Lessons From Madame Chic: The Top 20 Things I Learned While Living in Paris [Paperback]

Jennifer L. Scott (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 17, 2011

Have you ever wondered what everyday life is like inside a modern, aristocratic Parisian household? The French are notoriously secretive when it comes to their private lives but Jennifer L. Scott's Lessons from Madame Chic: The Top 20 Things I Learned While Living in Paris, uncovers the very secrets and lifestyle traits that allow Parisians to live such fulfilling and passionate lives. Each chapter reveals a valuable lesson Jennifer learned while living behind Famille Chic's doors in the exclusive 16th arrondissement in Paris. After the lesson is revealed, she provides tips and musings on how to translate the lesson to your own life. Some of the topics explored include cultivating an air of mystery, le no makeup look, 10 item wardrobe, rejection of new materialism, the art of femininity and life as a formal affair.

*PLEASE NOTE: Lessons from Madame Chic is being re-released on November 6, 2012 by Simon & Schuster. Visit jenniferlscott.com and dailyconnoisseur.com for more details.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Personable, anecdote-filled and studded with lifestyle tips... its vivacity and sincerity have struck a chord among women who would like a French role model of their own, but don't have a year to spend apprenticing with one in Paris." - The New York Times

About the Author

Jennifer L. Scott is the writer and editor of The Daily Connoisseur (www.dailyconnoisseur.com) She lives in Santa Monica, California with her eccentric husband, adorable daughter and distinguished Chihuahua. Lessons from Madame Chic: The Top 20 Things I Learned While Living in Paris is her first book. Learn more at www.jenniferlscott.com

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 210 pages
• Publisher: Jennifer L. Scott (November 17, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0615552935
• ISBN-13: 978-0615552934
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (139 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #71,762 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #58 in Books > Travel > Europe > France > Paris

More About the Author

Jennifer L. Scott is the writer and editor of The Daily Connoisseur (www.dailyconnoisseur.com).

She lives in Santa Monica, California with her eccentric husband, adorable daughters and distinguished Chihuahua.

Lessons from Madame Chic: 20 Stylish Secrets I Learned While Living in Paris is her first book.

Learn more at www.jenniferlscott.com

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

63 of 65 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars J'adore! November 6, 2012

By Simply Luxurious

Format:Hardcover

Jennifer L. Scott's Lessons from Madame Chic is certainly a must-have for Francophiles, but it is also a wonderful resource for anyone who wishes to cultivate a more simply luxurious way of living. Through beautiful narrations, Madame Chic's lessons are shared in three different parts on the subjects of Diet & Exercise, Style and Beauty, and lastly, How to Live Well.

Based on Scott's time as a foreign exchange student in Paris as a young woman, she is now a mother of two young daughters, happily married and living in southern California, so she converses with her readers from a relatable platform. Immediately upon reading it again, I was reminded of another author who shares her insights and tips on living well with inspiration from the French - Mireille Guiliano. Scott's tips are weaved skillfully into her experiences and time with Madame Chic and her Parisian family, so much so that you feel you are having a conversation with a trusted, yet wiser girlfriend.

And the beauty of discovering her book was that it didn't have to end once I finished reading it. As the founder of the blog The Daily Connoisseur, readers are able to enjoy a regular dose of inspiration and YouTube video instructions on how to continually integrate the fine art of French living into their every day lives.

The re-released edition of Lessons from Madame Chic (279 pages) contains the same content I initially raved about in my review in April, but is now adequately accessorized with illustrations found throughout the entire book from the talented artist and designer Virginia Johnson.

Filled with specific advice, anecdotes and descriptions of Madame Chic and Madame Chic's entire Parisian family, Scott shares ways to live a fulfilling life that are not only simple, but help to create a luxurious life that is rich and focused on what most all of us seem to want to put at the top of our priority list - healthy relationships, good health and the ability to be our best selves.

As I was reading I found myself underlining a sentence or two on nearly every page that I didn't want to forget, and after going back over these annotations I realized that the lesson of living formally doesn't have to take the beauty or the spontaneity out of living, but in fact it can enhance it. By showing respect to the life we've been given and then continue to create for ourselves we consciously make it all the more enjoyable.

