TOWNANDCOUNTRYMAG.COM | SEPTEMBER 2019 103

BOURGEOIS?

MOI?

The dress codes of the idle rich dominated

the fall collections. But before you say “bourgeoisie,”

here’s how to use it correctly in a sentence.

dread but is staring us right in the face: The Champs-Elysées over-

flowed with protesters marching against the “elitist” policies of Presi-

dent Emmanuel Macron, the flame of Gallic insurgency immediately

recognizable by the yellow safety vests on the demonstrators’ backs.

Then again, this is France; rebellion and fashion have always gone

hand in glove. Whereas Americans and the British generally under-

stand bourgeois style to symbolize a specific sensibility—conser-

vative, polite—for the French it’s a little bit more complicated, the

word itself fraught with meaning.

In May 1789, King Louis XVI summoned representatives of the

Third Estate—the 90 percent or so of the population that did not

belong to the privileged orders of the nobility and the clergy—to

Versailles for a referendum on tax reform. For the most part these

men hailed from the haute bourgeoisie—prosperous urban profes-

sionals (literally, the “upper townspeople”). In the 230 years since,

this cohort has become the establishment. Yet in the meeting with

their “betters” they were treated with disdain. To register their dis-

content, these so-perceived second-class politicians, all outfitted in

the austere black wool coats prescribed by their station, refused

GUCCI JACKET ($4,980), SKIRT ($3,200), AND HANDBAG ($3,200); WING & WEFT GLOVES ($150)

BY CAROLINE WEBER

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JEFFREY WESTBROOK STYLED BY WILL KAHN

I

t was inescapable. From the moment Hedi Slimane sent

a pair of pleated culottes—and plaid culottes! Flannel

culottes! Even leather culottes!—down his runway at

Celine, through the grace notes of Karl Lagerfeld’s last

show for Chanel, the spirit of the bourgeoisie dominated

the fall collections in Paris, as if it were the French Rev-

olution all over again. It turned up in the soigné dresses

at Loewe; in the rich trenches at Balenciaga, with their

cocooning shoulders; in the sharp tuxedos at Givenchy

(designer Clare Waight-Keller is a favorite of the Duch-

ess of Sussex, herself an emblem of middle-class ascendance); and, in

its most sumptuous form, in a double-faced cashmere cocoon coat

at Hermès, bien sûr.

About a year ago the designer Nicolas Ghesquière exalted lady-

like “jolie madame” style in a collection for Louis Vuitton, and the

message slowly trickled down to the mood boards of other design-

ers until this season the discreet charm of the bourgeoisie gripped

the imagination. There was safety, if not comfort, in these mature

uniforms, at a time when political turmoil is not just an existential