The most stylish places in Paris, by the city's coolest residents

A couple of weeks ago, I was in a taxi on my way home to my flat in the 14th arrondissement in the south of Paris. “Mais mademoiselle, I can always identify an English tourist in Paris!” the driver told me, as we crossed Pont Notre-Dame. “You see them walking with their velour trousers and backpacks! Ho ho ho.” “Oh dear,” I replied. “Not very chic, eh?”

He chuckled, reflecting further on the characteristics of my compatriots as we sped along a near-empty Boulevard Saint-Jacques: “Oh non, non, ils né sont pas chic les anglais! But they don’t care!” I wasn’t quite sure how to take it.

Perhaps the British don’t care so much when it comes to fashion as our Gallic counterparts do, but we don’t want to be considered a source of amusement. So I was a little apprehensive at the thought of meeting Jeanne Damas and Lauren Bastide.

Their book In Paris, which has just been released in English, comprises profiles (written by Bastide) and photographs (largely taken by Damas) of 20 Parisian women and is, according to the blurb, “a window on the world’s most stylish city by two quintessential Parisian women.”

Damas, 26, is a successful model, founder of fashion brand Rouje and an idol for her one million Instagram followers. Bastide, 38, is a former editor at Elle France; she is also one of the country’s most prominent advocates of gender equality as the creator of chart-topping feminist podcast La Poudre (The Powder) – of which a dubbed English version has just been released.

I meet them both on a warm autumn day at H?tel Providence, a chic boutique spot – all pretty wicker chairs, vintage-look furniture and patterned wallpaper – in the now-hip 10th arrondissement. The high temperatures, along with an ill-timed cold, mean that instead of arriving poised and well-coiffed as I had hoped, I am hot and a little sniffly (though I did remember to leave my velour trousers at home).

Damas, meanwhile, turns up with no publicist and no fanfare, looking as impossibly gorgeous as her Instagram avatar in a vintage-style blouse, black Rouje jeans and signature rouge lip. Bastide joins shortly after, all understated cool in a laid-back shirt and jeans, red lips and a female-symbol pendant.

Parisian women (whether native or adopted) have, of course, long been the object of international fascination: from Marie Antoinette to Josephine Baker; Arletty to Brigitte Bardot; Catherine Deneuve to Jane Birkin. As I sit down with Damas and Bastide, they peruse the lunch menu and we discuss the long-standing appeal of the femme fran?aise.

“The history, the culture, the architecture, all of that: Paris is a place where a great deal of art has been produced historically,” says Bastide. “The Parisienne has always been a sort of muse for painters, writers and playwrights, from Molière to Godard.”

“And she is also the artist herself,” adds Damas. “Historically, women came to Paris for freedom, for their artistic career – so it’s really linked to artistic creation,”

It is true that Paris is a city unashamedly fascinated by beauty. Living here, I never tire of the heart-stopping vistas – from sun-dappled bandstands on weekend walks to the burnt-orange reflections of the street lights in the Seine on late-night cab journeys.

The artistic offering is to be reckoned with, too: this autumn/winter the Centre Pompidou hosts a comprehensive cubism retrospective and the Fondation Louis Vuitton is drawing crowds to the Bois de Boulogne with twin Basquiat and Schiele shows.

London, my home town, is of course not short on culture either, nor beauty – though it is of a different kind. The unconventional beauty of the English capital is epitomised in the architectural hotchpotch – the post-war concrete heft of the South Bank Centre, the majestic bulk of Wren’s St Paul’s Cathedral, the phallic bling of Renzo Piano’s Shard.

We do beautiful in a different way, but we (or I at least) have always had an inferiority complex when it comes to the particular kind of manicured beauty that defines French architectural and sartorial style. What is Damas and Bastide’s perception, then, of English style?

“There is more of an ‘I don’t care’ attitude in London,” says Damas (prompting a flashback to the velour trousers comments). “People have fun with what they wear, people are less controlled. That’s why the style is more fun, more ‘punk’. There’s definitely something more free in London compared to Paris.”

“It’s funny,” she continues. “You’re fascinated by us: we’re fascinated by you.”

Be that as it may, I still feel that Britons in this city do tend to stick out like a slice of rosbif on a cheese board, and I was interested in Damas and Bastide’s views on how we might emulate the French look.

