestine affaires. French women, Helena realises, achieve maximum effect with the least amount of effort. And with the help of a few little secrets, you too can become impossibly French

Helena Frith Powell is the author of five books. She frequently writes for The Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph, Express, Sunday Times, the Times and many other publications. Her previous bestsellers are Two Lipsticks and a Lover and More More France.

Helena Frith Powell

For Olivia and Bea,

French women of the future.

GIBSON SQUARE

Title Page

Two Lipsticks

1. The Myth of French Style

2. Zen Exercise

3. The Secret Weapon

4. Indispensable Allies

5. La Reine

6. Beyond Ones Control

7. Bonjour paresse

8. Le Bb surprise

9. Dangerous Liaisons

10. Text Appeal

11. Ten Kilos

12. Never Mind the Botox

My Year in Suspenders

Acknowledgements

Also by Helena Frith Powell

Copyright

The first time I visited Paris I stayed with a dancer come stripper who worked at the Lido Nightclub. I was twelve years old. My father, in those days still a handsome charmer, had arranged to meet me there for the Easter holidays. He lived in Italy but was travelling to meet me via the South of France. When I arrived at his hotel in Paris, I was told he was not there, but that the concierge had a telegram for me. It was from him: Have been delayed by a bottom in St Tropez. Call Sophie. Stay with her until I get there. I asked the concierge to call the number on the telegram and spoke to Sophie. She told me that my father had arranged everything with her and to get a taxi to an address which she gave to the concierge.

I was furious when I got into the cab. What was he thinking sending me off to some woman I had never met? Who was she anyway? Undoubtedly another one of his many girlfriends. My parents had been divorced for years, but his libertine behaviour maddened me nonetheless. When I got there, Sophie was waiting outside her apartment on the rue du Bac. She must have been in her early twenties, but to me she looked incredibly grown up and glamorous. She was tall and thin, her dark hair cut in a classic Parisian-style bobbed haircut. She wore red lipstick, jeans and a black polo-neck jumper. When I got out of the car, she threw her arms around me and kissed me. Being an English-educated girl, this surprised me, but I followed her into her apartment anyway.

Sophie lived in a one-bedroom studio which was incredibly Zen. She had some plants and a picture of Audrey Hepburn on the wall. There was a tiny balcony which looked out over the rue du Bac below. I didnt know who Audrey Hepburn was, but thought they looked very similar. In fact Sophie looked to me totally perfect. Slim, incredibly pretty, elegant and sophisticated. Exactly how Id imagined a French woman should be. As the young heroine Ccile says of Anne Larsen in Franoise Sagans novel Bonjour Tristesse: To her I owed my first glimpse of elegance.

I stayed with Sophie for three days while waiting for my father. She worked at night, so didnt get up until midday. We spent the afternoons together, leading an almost Claudine-style existence. Me as Colettes heroine Claudine and Sophie as Mademoiselle Aime, the teacher she develops a crush on. I loved her clothes and look: she was always perfectly turned out. She seemed to me like a film star. I idolised her in the way a little girl idolises a fairy princess. Even when she first woke up, Sophie would look impossibly elegant in her cashmere dressing gown and hair loosely tied up. I was also astounded by the amount of time she spent covering her body and face with lotions. I had never seen a bathroom with so many magical-looking bottles. I must have driven her mad asking what every single one was.

You dont really need all this, she told me one day. All you really need to be a French woman are two lipsticks and a lover. I asked her why two lipsticks and she looked at me in amazement. One for the day and the other for the evening of course. I was too embarrassed to ask about the lover.

A few months after I went home, the image of Sophie with all her elegance faded. It wasnt until I moved to France a few years ago that I started to think about her again and realise that if I was ever going to fit in I was going to have to become more like Sophie. Although our move had gone well and we were very happy, we were always referred to as The English on the hill. I realised that it wasnt just our accents that set us apart. I looked different from the women around me. I simply wasnt as stylish. Whatever it was they had, I hadnt got it.

When we still lived in England, I thought I looked pretty good. In no way did I think my style was vulgar or tacky, that my skirts were too short, my legs too hairy or my shoes too cheap. But after a few months in France I realised that I stood out as a foreigner in every way. I had to change if I was ever going to be accepted in my new country.

But where to start?

Style is life! It is the very life-blood of thought!

Gustave Flaubert

It is the end of term at the local village primary school. The sun is shining and there is a light breeze. The parents, teachers and pupils are gathered under the plane trees in the playground. My daughter, her class-mates and teacher are walking around hand-in-hand in time to Moroccan music. The teacher is a woman of about thirty five. She is not particularly pretty, but she is attractive. She has a nicely cut bob, she is thin and very smiley. What strikes me is how stylish she is. She wouldnt look out of place in the smart Place Vendme in Paris. She is wearing a pair of jeans, a red and blue jumper and a wool scarf. She is doing something that would make most adults look ridiculous, stomping around in circles with a group of nursery-aged children. But she looks supremely elegant. How does she pull this off? Is it because shes French?