French Fashions Are Still Stylish on UMW Campus

By SARAH KELLY

Christine Nolan knows how to get dressed in the morning. This week’s profile, a junior majoring in French and studio art, exudes a sense of personal style that emanates more from her recent travels than from the world of fashion.

After returning from studying abroad in Grenoble, France last semester, Nolan draws inspiration from a certain effortless elegance only French women can create.

“I really liked how they took a lot of time to think about how they carried themselves and portrayed themselves” she said of the women she encountered while abroad.

As Parisian designer and style icon Coco Chanel stated, “Fashion is not simply a matter of clothes. Fashion is in the air, born upon the wind. One intuits it. It is in the sky and on the road.”

For French women, style isn’t about labels or trends, but ideas and creativity: an elegance that comes from within.

This influence is clear in Nolan’s description of her own sense of personal style.

“French, but a little bit on the artsy, bohemian side is what I try to go for,” Nolan said.

Looking as if she has stepped straight out of a Ralph Lauren campaign, Christine embodies an image of classic Americana.

She wears a cornflower blue button-down dress from Urban Outfitters, accented by a brown leather belt with gold detail from Fredericksburg vintage store Horseshoes and Hand Grenades. Her look is topped off with a pair of off-white cowboy boots.

“I saw them and they happened to be my size, and I just jumped on them,” she said of the boots, another find at the downtown Fredericksburg boutique.

Her turquoise watch is from Swatch, and her Ray-Ban style sunglasses are from Beaucoup Vintage, also located downtown.

Her look is complemented by simple hair and minimal make-up. Nolan is quick to point out that her nonchalant approach to fashion is in fact entirely intentional.

When asked how her fashion sense has been influenced by the art world, she said of a lot of artists, “they try to go for a look that looks that they didn’t try; but they did try.”

Nolan perhaps best sums what is so interesting about her approach to fashion when she said “I guess it’s like a clash of cultures.”

Although clashing is always something to be vehemently avoided, in this case, we’ll make an exception.

Image courtesy of Sarah Kelly/Bullet