They feel there are no set rules on how to be more Parisienne. “On n’aime pas les ‘don’ts’”, Bastide tells me. “We don’t like saying there are faux pas. In fact, it would be good if we felt a bit freer and there were more diverse styles.”

According to them, what is important for French women is the “allure”. “There wasn’t one woman in our book who didn’t own a trenchcoat or a pair of black jeans. But it’s the allure that makes the difference,” says Bastide.

For me, “allure” is a scarcely translatable word. It occurs to me that Britons can’t even say it without putting on a silly voice, à la Miranda Hart – “alluuuure”.  

But for these two, this quality is not limited by nationality or even outfit choices. “That’s why style isn’t really about clothes, it’s about the personality, the allure.”  

“Look at Jane Birkin,” continues Damas, evoking France’s most beloved British woman. “She wore a white T-shirt and jeans for 40 years and she is one of the biggest fashion icons. It’s her lifestyle, her way of being.”

For Damas and Bastide, this idea of the importance of personality and individuality is key.

One of the aims of In Paris, they say, is to show that the image of the Parisienne is evolving, that there are other types of Parisians who aren’t like them – younger, older, less wealthy, more wealthy – not white.

“We wanted to show that there is not ‘La Parisienne’, but ‘Les Parisiennes’, says. Bastide. “It is really one of the first things that we said to each other. We really must show this variety of profiles, that we don’t just have this idea of a 25-year-old white woman, with a fringe. Of course that exists – [look at] Jeanne! But at the same time, many people we know are every bit as Parisian and don’t necessarily resemble that image.”

“We realised that, with this big phenomenon at the moment around “La Parisienne” and even Paris itself, there are clichés everywhere,” adds Damas. “People think the city is like Midnight in Paris. It’s very folkloric – all these medieval myths around Paris, when in reality it’s hyper-modern – and people don’t see that because nobody is talking about it.”

She does admit, though, that some clichés are accurate, notably the importance of “pain, fromage, vin rouge.”)

When many of us (including me before I lived here), think of Paris, we think mostly of the grandeur of the centre – the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Grand Palais. But for these two, the soul of the city is in the outer arrondissements and the “vie de quartier”, local life.

Damas favours neighbourhood bars-tabac – the unpretentious, old-style French corner cafés-cum-tobacconists where you’re as likely to buy a scratch card as a slightly overburnt coffee – over the latest curated cocktail lists; both prefer brasseries run by young entrepreneurs over formal gastronomic restaurants.

“For me, the least good option is living in the centre of Paris – the 1st or 2nd arrondissement or even in the Marais. There are too many people,” she says. “For Parisians, the lifestyle is very “cocon” (about cocooning). Parisians really have their quartier, their village. That’s why I say everywhere in Paris is good.”

I mention that I live in the 14th arrondissement, an area – unlike the hip 11th, where Jeanne lives, and the “bobo” (bourgeois-bohemian) 9th, where Lauren lives – that doesn’t have a particularly cool reputation. I say pre-emptively, however, that I have got to know my area and now love my local greengrocer, cheese shop, wine shop, park, flea market, community art centre.

“All you need is a square, some local shops and a market,” says Damas. Her followers delight in seeing snapshots of her, albeit very glamorous, village life: hopping on a moped, buying flowers, hosting apéro in her pretty apartment, even visiting her local pharmacy (a video for Vogue UK showing Damas making pharmacy beauty purchases has had 1.1 million views to date).

When I ask the pair what they miss most about Paris when they are away they reply in unison, “Les terrasses!” Café terraces and local life, not necessarily the Eiffel Tower, are the emblems of these quintessential Parisians’ city. And it’s this, the essence of Paris, that is the source of that elusive confidence and allure: “It’s Paris that makes the Parisiennes,” says Bastide.

The next morning, as I set off on some weekend errands – including visiting my local market, buying a baguette and reading my book with a coffee in the corner café – I reflect on these words. The taxi drivers may never think I’m chic, and I may never be able to say “allure” with an entirely straight face, but perhaps Paris is getting under my skin after all.

In Paris : 20 Women on Life in the City of Light by Jeanne Damas is published by Penguin Books Ltd RRP ￡16.99. Buy now for ￡14.99 at books.telegraph.co.uk or call 0844 871 1514

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