To my friends, colleagues and correspondents:
From Look online

Normally I do not send my own editorials, but this time I have really had it with the French. This last couture week was really too much--the rudeness towards Americans that is so much a part of Paris life has escalated. I am sick of spending my time and money to report back to our international audience about the fashion industry of a country as flagrantly rude and uninformed as France. Please read my editorial, published this month in www.fashionlines.com, and pass it on to others if you wish. By the way, the former secretary of state mentioned in the piece is George Shultz, a friend and Stanford colleague of ours.
all my best,
Christine Suppes
editor in chief
www.fashionlines.com
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Where Was American Vogue?
By Christine Suppes

We looked everywhere for the American Vogue team before we realized they just weren't covering couture this season. One of the Fashionlines editors mentioned their vivid absence to a former Secretary of State, one who all of us at Fashionlines adore--a guy who REALLY likes women. His comment about Vogue not being in Paris? "Good!"

Oh dear...Paris and in particular, a certain snotty Dominique de Villepin, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, has managed to chill the warmth we American fashion writers have felt for Paris.. The 49 year old Mr. de Villepin, who resembles a silver weasel, referred to the US foreign policy as "too simplistic." Ooooo, scary, Mr. de Villepin--we Americans want to be as complicated as the French some day! Weasel out of wars until the last bloody minute, be rude to heads of states, be ignorant about the facts. Let's face it, the French have got the clothes and the wine, and they LOVE to tell others how it is...they just don't like to do anything or commit to anything themselves! Did you know that the Oxford English Dictionary, the definitive dictionary of the English language, has as its sixth entry for the word weasel: "1807-08 W. Irving, Salamagundi, A little meagre, weazel-faced Frenchman?" They have been weasels for hundreds of years!

Here's a good one for our readers---it will illustrate the French warmth, helpfulness, business savvy and sensitivity perfectly. Fashionlines requested a ticket to attend the Philip Treacy show this season. A beautiful invitation was sent over to us in Paris. Then, the day before the show, we received a phone call from Beatrice Keller, the Press Office of Treacy, informing us that even though we had a ticket, we would not be let in due to undisclosed "security issues". Beatrice Keller, who obviously exhibits all the disabilities of her greater namesake Helen, without any of the warmth, intelligence or compassion, then flatly turned down our polite (though understandably shocked) request for show photos with the following comment: "Fax me if you want photos." In Public Relations 100, Miss Keller flunks out. But then so does Lionel Jospin, the former French Prime Minister, who refused to meet with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in France one recent summer, because it would take away from his vacation!

How hollow is the City of Light when you realize it's only nuclear light on which they are running Paris? It's sad that a country with so much to offer has to be so small. The French are rapidly rendering themselves obsolete, and they can thank among others, their Mr. de Villepin, whose megalomaniac behavior filters down to the second rate press offices. All I can think to write or say at this point is that I am sorry for the French.