French Women Over 60 Never Wear These 7 Things (No Matter the Trend)

I was standing in a monoprix on Rue de Rennes last September, about to receive a lesson from a French woman over 60 that I did not know I needed, when a woman who looked about 70 walked past me in a navy trench coat, dark straight-leg jeans, and flat leather boots. She had a single gold chain at her collarbone. No earrings. Her hair was silver and unstyled in that way that somehow still looks styled. She glanced at me, glanced at the leggings, and her expression didn't change at all. She didn't sneer. She didn't smile. She just kept walking. And somehow that was worse. I put the leggings back. I bought olive oil and a baguette and left the store feeling like I'd been gently corrected by the entire country of France. That woman didn't say a word to me, but she taught me something I've been thinking about for months. Not what to wear. What to stop reaching for. This is a conversation about seven things that French women over 60 seem to collectively refuse, no matter how loudly the rest of the world insists they should try them. And in 2025, when so much of fashion is screaming for attention, the interesting part is not the list itself. The interesting part is the why. Here is a number that surprised me. As of the first quarter of 2025, leggings accounted for 39% of bottoms assortments across activewear brands, according to the retail intelligence firm Edited. That is down from 47% in 2022. The world is already quietly stepping back from leggings, but French women over 60 never stepped forward. The France athleisure market was valued at roughly $21 million in 2024, with a projected growth rate of about 5.39% through 2035. That sounds like growth until you compare it to other Western markets, where athleisure has been a dominant category for a decade. France has been dragging its feet, and the women over 60 have been leading the resistance. The principle is almost comically simple. Sports clothes are for sports. In France, leggings belong to movement, not to The reasoning is not about modesty or formality. It is about signal. Leggings advertise the gym even when you are not going. French daywear prefers neutral signals, so the eye reads the outfit, not the workout. Fashion expert Penelope Whitely from 60 and Me put it this way, What they actually wear instead is well-cut trousers, long flowy skirts, pieces with structure that still move with the body. The goal is not stiffness. The goal is intention. French women love their designers. This is the country that gave the world Chanel and Louis Vuitton and Yves Saint Laurent and Hermès. But while they love the brands, they will not wear the logos. One of the biggest style missteps in Paris is flaunting your brands everywhere. Parisian style operates on a principle of subtle luxury. French women prefer what has been described as quiet branding, good fabric, correct scale. You will see designer bags and shoes. A Hermès scarf, yes, tied, tucked, or draped in a way that takes about 30 years to learn. But you will not see logos stamped across the chest, backside, or baseball cap on a normal Tuesday. A Parisian woman once described it this way, In France, you cannot see what labels we are wearing. It is very snobby. That word, snobby, is interesting because she is not apologizing. French closets are not anti-brand. They are anti-billboard. The logo exists to communicate status to strangers. The French approach suggests that if the quality speaks, the logo is redundant. And if the quality does not speak, the logo is a lie. Either way, the oversized Gucci print across the front of a sweatshirt is solving a problem that a well-made sweater in the right fabric never had. Denim is popular in France. This is important to say because there is a misconception that French women float through life in silk and cashmere exclusively. They wear jeans constantly. But the jeans do not look like they lost a fight with a paper shredder. French women avoid jeans that are ripped or overly faded. Distressed denim signals something that is not happening. The rips suggest a kind of rugged carelessness, except they were manufactured in a factory, often by adding pumice stone or actual chemicals to perfectly intact fabric. The French look at that and see a contradiction. What they wear instead is almost boringly straightforward. Dark jeans. High rise, straight leg, boot cut, or flared. Dark colors. No holes. So the denim itself becomes the statement rather than the destruction of it. Parisian stylist Isabel Thomas has a rule that applies here. Get rid of all your clothes that White t-shirts that look gray. Wool that looks worn. Shoes with too many scuffs. Clothes that look out of place. Ripped jeans, in her framework, are clothes that look like they are in bad condition on purpose, which is somehow worse than clothes that actually wore out. Coco Chanel said, Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off. French women over 60 seem to have internalized this as a biological function. They do not think about it. They just do it. The approach is mathematical. If they have a necklace, they skip the earrings. If they have nail polish, they skip the rings and bracelets. There is a limit, and it appears to hover around plainly. I would never wear more than three pieces of jewelry at once. Any more than that clutters and confuses a look. When everything sparkles, nothing sparkles. The French approach to accessories is to choose one conversation starter and let the rest of the outfit be the listener. What they actually reach for tends toward the permanent. Simple gold or silver chains. Delicate medallions. Pearls. Analog watches. Small earrings. Nothing that jingles when