Book Review: My Paris Dream

Book: My Paris Dream: An Education in Style, Slang and Seduction in the Great City on the Seine by Kate Betts

Source: Borrowed from Publisher/NetGalley for an honest review

Publication: Available now

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group - Random House: Spiegel & Grau

Description:

For readers of How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are, My Paris Dream is a charming and insightful memoir about coming of age as a fashion journalist in 1980s Paris, by former Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar editor Kate Betts, the author of Everyday Icon: Michelle Obama and the Power of Style.

“You can always come back,” my mother said. “Just go.”

As a young woman, Kate Betts nursed a dream of striking out on her own in a faraway place and becoming a glamorous foreign correspondent. After college—and not without trepidation—she took off for Paris, renting a room in the apartment of a young BCBG (bon chic, bon genre) family and throwing herself into the local culture. She was determined to master French slang, style, and savoir faire, and to find a job that would give her a reason to stay.

After a series of dues-paying jobs that seemed only to reinforce her outsider status, Kate’s hard work and willingness to take on any assignment paid off: Her writing and intrepid forays into la France Profonde—true France—caught the eye of John Fairchild, the mercurial fashion arbiter and publisher of Women’s Wear Daily, the industry’s bible. Kate’s earliest assignments—investigating the mineral water preferred by high society, chasing after a costumed band of wild boar hunters through the forests of Brittany—were a rough apprenticeship, but she was rewarded for her efforts and was initiated into the elite ranks of Mr. Fairchild’s trusted few who sat beside him in the front row and at private previews in the ateliers of the gods of French fashion. From a woozy yet mesmerizing Yves Saint Laurent and the mischievous and commanding Karl Lagerfeld to the riotous, brilliant young guns who were rewriting all the rules—Martin Margiela, Helmut Lang, John Galliano—Betts gives us a view of what it was like to be an American girl, learning about herself, falling in love, and finding her tribe.

Kate Betts’s captivating memoir brings to life the enchantment of France—from the nightclubs of 1980s Paris where she learned to dance Le Rock, to the lavender fields of Provence and the grand spectacle of the Cour Carrée—and magically re-creates that moment in life when a young woman discovers who she’s meant to be.


Rating: 1 star

Review:

This was truly just blah. It was very boring with the author detailing her time in Paris but told in a very dull and monotonous way. My Paris Dream begins in the early 80s, with the author describing how she had spent the summer after she graduated from high school enjoying the city of Paris, it sparked her dream to one day live there.

This felt like I reading the journal of a naïve and sheltered privileged college graduate who had a dream of moving to Paris and living this amazing life. That is until she actually moved there and realized that living in Paris wasn't all it was cracked up to be. However that didn't damper her desire to stay there, she was determined to embrace the city even if she often felt as if she didn't fit in or belong there.

In her mind she only saw Paris as this enchanted city never the reality which can sometimes be harsh. After her idyllic view of Paris was shatter by a scary incident following her walk back to her temporary lodging she finally started to see that Paris wasn't so picturesque.

When she wasn't trying her hardest to find a job, she was hanging out with new friends getting to know the city and meeting a new love interest. Even when she found a job nothing really changed except now she was more immersed into journalism and getting into the fashion scene.

The first half of this book dealt with her trying to find her way in Paris while the second half focused on her career in fashion and magazines and her return back to the United States.

This was a bore to read and I quickly lost interest. There were some interesting parts such as when she first arrived and was interested in seeing the city but overall this felt like a complete waste of time to read.