The secrets to Sylvie’s grown-up French chic look in Emily in Paris
Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu’s French “bitch-witch” character, Sylvie Grateau, is sure to maintain her clout as the breakaway style star of Emily in Paris, the Netflix comedy which returns to our screens on Thursday. She is front and centre of the dazzling new season.
For the first time, Emily in Paris is set in autumn/winter. The show’s tone – think a soup?on of serious imbuing the usual screwball fun – is enhanced by stormy skies, drizzle and wind. As Sylvie battles the elements in tailored overcoats, sumptuous cashmere, her trademark stilettos and enviable crossbody handbags by the likes of YSL and Tod’s, she offers a masterclass on how to dress chicly for work.
Even Emily Cooper is taking cues from the “bitch-witch” this season. Lily Collins’ effervescent influencer is now working at Sylvie’s Grateau Agency, having finally made peace with her former nemesis. As Collins’ protagonist succumbs to a romance with hot chef Gabriel (Lucas Bravo) she finds herself caught up in a thrupple and then a “polyamorous quad”. And as she yearns for “order” and “boundaries” in her relationship, she takes refuge in Sylvie’s signature power suits.
At Roland Garros, Emily sports a snazzy one by Tara Jarmon emblazoned with bold red stripes while Sylvie opts for a paint suit by Vivienne Westwood in cream. Sylvie dons more cream tailoring (pulled from Ralph Lauren’s archive) to preside over a Boucheron lunch where Emily turns up and turns heads in a fabulous Barbara Bui ensemble composed of a jacket, trousers and satin blouse in coordinating cobalt blue.
“Emily and Sylvie are really similar,” says Marylin Fitoussi, the show’s Emmy-nominated costume designer, who painstakingly pulled it all together. For season three – when Emily decided to leave Chicago behind and build a life in Paris while Sylvie, accepting her protégé’s annoying Americanisms, finally softened up – Fitoussi started dressing the pair similarly to highlight their corresponding character traits and growing alliance. Fitoussi calls the visual trick her “mirror game”.
Elaborating, she adds: “Sylvie is not only a [business] machine. She has a wild past, as the audience will discover in the second half of season four. Emily embodies the younger version of that wild Sylvie. But she also admires her perfection. Dressing them alike highlights the complexity of their characters which you discover little by little.”
Fitoussi broke into her field assisting Sylvie de Segonzac. The legendary Paris costume designer hailed from an aristocratic film-centric French family. Famously, de Segonzac’s mother, the costume designer, Gladys de Segonzac, forged Audrey Hepburn and Hubert de Givenchy’s relationship. When Hepburn was scouting around Paris for a couturier to make her wardrobe for the 1954 film Sabrina, Gladys – former directress of Elsa Schiaparelli’s couture house, who was married to Paramount Pictures French production head – sent the ingénue to the rising fashion star.
The younger de Segonzac had an illustrious career herself, famously dressing a young Carole Bouquet for Louis Bu?uel’s 1977 romantic satire, That Obscure Object of Desire. She later won a César (the French Oscar) for the 1993 Second Empire drama, Le souper. “She took me under her wing and taught me everything I know,” reflects Fitoussi of her mentor.
Hepburn’s style is a touchstone for Emily’s wardrobe. “There’s always a nod in each season to Audrey Hepburn,” remarks Fitoussi, who drew upon Givenchy’s handiwork for 1963’s Charade to create a ski costume in which Emily hits the slopes of Megève.
Darren Star – the creator, producer and showrunner of Emily in Paris – gets final approval for the thousands of items that comprise Fitoussi’s seasonal wardrobes. Star, 63, created Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place for the Fox Network in the early 1990s. After some lukewarm hits, he struck gold with Sex and the City at the turn of the new millennium. Star is also behind all of SATC’s spin-offs including And Just Like That. “For me, Sex and the City is the best fashion series – ever,” states Fitoussi. “Darren likes colour. He likes ‘body con’ dresses. He likes high heels. And for him ‘overdressed’ is not a bad word. When he gave me the keys to his universe, he said: ‘Marilyn, I don’t care about reality.’”
