The French town of Tulle, snippets of Molly Goddard, and my life-long, creeping feeling of wanting to dress like a ballerina.

A quick, but very massive, MERCI to everyone who has subscribed to Absolument ! After ten weeks of writing, I magically have 300 people following along. (Okay, fine, 298!) When I began this in late October, I hoped I would have *maybe* a couple dozen of you on this little dorky ride with me. It has already transformed me by giving me an extra hop in my step. I am the luckiest—quelle chance ! Thank you!

Now, let’s go on a mental French countryside retreat together, here:

Driving along the autoroutes in France is a treat for one thousand reasons—one of my favorites being the large, brown tourism signage. It seems that every few minutes, you’re meeting a new one. They’re always quite simplistic: a town’s name in sans serif type, a varying hue of marron (brown), and a stylized drawing depicting the notable monuments or productions of the spot. Whether you’re near Paris in the North, entering the Basque Country bordering Spain, driving along the Mediterranean coast, or deep in the countryside, the signs will always greet you the same. Being someone who loves visuals, information, and patterns, I’m infinitely eager to catch a quick glimpse of any (and all) of them.

Photograph courtesy of the internet because I somehow don’t have a proper photo of these panels!

A few weeks ago, while driving home from a friend’s farm in what felt like the middle of nowhere to me, my eyes locked on one particular sign: Tulle. I gasped, "TULLE! Like the fabric?!” and reached immediately for my phone to search for confirmation. Oui, like the fabric! Its name is tulle because it’s from the French town of Tulle. Of course! I found myself joking: “It’s not really champagne unless it’s from the French region of Champagne.” Is it the same rule with tulle?

Tulle’s history: the town and the textile

Geographically, Tulle lies two hours and thirty two minutes from my home, in the middle-south of France, and in the deep rivered valley of Corrèze. It’s a small commune whose history is quite brutal despite its historic connection to the delicate dressings of ballerinas and brides. In the 800s, it was plundered repeatedly by Vikings (which is surprising, because it’s nowhere near the sea), The Black Death bubonic plague hit in the 14th century, and aggressive brigades set the town on fire not too long after. Tulle began gaining a notable upperclass population as it rebuilt itself, but then the Wars of Religion caused the city to become bloody again from 1577-1585. This really is a story of rising and falling!

Rest assured, the rich people rebuilt and the town’s infrastructure benefitted greatly from an architectural competition, bringing in Renaissance-style facades. Beginning in the 17th century, Tulle economically prospered as mills along the river began production of new industries. Paper was one of them, silk another, but the most crucial one to this story was the craft of its namesake textile. The early version of tulle was more akin to lace—semi-transparent and manually, complexly woven via a method called point de Tulle using fine cottons, linens, and/or silks.

Then, as the bad-to-good-to-bad pattern of history repeated, Tulle began producing firearms. Despite this, there weren’t noticeable signs of violence and destruction in the city’s history until a terrible massacre of Tulle citizens during WWII. The town’s path to fame is more light-hearted once again: it’s now considered the accordion capitol of the world—and every August, Tulle hosts a festival dedicated to lacemaking.

Geez, this story depicts humans as being far more complicated than the intricate lacing of tulle itself.

Molly Goddard as today’s Queen of Tulle

This isn’t my first time waxing poetically about British fashion designer Molly Goddard (she was in my roundup of contemporary wedding dresses that reminded me of vintage ones that I am lusting over). The Cut called her the “tulle-whisperer." In another interview (totally worth watching), the messages I gathered were: these are not “prim, proper, and pretty” pieces of clothing. It’s about sensation, and about the “craft, time, and energy that goes into making them.” You can learn so much about Molly’s designs not through any words I could write, but instead through her pictures. I am always fascinated by her process and studio photographs.

My increasing itch to dress like a ballerina:

I have a BIG sensory problem with pants. I’m a dress wearer for life. My poor mom found this out the hard way as soon as I could speak. Give me dresses, please! Give me tights! Give me patent leather shoes! Paint my nails! Coming home from preschool for the first time, I was noticeably peeved while asking my mom: “Why were there BOYS at pretty school?” I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I think my tiny brain envisioned going to school all dressed up so that I could draw and read all day in peace.

Ballet flats have been a closet staple since my vivid memory of purchasing a turquoise leather pair when I was fourteen. I remember thinking, “These are so different from what everyone else is wearing. Am I crazy?” I got called “grandma” more times than I could count—and I didn’t have the self esteem to support it. Now, I can’t imagine my feet sans ballet flats. Although sometimes, in the dead of winter, I’ll suck it up and put on a boot.

Trotting through Paris last spring, pretending I’m a ballerina on vacation—though definitely not eating like one!

When I moved abroad a year ago, I donated or sold a fair share of my clothes and have been slowly building a new wardrobe. Shirred dresses; things with volume in unexpected places; more ballet flats and Mary Janes; socks with ruffled trim, more scoop-necked, body-hugging, black long sleeves; more…ballerina meets fibers student at art school. It’s been fun to mix this aesthetic with my natural gravitation for 1960s/70s vintage clothes with a slight French-esque flair. It feels like I’m growing into the self that the little version of me expected. I’m doing my pretty school homework.

Other Notes:

• Last week was my 1-year anniversary of living in France! Not too far from Tulle is another quite magical town: the stone hilltop pictured below, Rocamadour. I’m adding it to my list of weekend roadtrip destinations.

  

  Photograph via Alamy.

• A deeply moving essay from

  Suleika Jaouad
  about her battle with cancer, a childhood ballet teacher who was strictly addressed as “Madame,” and her body-healing dance ritual: Midnight Alien Ballet.

• I have been looking for the perfect wedding shoe and my mind keeps going back to the classic ballet flat. I was perusing the Repetto site, but then wondered if I could dive even more into ballerina-chic and go for actual Capezio dance shoes. I’m figuratively taking a step back from this idea because maybe it isn’t practical to wear pointe shoes on your wedding day. But then again, I will be dancing…

• Also while going through the above scenario on the Repetto website, I found something awesome: a rehearsal tutu. Can I wear this in a non-dance setting and get away with it? Anyone want to start a ballerina skirt club with me? No?

• British Vogue on Sex and the City and one of the most famous fashion tutus of all time. While, speaking about Carrie Bradshaw’s character, director Darren Star asked: “Who’s going to understand this girl, in New York, in a tutu?” “It isn’t a tutu,” replied Patricia Field, the show’s costume designer. “It’s a tulle skirt.” Patricia Fields wrote an autobiography about her life and her famous styling of the show, including THE skirt.

• While we’re on the subject of Sarah Jessica Parker, I enjoyed reading the New Yorker article about why she keeps playing Carrie Bradshaw.

• Similar to Molly Goddard’s feelings, I’m spent most of my life being ashamed that my femininity equalled something too precious or frivolous. I also firmly held the idea that I would never relate to a “girly” show like Sex and the City or drive a Fiat 500. What a relief to be wrong! I’ve finally learned that it’s actually the opposite (I love the show and I spent years zipping around in a cherry red Fiat 500 Sport). In the highly-networked structure of tulle, in Carrie Bradshaw, in the craftsmanship of fashion design, in the trained endurance of ballet—there’s nothing but solid substance. One million cheers for femininity!!!

xx

With love from Tulle, France, and tulle in all of its other forms.

🩰Kelsey