Emily in Paris: How the Show Mixes Vintage and Contemporary French Style
Emily in Paris is, among other things, a fantasy about clothes. The Netflix series — which follows an American marketing executive navigating life and love in Paris — uses fashion with an almost reckless generosity, dressing its heroine in a succession of bold, colorful, maximalist outfits that bear approximately the same relationship to everyday Parisian dressing as a Technicolor musical does to real life. And yet, buried within the show's gleeful excess, there is a genuine engagement with French fashion history that rewards closer attention.
Costume Design as Character
The show's costume designer, Patricia Field — who previously dressed the women of Sex and the City — made a deliberate choice to use Emily's wardrobe as a form of visual comedy. Where real Parisian women dress with studied nonchalance and a preference for quality over quantity, Emily throws herself into fashion with American enthusiasm and an apparent unlimited budget. The contrast between Emily's exuberant outfits and the more restrained dress of her French colleagues is itself a running joke — and a genuine observation about the cultural differences in how the two nationalities approach fashion.
The French Fashion History in the Background
Behind the show's contemporary styling lies a deep well of French fashion history. The berets, the silk scarves, the preference for a single statement piece worn against simple basics, the ease with a silk blouse or a perfectly cut trouser — all of these are authentically French fashion conventions with roots going back to Chanel, to Yves Saint Laurent, to the Rive Gauche aesthetic of the 1960s and 70s. The show's Parisian characters, particularly Sylvie, embody this tradition: understated, precise, and utterly confident.
Vintage Silhouettes in a Modern Context
Several of Emily's most memorable outfits reference vintage silhouettes directly — the full-skirted 1950s dress, the structured 1960s coat, the wrap dress, the beret-and-trench combination that reads as pure Audrey Hepburn in Paris. The show understands that the most powerful fashion statements often involve reaching back rather than forward, and that French style in particular has always been sustained by a deep relationship with its own history.
The Vintage Connection
The joy of dressing that Emily in Paris celebrates is the same joy that drives vintage shopping — the pleasure of finding something beautiful and wearing it with commitment. Browse our vintage dresses and vintage coats and jackets for pieces with the kind of Parisian-adjacent charm Emily would approve of.