you cross a room. The pieces are meant to be noticed on the second look, not the first. They reward attention rather than demand it. I think about that woman in the Monoprix again. The single gold chain. That was it. On another person, it might look bare. On her, against the navy coat, it looked like every other possible accessory had been considered and dismissed. And the dismissal was the elegance. French women embrace their age and do not try to hide it with too much makeup. That sentence sounds simple, but it represents a complete inversion of how beauty is marketed in most of the English-speaking world, where the entire industry depends on the premise that age is a problem cosmetics can solve. The French approach is not anti-makeup. It is anti-costume. Heavy foundations with powder. Dark smoky eye colors. The full armor of concealment. None of that. The focus is not to look younger, but to look their best at their current age. Here is the leverage that makes it possible. French women are well known for elaborate skincare regimens and careful diets. Because of that investment in the foundation, they can get with very little paint on top. A typical makeup routine might include a light foundation or BB cream, bronzer or light cheek color, mascara, possibly a thin line of eye pencil on the upper lid, a light sweep of eyebrow pencil, and lipstick. Bright red lipstick is popular in France, especially in the evening. Nude or subtle tints are more common for daytime. One French beauty expert described it the way you might describe getting dressed. It is like fashion. You do not want to put on your earrings, hat, and heels all at once. You pick one battle, one statement. Choose one feature. Let it be the star. Let everything else support it quietly. Someone commenting on French style noted that she saw so many women just wearing their natural gray hair, no fanfare, just living their lives. She was so struck by this that she let her own hair go natural gray after 30 years of coloring. The women she noticed in Europe seemed to have a natural ease about them. That ease is not accidental. It comes from not fighting against what is actually happening. I want to pause here because we are more than halfway through the list, and I realize something worth naming. Every single one of these items, the leggings, the logos, the ripped jeans, the stacked jewelry, the heavy makeup, they all share a common engine. They are all attempts to project something outward. Youth. Wealth. Edge. Effort. The French refusal is not a refusal of those qualities. It is a refusal of projection. And this might be the part where it gets personal for you. Because we have all stood in front of a mirror adding one more thing. One more bracelet. A bolder lip. A trendier cut of denim. And the question underneath was never really about the clothing. The question was whether we were enough without it. French women over 60 seemed to have answered that question. And the answer freed up a remarkable amount of closet space. I am not saying they are right and everyone else is wrong. I am saying they made a decision, and the decision has a specific shape, and the shape is worth looking at closely. French women are often portrayed tottering around in six-inch Louboutins. This is a fiction maintained largely by Hollywood and fashion magazines. Real French women, particularly those over 60, prefer practical shoes. Because they walk. Everywhere. On cobblestones that were laid before anyone alive was born. Sky-high heels that make walking uncomfortable are impractical for navigating the city's cobblestone streets. One French woman was quite blunt about her pet hate. She cannot stand women in 10-centimeter heels. Do they really think they are going to be sexy? They spend a fortune to look like bad-life women. That is a direct quote, and it has a sharpness to it that I think is characteristically French. There is no diplomatic softening. Parisians say that when friends visit from other fashion-focused cities like London, they have to remind them to leave their four-inch heels at home. The city itself enforces the dress code. You simply cannot walk the 7th arrondissement in stilettos without developing a relationship with an orthopedist. What they wear instead reads like a catalog of things your feet would thank you for. Loafers, classic styles or slightly edgy, as long as they are comfortable. Ballet slippers, the Audrey Hepburn kind. Ankle boots or knee-length boots, which always look sharp and actually grip uneven pavement. The shoe is not decoration. The shoe is infrastructure. Designer Sophie Thialet said that French women wear clothes that flatter their bodies, regardless of trends. That extends to the feet. A shoe that forces an unnatural posture does not flatter. It distorts. And distortion is the opposite of what French style is trying to achieve. This is the one where Emily Cooper gets dragged. The show Emily in Paris has been described by French women online as a horrid example of how to dress like a French woman. Emily is dressed in wild colors, mixed patterns, and bizarre accessories that are more embarrassing and clown-like than chic. She is cute and can pull it off, but most French women online have been laughing at her. The only authentic example of French style on the entire show is the character of Sylvie, who plays Emily's boss and is French in real life, played by Philippine Leroy Beaulieu. Her wardrobe is stunning, classic, and subtle, but still sexy. That contrast between the two characters on the same screen is practically a tutorial. French fashion leans toward a neutral and muted palette—gray, navy, blue, beige, khaki, camel, black. There are occasional pops of color, but neon shades or