French elegance

[Minh]

I'm an American living in Boston, but I've started going to Quebec more often and there is a chance I might be visiting France this coming year. I like browsing through used bookstores and libraries when I travel, so I was curious whether there are any French books on elegance and the sartorial arts, published in the past 100 or so years, that anyone can recommend. I've always loved the way the French dress: at its best it combines a respect for tradition -- "classic" is the highest praise -- with refined, individual taste.

Minh

[Huzir]

Farid Chenoune's A History of Men's Fashion (Paris: Flammarion, 1993) is a superb historical reference, widely available in an English edition, but you may wish to find the original for the sake of completeness.

Laurent Fauvel's Smoking, Jean et Peignoir de Soie (Paris: Albin Michel, 1987) is also worth a look for its amusing "petit bestiaire en forme de vestiaire", a quasi-sociological classification of different French dressing styles (such as BCBG, Gentilhomme Campagnard, Aristocrate, Avant-Gardiste, and the unfortunate L'Homme-Sandwich) and a comprehensive and occasionally scathing guide to shops in France.

Cheers,

Huzir