Unfashionably told
Emily in Paris dresses itself in layers and layers of clichés, Melissa Twigg writes.
If you were to imagine a TV show about a young American woman in Paris, created by the team behind Sex and the City, your bingo card might go something like this: beret, Breton striped tops, Christian Louboutin heels.
Zut alors! You'd be right. The new Netflix series Emily in Paris ticks all those clichéd boxes and more. Little wonder it's rapidly becoming the most talked-about (and criticized) show of the fall.
Emily Cooper, played by 31-year-old Lily Collins, is a wide-eyed 20-something from Chicago who, you guessed it, gets a new job and decamps to the French capital — with her non-parisian wardrobe. She is supposed to horrify her French
colleagues. But when she walked into a slick French marketing firm in a snakeskin miniskirt and Alice + Olivia shirt with Eiffel Tower print, I almost turned the television off.
Certain cities welcome people who bring their own look to the table: London is one of them, Paris is definitely not.
Emily breaks every French fashion rule. She wears white stiletto ankle boots, furry crop tops and an endless succession of neckerchiefs.
Notably it's always the women whose lips curl. The straight men, who are all absurdly handsome, fall at Emily's feet in a collective puddle. Surely one of them would ask why she was wearing a camouflage and pink lace miniskirt?
Luckily, Emily isn't the sartorial star of the show. Sylvie, her equally cliché-ridden French boss, has genuinely great clothes. Her pencil skirts, off-the-shoulder tops and bias-cut dresses are by Rick Owens, Roland Mouret and Yohji Yamamoto, and while quite daring for Paris, they are a wonderful antidote to Emily's fairground style. They are also sexy, which shouldn't be worth noting but — because the actress Philippine Leroy-beaulieu is three years off 60 — it is.
Showing just how different French attitudes to older women are, Sylvie is celebrated for striding around in a thigh-high-split off-the-shoulder gown by Alexandre Vauthier and her bare skin looks confident and seductive.
At least Emily's lack of subtlety is a plot point: The company loses a major haute couturier as a client when she arrives at his studio with a pink love heart dangling off her handbag.
Even her best looks feel dated. One evening, she wears a black off-the-shoulder dress by Christian Siriano with crystal-encrusted heels, gloves, a vintage fur stole and jewels. Remove 80 per cent of the accessories and it would be a more fitting tribute to Audrey Hepburn.
Ultimately the show is frothy fun that will, like all sugar rushes, either give you a hit of energy or leave you feeling slightly sick.