Bonjour/hi!
Announcements!
This newsletter now features classified advertisements, which is extremely exciting. If you would like to do some business in France — maybe you have an apartment, or want one, maybe you have a printer to sell, or want to buy one — just reply to this message with your text and I’ll include it in the next edition. See at bottom for the first, from the lovely Daniel, a South African Rhodes Scholar! Having dated a South African Rhodes Scholar (not this one), I can attest (generally but wholeheartedly) to their tidiness and honesty.
It is also Archives Acte II Day from Sézane, for all those who celebrate. Some of it is looking a little picked over: Bags, bags, but few available to buy, though dresses are looking much better. Hoping for a restock?
Now, the news from France!
1. Speaking of the fall of the non-TikTok media industry, there’s a fascinating/disturbing?? story in the Times today about Condé Nast, the French inflected but very American/now extremely global media empire — where I worked right before moving to France. It is full of unbelievable things such as this:
Magazines kept aristocrats on the payroll to facilitate access to jet-set playgrounds like Corfu and Mustique. If Architectural Digest wanted to photograph the private gardens of, say, a minor European royal, it helped to have Prince Michael of Greece as a contributor. Some employees, because of either wealth or eccentricity, didn’t bother to cash their payroll checks at all. One Vogue contributing editor asked that her payments simply be forwarded to the New York City Ballet.
When I applied for my job there, I had been working as a freelance travel writer and was so incredibly broke that I had no money for new clothes — and the thing about Condé was that you would be interviewed an incredible number of times, so you needed an incredible number of outfits. I ended up telling them that I was doing a minimalism challenge, which was why I rotated between the same two dresses at each interview. I guess I was, in fact, doing a minimalism challenge, in the sense that I could not afford more clothes?? (It seemed that it was OK if your means were limited, as long as you could position that limitation as a choice, rather than a necessity.)
Anyway — I always thought Condé (the person) was very fake français as I knew he was born in New York, but TIL that he actually was the product of a wealthy French/Missourian banking family, so I guess he comes by that é honestly. Here’s the story — well worth checking out, though basically about dinosaurs.
2. After 11 paradigm-shifting years at Loewe, Dior’s new creative director Jonathan Anderson debuted his inaugural menswear collection on Friday, and everybody (Rihanna/Sabrina Carpenter/Robert Pattinson/Matthew McConaughey’s son/etc) was there. WWD called it “one for the history books”: “The images telegraphed more than an idea of style: riffing on Dior’s obsession with the 18th century, the Irish designer also conceived the collection as a commentary on class.” Seen at top: photos of Lee Radziwill and Jean-Michel Basquiat, from Anderson’s collection mood boards.
3. I wrote a very long piece on why American travelers should never cos play as Canadians while traveling overseas. It is reprehensible?? “No one cares! No one cares about you! Imagine sitting at a regional tourist attraction, or your local airport, or the café at an Upper Midwest Hy-vee, and someone approaches you with a giant Kazakh flag, and is like, “Don’t worry, I may speak Russian, but I am a humble Kazakh.” You would be like – bro, this is very random, and also you are probably Russian, and also please stop bombing Ukraine!!!!!!!!!”
I will say that in my travels to 80+ countries, I have never been convinced that this happens very much, but still, we should never do it.
4. Speaking of Men’s Fashion Week, a quartet of Japanese labels have earned much acclaim — see that raspberry Comme des Garçons suit!
5. This story is from April but I missed it, and those graphics are so convincing: This is what happened to Paris following the institution of policies that limited car and truck traffic and boosted bike lanes and parks: “Paris has been led since 2014 by Mayor Anne Hidalgo, a Socialist who has pushed for many of the green policies and has described her wish for a “Paris that breathes, a Paris that is more agreeable to live in.””
6. Emily in Paris creator Darren Star explains why Camille was written off the show: “I think her story kind of had a natural finish.”
7. “I had a corporate job in Paris. The French work norms and office culture felt so different from what I saw in the US.”
8. Architectural Digest features a smallish (34m2/ 377-square-foot) apartment in the 16th.
THE CLASSIFIEDS SECTION!
“Bonjour, je m’appelle Daniel Tate ; je suis doctorant à l’Université d’Oxford, au Royaume-Uni, et je serai doctorant invité à Sciences Po Paris du 2 septembre 2025 au 28 novembre 2025. Je recherche un logement pour cette période de trois mois. Je préférerais un logement avec une salle de bain attenante et, si possible, relativement proche de Sciences Po.
Just reply to this message if you’d like to be connected to Daniel!