Forever Chic: Frenchwomen's Secrets for Timeless Beauty, Style, and Substance, Tish Jett, and Lessons from Madame Chic: 20 Stylish Secrets I Learned While Living in Paris, Jennifer L. Scott

(February 8, February 19) I read Tish Jett's book because it was mentioned on the "That's Not My Age" blog… and was quite taken with it… read it in three days flat… not that it was that hard a read… 240 pages and it was mostly beauty and fashion advice, which I am consuming pretty much constantly, like a slow I.V. drip, from a variety of sources, anyway… but this was unusually engaging… I guess because of the "French" part… there was just something so inspiring & cleansing & no-nonsense-yet-highly-indulgent about it… I felt like I wanted to move to France, or at least live forever like I was already in France.

I was so hungry for more that I started reading "The Daily Connoisseur," a blog by Jennifer Scott, and put her book on hold at the library (apparently there is a whole industry of books touting Frenchwomen as role models… one of the Amazon reviews of Forever Chic said: "Even if you own Helena Frith Powell, Debra Ollivier, Anne Barone, Mireille Guiliano, Jennifer Scott and Marie-Anne LeCoeur you will not be disappointed in this new book.")

Scott ended up being similar and yet completely different… she's younger (like, much younger) than Jett, but also duller and less engaging, and more "do this-do that," and more "I'm in the blogging for the money."

Nonetheless, what she has observed about French women came shining through and that was all I wanted from her.

Scott gets very philosophical -- her book becomes a lecture on a spiritual path, really, and this increases as she goes on.

At the same time, I was mystified by how profoundly Scott could recognize a Good Thing in the Famille Chic and the Famille Bohemienne but then how banally she would apply it to her own life. Strangely, she pits the fine taste and love of life she saw in French women against holes in the back of the tights or yoga pants of two different American ladies she has seen.

It's true, people should not wear tight-fitting lower-body clothing with holes in the rear, but surely we don't need to look to the chic of the French to get that. Surely we get more subtle wisdom from them?

Tish Jett was less odd that way ...more enlightened about what could be learned from another culture… and everything she said just seemed so valuable… and doable… and correct and rewarding (somehow!). I copied out many of her lists and bullet points.