Sex and the City’s legendary costume designer Patricia Field – with whom Fitoussi worked alongside on the first two seasons of Emily in Paris – urged Fitoussi to buy into Star’s dream yet opt for timelessness. “I remember for season one, I wanted to use trousers that were maybe a bit too short for a [male character]. And Patrica said: ‘No, no, no, no! In 10 years these trousers will shout: ‘2022!’ She was right. And I still take really great care to avoid trends and try to create something different and make my own rules.”
Dressing the cast involves “studying the runways to decide what to stay away from,” adds Fitoussi. “This is not styling.”
“50 per cent of my job is about having good and bad taste. The other 50 per cent is about psychology – understanding a character’s emotional motivation. You need to help build the characters and enhance their emotions with costumes.”
She starts by creating mood boards for the characters. These are photo collages incorporating inspirational ideas and people. Emily’s mood board for this season featured Twiggy wearing men’s suits in the 1960s. For Sylvie, Fitoussi harked back further, looking to the sharp menswear in which Paramount Pictures’ costume designer Travis Banton dressed Marlene Dietrich in the 1930s. A pair of high-waist Stéphane Roland trousers which are a mainstay of Sylvie’s wardrobe are prompted by those MGM’s designer Adrian Adolph Greenburg ( known by the mononym Adrian) created for Katharine Hepburn to wear as Tracy Lord in The Philadelphia Story. “Dietrich was German. Hepburn, American. But to me, they had French ‘chic.’ There is elegance in their simplicity.”
While Leroy-Beaulieu has often discussed how her own mother, Fran?oise Laurent, prompted Sylvie’s exaggerated walk and habit of chain smoking, the French model-turned-Christian Dior accessories designer also made it onto the mood board Fitoussi made for Sylvie. “I saw pictures of Fran?oise and I was truly fascinated,” she admits. “The character of Sylvie is really a tribute to Fran?oise Laurent.”
Fitoussi quashes the question “Like mother, like daughter?” which is prompted by the collarless black leather jacket and swishy chandelier earrings which Liliane Rovère brandishes portraying Sylvie’s risqué “mama,” Hélo?se on the show. The look could have easily worked on her intimidating offspring. However, Hélo?se’s garb is inspired by Régine Zylberberg – the “Queen of the Night” whose decadent namesake Paris disco expanded into a global chain in the 1970s. “I dressed Hélo?se like Régine,” says Fitoussi of Rovère who appeared alongside Leroy-Beaulieu in the Netflix comedy, Call My Agent! “Hélo?se isn’t into power dressing. She’s more rock, more rebel, more sex.”
Hélo?se, as Emily discovers in episode three, “had an affair with Mick Jagger and Rod Stewart at the same time…”
During pre-production, Fitoussi maintains an ongoing dialogue with the cast via Instagram and WhatsApp. “To get their feedback,” she says. “Are they comfortable? Are they understanding where we can go? I remember Philippine laughing about a dress and saying: ‘Maybe – for season five. It’s too early for Sylvie to wear that.’ So I always trust the actors because they are living with their characters.”
The French and Americans who voice disdain for the show’s frivolity miss the point that Emily in Paris is a total flight of fancy. Perhaps that’s why this season the look has toned down somewhat and the script addresses hot-button social issues, including sustainability. In the opening sequence of episode one, Sylvie bounds on screen in a Rick Owens suede skirt suit she originally flaunted in the show’s premiere which aired in October 2020.
“Sylvie’s a working woman,” reasons Fitoussi. “She wears new pieces but she also repeats what works for her. That goes for clothes, shoes and jewellery. Why are we going to change when there’s something perfect? We have Emily and Mindy (Ashley Park) to overdose on fashion.”
That said, in episode one, Mindy offloads a vintage Balmain couture dress - which Emily describes as a “little bit more Kate Middleton than you normally go…”