excessively bold prints are considered a faux pas. Loud patterns, vibrant colors—anything that distracts from the overall simplicity and elegance of an outfit—these get set aside. When French women do want pattern, they keep it classic. Stripes, particularly the Breton stripe, have their own remarkable history. The traditional Breton-striped shirt, or mariniere, was born in the 19th century when the French navy made it the official uniform of sailors. Brands like St. James and Armour Lux, both Normandy-based manufacturers, have been making the authentic version continuously since the 1800s. In 1917, Coco Chanel introduced it as part of her nautical-themed collection. She was inspired by items worn by working-class people and saw the mariniere as both stylish and practical. Over a hundred years later, it is still in rotation. Not a marketing word, an actual century of continuous wear. Beyond stripes, the safe prints are plaid, tartan, and houndstooth. Everything else gets scrutinized heavily. If the print does the talking, the woman disappears behind it. French women over 60 want to be seen, not their fabric. Inez de la Fressange might be the single best embodiment of this philosophy. Born in 1957, she was one of the first models to sign an exclusive contract with Chanel back in 1982. Karl Lagerfeld, who was the creative director of Chanel at the time, described her as the epitome of elegance and a symbol of French chic. She has since been recognized as a commander of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture, acknowledging her influential role in promoting French fashion and style internationally. She is not alone in embodying this. Catherine Deneuve, now in her 80s, has spent decades demonstrating the same principle on a global stage. Impeccably dressed, never overdressed, the clothes always secondary to the woman wearing them. Isabelle Huppert operates similarly. Neither of them looks like they are trying. That is the entire point. What makes Inez interesting is not her accolades, it is her quotes. She once said, fashion is about dressing according to what is fashionable. Style is more about being yourself. Apply that to every item on this list. Leggings are fashionable. Logos are fashionable. Ripped jeans, statement jewelry, heavy contouring, platform heels, neon animal print, all fashionable at various points. Style, in the French sense, is the act of declining fashion when fashion contradicts who you actually are. She also said something I find almost unreasonably good. Buying a matching blouse and skirt from the same store is a crime. A clever mix of chic and cheap hits the jackpot. That is not minimalism. That is curation. There is a massive difference. Now, some people push back on all of this, and they should. One observer noted that what she actually sees in Paris is sweaters, leggings, and cheap-looking comfy clothing, and the nicely dressed ones are mostly tourists. There is truth in this. French style, as described in magazines and blogs, is an idealization. Not every woman in Lyon is walking around in a trench coat and ballet flats looking like she just stepped out of a Truffaut film. Others argue that style rules are inherently restrictive. Women in online communities say things like, who cares if I wear a white bra or a flesh-colored bra? I am 60 years old. I will do what I want and what makes me feel comfortable. That is a completely valid position. Comfort is not the enemy of style, and personal preference outranks any cultural prescription. The pandemic added another layer. From 2020 onward, loungewear became normalized globally. The line between home clothes and outside clothes blurred for almost everyone. But French women, even during lockdowns, seem to maintain a distinction between dressed and not dressed. Whether that is admirable or exhausting depends entirely on your perspective. Inès de la Fressange herself offered what might be the most generous framing. You should dress to feel good, not show off, not a rule, an invitation, and it leaves room for whoever you are, whether that includes leopard print leggings or not. More than anything, the French approach to style after 60 is a series of decisions that have already been made. The trench coat is in. The silk scarf is in. Natural fabrics like linen, silk, and wool are in. Quality over quantity? Always. Yves Saint Laurent introduced the women's tuxedo suit in 1966, and 57 years later, it remains highly popular among Parisians. When a decision lasts 57 years, you stop calling it a trend. The closet is smaller than you would expect. The pieces are better than you would expect. The combinations are more deliberate than you would expect. And the woman wearing them looks like she spent about four minutes getting ready, even if the truth is more complicated. The phrase the French use is chic décontracté, casual chic. It means mixing classic and timeless pieces with more sophisticated and dressy items, whether that is a designer bag, a silk scarf, a piece of jewelry, or a particular pair of shoes. The keyword is mixing, not matching, mixing. Inès called matching a crime, remember? I still think about that woman in the Monoprix. The navy trench, the dark jeans, the single gold chain. She was probably just buying dinner. She was not performing anything. She was not teaching me a lesson on purpose. She was walking through a store the way she walks through every store, wearing exactly what she always wears, which happens to be nothing on this list of seven things. I was the one holding leopard print leggings against my hips in a fluorescent-lit aisle, and she was the one who glanced and kept moving. She did not take anything off before she left the house. She never put it on.