Well, Lily Collins certainly has some competition on her hands. Netflix’s Emily in Paris was supposed to be a vehicle for the winsome young Collins – but it seems co-star Philippine Beaulieu-Leroy is getting all the attention.
Emily in Paris star Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu attends Paris Fashion Week on January 19, 2022.Credit:Getty
Particularly this week. On Wednesday, the 58-year-old actress attended the Ami show at Paris Fashion Week in a body-hugging, ankle-grazing sheer dress by the brand that left little to the imagination. With an oversized black coat on top and no underwear underneath, she quickly became the most photographed woman in the room – a feat in itself, given Emily Ratajkowski, Carla Bruni and Catherine Deneuve were also in attendance.
On seeing these images, I had two thoughts. First: Beaulieu-Leroy looks incredible – and the glint in her eye suggests she knows it. The mix of wintery accessories works beautifully with that bold dress, as does the combination of no bra and yet no skin on display. It’s almost modest, despite being so daring. Second: it’s fabulous that she can wear this at nearly 60, but there can’t be more than a handful of women her age who would ever dress like that in real life.
Undressed dressing has always been the preserve of the famous. Or the wannabe famous. From Josephine Baker to Kate Moss via Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot and Cher at the 1974 Met Gala, it is a trend left to those with a hunger for column inches and a desire for the starring spot on the front page.
Amusingly, each generation thinks it has invented the naked dress. In the late 18th century, women in Paris wearing semi-sheer muslin and flesh-coloured body stockings were known as Les Sauvages, while Clara Bow wore a scandalous slip with strategically placed art deco embellishments in the 1925 silent film, My Lady of Whim. When Marilyn Monroe sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to President Kennedy in 1962, her sheer, rhinestone studded dress was so tight she had to be sewn into it, and she later revealed she wore nothing underneath.
During a recent interview, Cher told me about the infamous sheer Met Gala gown that got her onto the cover of Time, saying, “When I walked into the place – people gasped. Someone asked, ‘How does it feel being naked?’ I said, ‘It feels great.’”
And that’s the crux of it. Whereas most of us would find it rather nightmarish to walk into a room and find everyone gasping at our appearance, celebrities thrive on it. Hence Cher wearing the same shimmery, cut-out black jumpsuit to the 2017 Billboard Awards that she had worn in 1992. Her age – she was 70 at the time – meant the second outing garnered far more newspaper inches than the first.
You could say the same thing for Beaulieu-Leroy. That see-through Ami dress of hers has already been shared thousands of times on Instagram and provoked a lively debate on London’s Telegraph fashion desk. Would it be quite so topical if the nipples on display belonged to a 26-year-old rather than a 58-year-old?
I suspect not. In the era of the Kardashians and barely-there dress designers such as Nensi Dojaka, we no longer see young women showing their bodies as something particularly daring or scandalous. The writer and influencer Camille Charriere even wore a beautiful sheer dress by Harris Reed to her wedding. But when an older woman wears one, it still has the power to shock.
Clara Bow, Mae West, Rita Hayworth and Jane Birkin may have lived in less permissive eras but they were also all in their twenties when they wore these designs – and the world is far has traditionally been more forgiving of young female flesh, than that of anyone in midlife or beyond.
Beaulieu-Leroy knows this only too well. And is clearly happy to break down these barriers: in the latest series of Emily in Paris, she is filmed wearing a tiny bikini in one scene, and is in her underwear in another.
When I spoke to her about her role in the show last year, she said of her character Sylvie’s notoriously dismissive attitude towards her young employee; “She’s right to kick Emily’s ass because Emily is really arrogant. But really, Sylvie is full of all these negative emotions because she is scared. Women as they age in that world, it’s difficult – they get looked at as disposable goods.”
Although in a dress like this one, there’s absolutely no chance of being invisible. And perhaps that’s the entire point.
The Telegraph, London
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