Leaving the comfort of Paris after only having been in the city for a little over a week was just another part of the Dialogue that kept me on my toes. Just as I was starting to get more accustomed to the city, classes, and the styles around me, the trip to London was a change of pace that made me appreciate Paris even more. In terms of the fashions of the cities, Paris is filled with people who are confident in their own personal style and carry themselves with a sense of confidence that makes them look put together regardless of their actual fashion sense. In Paris, I have seen a lot of casual Parisian looks that seem effortless but still posh. London was a completely different story. I felt as though there were only two extremes of style represented in London. One was the people dressed very plainly with nothing super extraordinary about their outfits. This included the masses of people I saw in suits for work. The other extreme I noticed, were people dressing to fit in with the trends. The way in which both cities handled trends in general was also very different which I was not expecting.
Over the course of 4 days in London, I managed to spot a few people who were dressed very trendy while also having unique outfits that complemented their distinct style. One macro-trend I saw quite a lot in London was the wearing of corsets in a business casual/professional way. The first girl I saw wearing this trend had on a pair of dress slacks paired with a dark blazer over a button down newspaper print shirt with the black corset cinching the waist. I saw her while walking down the street in the Soho area of London on a very busy Wednesday afternoon. She took the corset trend and added her own unique twist with the newspaper printed shirt and the professional blazer and pants. Another girl I saw on Oxford Street who was following the same corset in a business casual context trend was wearing a white corset worn over a lime green satin corset top paired with a pair of tan professional pants. Her color combination along with the innovative double corseting paired with the professional slacks made this a very different vibe than the previous girl, but still very much on the same trend. In terms of micro-trends in London, there were many to be found. The one I focused on was in the accessories department. Back in Soho, I found a girl wearing a large variety of chunky acrylic rings along with some regular rings with larger stones and embellishments. I really liked how exaggerated her ring stack was and how they all complimented each other along with the rest of her outfit so well.
The trends I found in Paris were slightly different. While it was easier to find stylish people here, I had more trouble finding specific trends since I believe more people here are concerned with their self determined senses of fashion rather than trends. The macro-trend I was able to spot on a few people was the 70s aesthetic trend. When it comes to color and pattern, the 70s have a very distinct set of them including oranges, yellows, and browns with diagonal stripes, florals, and wavy patterns. The first person I saw that fit this trend was a girl in Les Halles. She was wearing a white tank top with a pair of orange floral wide leg pants with white converse and an orange bag. The pants and bag really brought this look back to the 70s. Another sighting of this trend was near the Eiffel Tower where a couple were both representing the 70s aesthetic in different ways. The girl was wearing a black top with a pair of very groovy flared diagonal striped brown pants. The guy was wearing some light beige pants with a bright orange quarter zip. The pattern on the woman and the color on the man made this pair a couple who look heavily influenced by the 70s. As for micro-trends in Paris, I was able to find the chunky ring trend that I also saw in London. The girl wearing them was a friend of the girl in the 70s floral pants in Les Halles. She had a black top and black jacket with blue pants and her lovely ring assortment. The chunky rings she was wearing were much more subtle and less exaggerated than what I saw in London. Her rings were less coordinated to her outfit and seemed to just match her own personal aesthetic and preferences more as she had on simple thick round gold and silver rings that matched her small hoop earrings. She also had on a similarly shaped pink ring as well. The trends in Paris overall were carried out a lot less dramatically than in London. I noticed that Parisians use trends to enhance their personal styles instead of using trends to define their personal styles which is what I saw in London.
My overall takeaway from analyzing both cities is that London has people who are more trend forward while Paris is filled with people who as a whole are more stylish, but less toward specific fashion trends. In terms of who is more fashionable, Parisians in general take the cake as they as a whole have more people who are stylish in their own ways. London has some trendsetters and trend followers who have unique and cutting edge fashion styles, but overall the more drab and plain outfits from most of the people I saw means it cannot compare to Parisian fashion. After extensive analysis I am happy to report that when it comes down to it, Paris is indeed the Fashion capital of the world.
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