Charlotte Gainsbourg, uniform dressing, and women of a particular age

Like Sofia Coppola, Charlotte Gainsbourg has an enviable, consistent style much admired on both sides of the Atlantic. Often clad in a jersey top or button down, grey skinny jeans, and cowboy boots, Charlotte favors a uniform that sounds simple on paper but is not simple to attain.

It's not so much what's there but what's not there: very few accessories, no discernible trends, nothing cute or flashy, nothing put upon, no excess (at least her casual everyday style . . . her red carpet style is quite different).  For most, such a well-suited personal uniform is usually only achieved through assiduous editing performed over many years, after the experimentation of the younger years has subsided. It's a matter of knowing your own body and the proportions that work best for it, and taking away all the extras that detract. And it may as well be said--when things are this pared down, a trim body is, if not essential, at least very helpful. And fabric and fit factor heavily as well, both of which aren't cheap (but not necessarily that expensive either).

It takes discipline to stick to a uniform, and a certain wit to know its standard deviations. For Charlotte Gainsbourg, the standard deviations include such things as patch-pocket high-waisted denim, Converse sneakers, and brightly colored gingham--funny little touches that don't muddle the consistency of her style but rather make the uniform feel warm and human.

The insight into fabrics and proportion, the self-knowledge, the mostly fixed body type (no more pubescent surges), and the long-term editing that takes place all suggest that figuring out a personal uniform might be achieved later in life, perhaps in your 30s or 40s. Sure, you can have a goth look or be an Abercrombie devotee at a much earlier age, but to figure out a uniquely individual style and then distill it into a uniform takes a particular alchemy of things that tend to come with the years. There seems a quiet intelligence that comes from knowing yourself and your taste quite well and being able to appreciate what clothes can do for you, as well as what it can't.

Some guidelines for pregnancy style, as illustrated by Nicole Richie

I'm not particularly into her normal everyday style, but she makes the most of her laidback California style when she's pregnant. I figure since I'll be at my biggest during the summer, she'll provide practical inspiration. 

Wear what you normally wear 

Of course, some styles just aren't going to work during this time (like the sweet vintage look of tops tucked into high-waisted shorts), but there's usually some facet of your normal style that could carry over. For me, the bohemian, granola look would work. I think with so many changes going on, it's important not to abandon everything familiar. I'd like to look into the mirror and still recognize myself.

Avoid the empire waist
She wears a lot of these loose Indian dresses that skim the body and accommodate a growing waistline, but aren't absurdly voluminous because of the light cotton fabric. I think these dresses are so much better than the maternity dresses I've looked at online, which seem to work only to showcase the belly. I'm not against an empire waist or two, but in general, a nipped-in empire waist silhouette tends to look slightly infantilizing and off-balance. They also remind me of my black Molly fish when she was pregnant, but that's just me.

To avoid frumpiness, I think it's best to drop the hemline while exposing the shoulders and clavicles.

Judicious exposure
I used to work at a bagel shop in the summers in Texas, and there was a girl there who just wore increasingly large tee shirts during her pregnancy. No one says that you have to be stylish when you might be feeling miserable and gravid, but she did look rather sloppy, whether or not she cared. And after some experimentation, I've decided that while looking visibly pregnant at this point might be useful in some situations, like when trying to navigate a crosswalk (my biggest pet peeve in this town is how no one slows down for pedestrians. Seattle was so much more pedestrian-friendly, even being 20 Xs larger, according to the latest census), I've never dressed much for attention and I'd rather not start now.

Of course, at some point, it can't be helped. But I find that with exposed arms, shoulders, or legs--body parts that tend to remain their normal size during pregnancy--a pregnant body can still look balanced. They provide a nice counterpoint to all that extra fabric around the middle.

Don't buy maternity clothes
I notice that if I wear designated maternity clothes, I look so much more pregnant than if I just wear my normal clothes. I also find those black elastic panels rather depressing to look at, so I avoid them if at all possible. I may have to resort to them when I'm late in the third trimester, but for now, I just size up several sizes.

Luckily, I've been able to dig around in my closet for my oversized clothing. Buying clothing targeted to a late twenties to middle-aged demographic also seems to work, since these tend to be cut generously with certain trouble spots that coincide with pregnancy (thighs, stomach) in mind. Anthropologie is a good source, as is Flax. I'm thinking Ann Taylor Loft and Chico's would be good for mall brands, but since I don't shop there normally, I haven't checked them out.

