Jonathan C. Lewis
Author and Artist
Street Life
A fictional travelogue; four minutes to read.
Dear Travel Journal,
For a leisurely breakfast, I’m seated outdoors beneath a burgundy awning at a bistro table in Paris. I’ve ordered a ‘petite dejeuner’—warm baguette, sweet butter, strawberry jam, fresh squeezed orange juice, café latte.
After last night’s floor show at the Moulin Rouge, my teen daughter Brittany is top of mind. My stomach is knotted with concern, if not all out worry.
Paris is a city of quaint cafes, buttressed cathedrals, art and culture, fine food and fashion. Parisian street life pulses.
On the sidewalk in front of me, a parade of well-decorated women is putting on a runway show. I don’t know Prada from pigs feet, but I can see that Parisian women have flair.
A young woman in a neon yellow duster, orange tennis shoes, turquoise-colored hair and a large onyx necklace scurries to her destination. She is talking on a purple cell phone.
A woman in her sixties is window shopping. Light blue jeans, dark blue heels, matching blue blazer. Dark navy scrunchie on her ponytail. Blue and white vertical striped blouse, starched. Red lipstick. Everything about her says confidence, control, cash to burn.
A portly teenager, possibly a college student, sashays with a studied purpose. Cream pants, a snow-white blouse, denim jacket and white knit cap with a floppy tassel. She struts her curvy figure.
Some women are dressed in browns and greys as if part of the pavement. They move invisibly, blending into the crowd. Safe from the male gaze.
The very trendiest women look like moving mannikins who ten minutes ago strolled out of a Galeries Lafayette display window. None appear to sweat, stink, shit or stain themselves.
They are as sanitized as the topless dancers on stage last night in sequins, plumage and corsets. Nipples notwithstanding, the Moulin Rouge has managed to neuter the female body. Breasts as fashion. More glamorous than amorous. Desexed, dehumanized, dull.
When Brittany leaves our house looking as if she’s headed for a Moulin Rouge audition, my entire being cringes. When I question her fleshy reveals, short skirt or sheer blouse and cleavage, I get an angry eyeroll as she spits out a version of “dad, it’s just fashion.” Before storming out of the house with a door slam. Other times, she argues that what she wears is nobody else’s business.
I’m all for creative expression and personal style, but unless I’m a hermit in a cave, it’s impossible to dress for myself alone. I can dress to please myself, but my clothes double as a statement about how I want the world to understand me. Fashion, like all art, is nothing without an audience.
No artist, no actor, no author, no fashionista—no woman and certainly not my Brittany—is powerful enough that she can dictate audience reaction. At the Moulin Rouge, I saw bouncing boobs as sexless, nearly boring, entertainment while the leering, laughing women behind me were seeing a bawdy floor show.
As I call for my restaurant tab, I glimpse a forgotten French fashion magazine on the table next to mine. The cover story features half-nude male models. The headline reads, “Is skin the hottest outfit for men?”
