Chic In Paris: Style Secrets & Best Addresses

Unless you are planning on hiring Ms Tabak to go to Paris and go shopping for you, this book is not worth purchasing. If you buy it, you'll sort of know what she will probably pick out for you. But the advice is trivial. For example: What is the biggest fashion faux pas? Not feeling good about yourself. (page 103). What are three must-have wardrobe pieces? Lingerie, shoes, and jewelry. (page 69)
Save your money and go to Paris yourself and look for shops yourself and buy your clothes yourself. You will have more fun than you will reading this boring book.

This book is not what you think it is. I thought it was going to be a book filled with Chic fashion tips and it was mostly interviews with different women telling you what beauty prducts they use. There was very little about fashion. Go check it out at a library, but save your money.

Written by Susan Tabak, a $1,500 a day personal shopper, CHIC IN PARIS is a stylish book that offers readers insidery information about the fashion philosophies of eight affluent, glamorous French women.

Far from a recipe for great style, CHIC IN PARIS does not offer precise advice for dressing well-- as the popular What Not To Wear series does. Instead in each of the eight chapters, the author poses general questions to each style icon. And the answers are timeless or vague -- depending upon your expectations.

Here you will not be told to wear skinny, bootleg or bell-bottomed jeans, but instead you will be encouraged to disregard trends entirely and wear the fabrics, colors and styles that make you feel good, in a sensual way.

Recommended for both Francophiles and fashionistas. CHIC IN PARIS is the classic gift book. With its ruby red, faux crocodile cover, lush design and dozens of full-color photographs, this is a coffeetable-style book -- meant to be touched and looked at with quick glances, rather than read cover to cover. Consequently the words are few and the printing quality deluxe.

Having sufficiently praised this book (because in truth I like it and think it offers value), I must say that the more I look at it, the more I wonder about its path to printing and the integrity of the information. For starters there is no traditional credit page here. The publisher is not clearly identified. And the price/bar code is noted with an adhesive sticker on the cover, that makes me wonder if CHIC IN PARIS is a self-published book that was marketed to the public after its production.

Then, as I investigate this further, I note that all of the traditional contact information contained here, relates to the author's company, Paris Personal Shopper, including a Manhattan phone number and a website address. Yikes! Is this a brochure?

This, of course, doesn't reveal the book's lack of integrity. But then I begin to google the eight style icons and note that most hype the designers/companies they are most closely associated with.

Ultimately I don't think that any of this matters. After all art gallery brochures are always self-published and are always for sale -- until they sell-out, of course. So because CHIC IN PARIS is a nice looking book that definitely offers valuable fashion perspectives, I recommend it to those who are interested in:

Georgina Brandolini (Valentino's unpaid muse of 22 years);
Loulou de la Falaise ( designer and 30 year Yves Saint Laurent muse);
Inés de la Fressange (clothing designer & former Chanel model);
Mina d'Ornano (boutique owner & accessories designer);
Marie-Hélène de Taillac (jewelry designer);
Spela Lenarcic (fashion stylist);
Carole Rochas (jewelry designer); and
Nathalie Rykiel (Sonia's daughter & CEO of Rykiel Woman).

-- Regina McMenamin