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[Jody]

That handbag #8 in Défilé accessories, looks like Gitte put a buckle and handle on someone's pooch!

[Shoesy]

You know, an advantage to those pants we see in the pictures is that they would definitely make one's thighs look slimmer.

I love looking at fashion photos, though the truth is that there's nothing in them that I'm dying to own. Keep them coming girls. I'm having fun.

[sandy]

This is totally off-topic, but since this thread has long gone off-topic, this won´t make any harm, and I didn´t want to start a new thread for this. I was talking to a friend today, and she told me that her husband had to travel to France for business. She could have gone with him, but she prefered to stay at home. Can you believe it?!!!

[Anne]

You're very right Cybee, those are loose flares . I swear I didn't see any like those yesterday, but then maybe the Printemps and Galeries Lafayette think it wise to only send the "mildest" fashion to provincial towns ;D .

BTW, the shoes N°4 in the "Jour" sections are the kind that I was trying to describe yesterday . I said that it was a kind of 1930s style, but then on second thought no . But it is definetly retro fashion, isn't it ? 1950s then ?

[sistereurope]

I just had to look up the word "escarpin" in my online dictionary - it said that the English word is "lady-slipper"!!!

[sandy]

In Spanish we call Escarpin to those tiny knitted baby shoes (how are they called in English??) That would be closer to lady-slippers.

[Shoesy]

They're called booties.

[Happygoin]

Sandy, you should have been a good friend and offered to go instead ;D.

[sandy]

Happy, that´s what I did, but it was too late, the husband had already gone.

Shoesy, thanks for the clarification.

[luckyluc]

Actually escarpins in French descrive dress shoe with a thin sole. It have nothing to do with the height of the heels, men wear escarpins.

[sistereurope]

luc, you are a brave soul to dive into this crazy thread!! But thanks...I guess they'd better change my dictionary to include "man-slipper"!! ;D

[GitteK]

luc, this seems not always to be the way the term is used in my ladies' magazine ?? BUT as I am only an amateur, it is highly likely that I have got it wrong and just assumed that it meant "high-heelers" (because the always are !!!)
BUT you are my French mentor, so I trust you to be 100% correct as to usage of language. I looked it up in my DFC and it says:

"Soulier découvert, à semelle très mince et sans bride"

So it is maybe closer to the English term "pumps" ?
See below, it is presumbably meant to designate a shoe you "slip into" - which you acknowledgely do with pumps. www.classicpumps.com/

This is a photo from the above mentioned website:


This is what the French Wikipedia says about "escarpin":

Un escarpin est une chaussure féminine, décolletée et simple. Cette chaussure est également appelée décolleté. Son nom vient de l'italien "scarpino" (petite chaussure), et n'a donc rien de commun étymologiquement avec le qualificatif français "escarpé".

1 Caractéristiques
L'escarpin ne comporte pas de système de fermeture et s'enfile en glissant le pied dedans. Il peut parfois être ouvert sur le bout. Celui-ci peut être carré (ou "coupé"), pointu (voire effilé sur certains modèles), ou en ogive.
Il est parfois équipé d'une bride enserrant la cheville. Cette bride peut être simple, double, croisée sur le cou-de-pied, agrémentée d'ornements divers (clous de strass, chaînettes, perles...), voire suffisamment large, sur certains modèle (5 cm), pour accueillir deux petites boucles.

Le talon mesure au minimum 4 centimètres. S'il est très long et très fin on parle aussi de talon-aiguille. Si le talon fin dépasse 10 cm, on le désigne aussi sous le terme de stiletto.

2 Usage
Considéré comme élégant, l'escarpin se porte en ville ou en soirée, par exemple avec un tailleur ou une robe habillée.

3 Divers
L'escarpin, en tant qu'objet raffiné, symbole d'une certaine élégance féminine, peut être l'objet de fétichisme du pied.

This is the picture from Wikipedia


Somehow I refuse to let my brain produce a mental picture of a man's slipper being the "objet de fétichisme du pied"....... sorry.... ;D

[Shoesy]

Gitte - Now that's what i call a really pretty stiletto.

[GitteK]

My learned friend Luc is right, of course. There are in fact male "escarpins" galore on the internet.
So........ what can we learn from that ?

When it comes to the 3 big F's: Fashion, Food and Fu**......ahem, sorry...... Lovemaking: always listen to the Frenchies !

www.chaussures-desmazieres.fr/chaussures/homme/escarpins-homme.aspx

[Anne]

To be honest, I had never heard about men's shoes being called escarpins either, and I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't read Gitte's link to that shoes shop !!!

I really thought that Luc was mistaken by some Canadian specificity (like there are differences between English from England and English from America)

To me, "escarpin" is a feminine slip-into (no matter the height of the heels), and its male equivalent is called "mocassin" (even if mocassin can also be used for women, but let's not get too mixed up here) . Well, I have obviously been wrong, but I am quite curious to see my husband's face tonight if I casually mention his "escarpins" .

[luckyluc]

Anne, the word is not a canadianism, Proust and Balzac used it in their novels. I often seen it in men's shoes store. Si vous cherchez sur google.fr "escarpins hommes" vous trouverez plusieurs résultats. But it not commonly used anymore for gentlemen's shoes.

[Shoesy]

The word "escarpins" reminds me too much of "escargots".

[luckyluc]

Oh Shoesy, One can always count on you to give us an other perspective ! LOL Merci.

[GitteK]

shoesy: in renaissance France the "escar-pins" used to be the name for the little sticks you eat the escar-gots with.

Then suddenly some lady of French nobility one morning in the late 17th century, when she was taking her obese pugtese for a walk, accidentally trodded her high heel into a big snail [glow=red,2,300]>>SPLAT<< [/glow] and then that kind of shoe was thereafter also called an escar-pin.

Wauw - I should be a history professor like holger ! ;D

[luckyluc]

Gitte, vous êtes impayable!