I'm against buying a whole new wardrobe for just a few months (as Thoreau says, "beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes"), but for some pieces I've found it necessary, in which case I go to the cheapest source possible.  I recently bought a pair of size 8 shorts from Old Navy, which I wear with a belt instead of resorting to the black panel. For when I do need a panel, I think I might just use my short jersey miniskirt from American Apparel, folded in half, as a DIY alternative to the belly bands. Unlike the linen pieces I bought recently, I'll probably not be wearing these shorts again post-pregnancy. But who knows?

In the above pic, Nicole is wearing normal clothes from Urban Outfitters (left) and Rick Owens (right). I'm not too sure about wearing designer clothes like that unless you're a Vogue editor or minor celebrity who is willing to retire them after a few months of wear, when they get stretched out. But the RO dress does illustrate the way that bias cut fabric can work just as well as an empire waist to accommodate your shape, and with a much more chic silhouette.

Rules at a glance
Okay, so I'm really just posting this pic because I adore the dress, which looks cool, easy, and colorful, and something I'd wear regardless of my pregnant state. I've asked my friend to see if she can find one of these type dresses when she goes to India to visit family this winter. It'll be too late to be useful, but it would be nice in upcoming summers. Vintage dresses like these go for around $100 on eBay nowadays, which goes against all my thrifting ethic.

About Sofia Coppola's style

I know I've written about Sofia Coppola before, but I find myself on this rainy weekend looking over my old inspirations from about 5 years ago, when I first started getting interested in high fashion. I've almost always been interested in personal expression and looking nice and appropriate, but it wasn't until about 5 years ago that I started thinking about style, chicness, and designers, and I had the means to approach them in some small way.

So when I just started trying to figure out fashion, I started by studying the people who I felt got it right, people that I might want to emulate. Sofia Coppola was one inspiration. In fact, she's probably the style muse of intellectual girls everywhere (she said something similar about her photography phase . . . that every smart girl goes through one, and takes lots of pictures of their feet). She has had a handbag named after her, signaling an ascension to the most rarefied of style icon status. She was famous for wearing flats on the red carpet and was the muse of Marc Jacobs. She started her own clothing line, Milk Fed, and moved through her own (somewhat unfortunate) grunge phase. Now she's designed her own line of handbags for Louis Vuitton, and they're everything that you might associate with her: elegance, refinement, heritage, minimalism, and immaculate style.

I think you can break down her style in a few ways. Some are obvious, and a few things are counterintuitive. Her pieces are not fussy, but are rather pared down to the essentials--exquisite cut, perfect fit, and beautiful fabrics.

Her definitive style, and what makes it work, is most obvious by comparison:

Compare her outfit to Scarlett Johansson's. They both wear sleeveless summer dresses, but Sofia's version is just a few crucial inches longer and seems much more demure. Her shoes are simple black flat sandals, as opposed to pink Converses. Her proportions are right, whereas Scarlett looks a little bit off, a little bit too much.

In the second picture, next to Kirsten Dunst, the fabric of her dress is much richer and "grown-up" than Kirsten's--a thick satin as opposed to cotton. Her jewelry is minimal, but its presence helps her seem much more polished than Kirsten. Although they both wear little makeup in that photo, Sofia looks finished, as opposed to Kirsten, who looked like she just rolled out of bed. Kirsten looks just a little bit too undone. Compared to Scarlett and Kirsten, Sofia looks just right--neither trying too hard nor trying not hard enough.

In both these pictures she's wearing black, and you might think that black is an essential part of her style. To some degree, it is, but that's not the entire story. In fact, she wears a lot of color, but usually against a background of black. Or else, when she strays from more neutral colors, she restricts her color palette to just one or two colors for the outfit. Examples:

Similarly, you might think that she's a straight minimalist, but in fact, her clothes are not always streamlined. Often, they are frilly, pleated, graphic, or feminine in some other way. She just never layers them on--it's always just a few separates that compose her outfit. But her accessories are always few, modest, and classic. Earrings, necklaces, and watches are small and subdued; shoes are always trendless and demure. You'll never see Sofia in the monster platforms so popular right now.

But she never looks overdone, even on the red carpet, and part of her secret is her hair. The fact that it's always in the same signature style--clean, neat, bobbed, and shiny--ensures that she always looks like her, never looks like she's trying too hard, and always exudes a cool downtown vibe.

To summarize this overlong post (lol), here are what I think compose the essential ingredients to Sofia Coppola's style, the "it-ness" of her It girl status:

• Clothes that tend towards minimal, with quiet feminine touches
• Restricted color palette in an outfit (but not in the wardrobe), with black used as an anchor
• Classic black shoes, usually flat or with a small heel
• Small, classic jewelry
• Clean, shiny hair that's always in a signature polished bob, never coiffed
• Perfectly fitting separates; never tight but sometimes loose (pants ending just at the ankle)
• Very little layering
• Outfits that allow ease of movement, everyday life, the weather