Below are a few ideas for welcoming in a bit more formality and at the same time simplicity that I especially took favor too. Have a look:

1. Play classical music throughout your home

If you don't have any Bach cds laying around the house, simply go to Pandora on your computer, iPad or iPhone and search classical symphonic music, and it will create a radio station for you for free.

2. Eliminate snacking

Each meal that you sit down for is an opportunity to eat well. Scott explains how dinner in Paris with Madame Chic's family always included at least three, sometimes four, courses and one was always a cheese platter, yet still her host family was slender because when they ate it was mindful.

3. Create rituals to look forward to

Maybe every Saturday morning you wake up and stroll down to your favorite coffee shop for a tasty treat and chat with a good friend, or you play checkers with your son every Sunday evening in front of the fire or perhaps you take a bubble bath and savor a glass of wine after Monday has wrapped up. Take time to discover the activities that you enjoy doing either alone or with those you love and make them regular occurrences that are something to look forward to.

4. Wear luxurious lingerie

The mistake that seems to be perpetuated regarding lingerie is that it is worn for someone else. This is not entirely correct. In fact, a woman should wear beautiful, high-quality lingerie for herself. Simply knowing you are keeping something to yourself and at the same time have treated yourself to something luxuriously wonderful is certain to raise your confidence at least a smidge. While it will take time to build your lingerie wardrobe, know that you are worth investing in.

102 of 116 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Unintentional Commentary on US Lifestyle December 16, 2011

By Khezla Durr

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I enjoyed this book tremendously and found the chapters on skin care and makeup especially interesting to me personally. The author comes across as honest and candid about her feelings regarding her experience with French culture. Several things she says have also been discussed in Mireille Giuliano's books, so there is consistency.

However, I could not help but think about how much easier it would be for Americans to have a better work-life balance if so many people I know didn't have to work overloaded jobs at 50 and 60 hours a week to keep from getting laid off, plus deal with 2-hour daily commutes, and bosses who complain vigorously if a person leaves one's desk for anything more than a trip to the restroom or the company microwave to warm a frozen lunch, never mind a refreshing lunchtime walk. This is why we have gyms and home exercise videos, to replace what the French people get naturally in the course of a day's business. Also, it would be easy to turn out beautiful, gourmet meals and have an uncluttered house if the working women I know only had to work part-time like the lady of the house for the French host family of the author. The habit of the Frenchmen to pick up after themselves is a big help to the uncluttered look of a house, as well. How gallant of them.

The big secret of the French weight control seems to be lots and lots of walking and stair climbing. We're just not set up for that. Things here are laid out in a spacious manner conducive to driving and many, many areas, both commercial and residential, are too dangerous to walk in, whether because of pit bulls, no sidewalks, or demographics. The neighborhoods compact enough to walk in for any food marketing are generally older, and simply not safe. These are also the areas being referred to now as "food deserts".

I have just read that French workers receive 30 mandated vacation days per year, plus 10 holidays. When was the last time the majority of U.S. workers you know took any more than a total of 10 business days in a year's time -- and maybe not even that if there have been layoffs in the company, so now extra work is piled on an already overloaded job.

A wonderful book about the French lifestyle, and a sad commentary on ours.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Count me among the five star reviews. This book is terrific! December 22, 2011

By overtakenbyanap

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Wonderful, concise and very well written. A guide to style in the best of the Franco-phile books such as Entre Nous by Debra Ollivier and All You Need to Be Impossibly French by Helena Frith Powell.

Amazingly low price too, for what is a really good little addition to any style library. It will hold it's own with those two, Anne Barone's Chic and Slim and Nina Garcia's books on Style.

The advice is excellent, for example how to stay slim and fit she gives the tips her host mother (she was on an exchange program in Paris) gave her along with her boyfriend's host mother (he was also in the exchange program).

In the advice on style she goes into the merits of a capsule wardrobe of 10 pieces, but unlike the usual minimalist advice she explains that t shirts and outerwear for example don't count. Just the core pieces and those can be shifted by season. She has a lot more in the book, including skin care and makeup tips that she gleaned from her observations, and she finishes with a section on living with joyous attention, a real joie de vivre.

Lovely book and really glad I got it!