purple BEST of the SEASON

photographer TERRY RICHARDSON fashion editor OLIVIER ZAHM stylist CHRISTOPHER NIQUET The French woman has become such an international style icon that she herself is now trying to incarnate the fantasy: innate chic, cool sophistication, extreme slimness — although she’s a gourmet of food, a connoisseur of wine and ever hostile to plastic surgery — Rather intellectual, often ironic, and sexually liberated, she still smokes too much, and comes off as arrogant. Yet, compared to, say, the American woman, the French woman tries to give the impression that she doesn’t take fashion too seriously — so much so that she constantly denies it and even shows some distance to it, though her look is a carefully composed work of art. She might even show a little hostility toward fashion, than publicly acknowledging that she does deeply care and is trying to present an inimatable style — in perpetual but secret competition with her friends. Without a doubt…