You have more hangovers than actual parties. You have sex for weight loss (150 calories a pop) - but you never wear sensible shoes. Photo / Getty Images
Cool, chic, smart, sexy – Caroline de Maigret is the ultimate Parisian femme fatale. Now she's written a book about the art of getting older, the French way. Don't expect sensible shoes and early nights. Interview by Julia Llewellyn Smith.
The day that saw the beginning of a midlife crisis for French model and self-styled embodiment of all things Parisian Caroline de Maigret was January 10, 2016 - the day that David Bowie died of liver cancer.
"That is when I realised I was going to die," explains de Maigret. "I saw that if David Bowie, who had all the money and contacts in the world, couldn't heal from a disease, then we're all doomed."
De Maigret was 40 at the time. She must have known death was unavoidable. "Before, I always had the fantasy that I was immortal," she says, shrugging. "When you're young, you're the centre of your world. But then you become older and less selfish and you're like, "Oh f***, the world is going to go on without me.' " The year that followed involved "this feeling of, 'Oh my God, what if . . .' hitting me. What if this is the last time I'm ever considered attractive? What if I can never now completely change my life? It was very hard. I'm in a very happy relationship, but still I was thinking, 'Oh no, I'm going to be with the same man for ever.' I guess that's a dream for some people, but I'm so independent I was horrified."
What did her man - rock musician Yarol Poupaud, 50, with whom she has a 13-year-old son - make of her behaviour? "He knows me, so he just waited for the hurricane to pass and I love him even more now." Did Poupaud, whose Instagram is a blur of leather trousers and guitars, have his own crisis? "He is always on tour, so he stays a teenager forever."
Few of us embark on that era entre deux âges without some pangs, but you can understand why de Maigret might take ageing extra hard. The ultimate Parisian It girl, she is the granddaughter of a prince and the daughter of a count who was deputy mayor of Paris. She studied French literature at the previous Sorbonne before dropping out to become a model. "My parents were horrified. They didn't talk to me for a while, but I'm glad I did it." After all, she was a face of Lancôme and today is an ambassador for Chanel. But when your face is your fortune, watching it alter must be unnerving.
"Actually, I think it's easier for me to age when people are still taking my picture . . . I must not be that bad," de Maigret says. She beams. "It's flattering, so that's a great help. But I can understand that it can't be easy for people who are photographed a lot and used to a certain image to see that image collapsing."
Sitting in a brasserie with a view of both the Seine and scaffold-shrouded, fire-damaged Notre-Dame, de Maigret certainly doesn't make the best poster girl for decrepitude. Aged 44, she's a goddess in a grey polo-neck sweater, jeans and trainers. Her make-up is subtle; her tanned face has a few light lines but they're mainly hidden by her trademark shaggy, self-cut fringe.
Despite her sighing that she doesn't "turn heads any more", when she orders an omelette and chips, with the stipulation that the former's cooked "a bit runny" - then later with her full-beam smile asks if we can have some petits chocolats with our coffees - the waiter looks on the verge of fainting from adoration.
I expected no less. De Maigret is not only a model but a rock chick and writer. She has produced tracks for various artists and is the co-author of the 2014 international bestseller How to Be Parisian.
The title joined a never-ending genre of books designed to imbue we Anglo-Saxonnes with a complexe d'infériorité about the fact Frenchwomen are better lovers, with - despite their daily pains aux chocolat - trimmer figures and better-behaved children.
Naturellement, I'd assumed that de Maigret's second book, Older But Better, But Older: The Art of Growing Up, was here to inform us how, even in their care homes, Parisians had more stylish Zimmer frames and a better line in incontinence pads.
"Ah, non, the book wasn't meant to be about being Parisian at all. It's just about growing old. Still, I guess that part of us melts into everything." De Maigret giggles. On reflection, however, she admits that France does a spectacular line in "iconic older women. We have Simone Veil, Marguerite Duras, Simone de Beauvoir, Isabelle Huppert, Carole Bouquet, Charlotte Rampling, Jane Birkin - well, we share those last two with you English. So yes, we have a lot to look up to."
There are tons of other role models de Maigret has forgotten - take Juliette Binoche, who's 55, or Sophie Marceau, 53. Then there's the fashion crowd - with current Vogue Paris editor Emmanuelle Alt, 52, and her predecessor Carine Roitfeld, 65, rocking their pencil skirts and stilettos. Model Inès de la Fressange, 62, never stops designing chic blazers and cute spotty dresses for Uniqlo.
La reine, of course, is 76-year-old Catherine Deneuve, even if she did somewhat blot her copybook last year by signing an open letter denouncing the MeToo movement and defending "a freedom to bother, indispensable to sexual freedom". "I think Deneuve was a bit fast approaching the subject. You have to understand all the dirt and all the consequences," de Maigret says.
"For me, it was great when the MeToo thing arrived because for 30, 40 years I had taken the Metro and guys had shown me their organ or slapped me on the butt and I'd been like, 'Oh yeah, that's normal.' I knew it was wrong, but it was simply part of being a woman. Part of the reason my look is androgynous is because when you're raised in Paris, you wear jeans to protect yourself."
I'm musing on the fact that the tomboy chic I've failed my entire life to master was actually less a style statement than a means of detracting gropers, when de Maigret laughs. "Of course, now no one looks at me twice."
It's interesting that de Maigret didn't embrace every aspect of male attention, since her book's packed with (light-hearted) grieving for her salad days. "What's very unfair is that in my mind I still feel I am 33, but my body has aged and even though I'm still the same person, people react to you differently. People call you madame not mademoiselle. Sometimes you feel as if you've been erased."
The book is studded with you-know-things-aren't-what-they-used-to-be moments such as, "When a 30-year-old guy arrives at a party and never even glances at you," and, "When a young woman says she hopes to look like you some day."
We non-models may struggle to relate to these, just as we may not recognise the environment where other revelations took place. "At a Chanel show, someone told me I had a really sexy look on the catwalk. I realised it was because I was squinting because I couldn't see the end of it."
Still, many of de Maigret's insights are universal. "There's that moment when you find that first white pubic hair," de Maigret chortles. "Or when you're told you look tired when you think you look your best. Or you have to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom - then I think, 'Oh no!' "The people I work with - I think we're all the same age, but they're 30; we're not. My son's teachers are so much younger than me and they are lecturing me. Even the president of France is younger than me. That was a real shock. Politicians are supposed to be old men."
Still, Emmanuel Macron's wife, Brigitte, at 66, is much older than her. "Yes, this is true, and she's very popular. There's something very ballsy about her that's inspiring."
As the Parisian book reminds us, Frenchwomen prefer to flaunt their intellectual rather than their material wealth. Still, it's fun to abandon re-reading Sartre periodically in favour of the unashamed frivolity of Older But Better. "What we wanted to nail is all the little surprises about ageing that keep hitting you when you're just living your life. Surprises that nobody really talks about."
Maybe they talked, but de Maigret was too busy hanging out in the mosh pit to listen? "It's true - age doesn't really interest you until it hits you. I really didn't realise midlife crises happened to women. I thought it was a man thing - the guy going off with his secretary. But maybe all the women I'd heard about who were depressed were suffering from this."
No doubt brainwashed by stereotypes of icy Parisians, I'm surprised by how friendly de Maigret is. She wrote the book, she says, to help her "gain some distance on my neuroses. I can't fight them because that would be miserable, so the only thing to do is make fun of them and make them less frightening. You just have to digest the new ethos. Middle-aged is a horrible word, but it's a fact. Life isn't the same as before, but it's OK."
I never imagined I had anything in common with a French supermodel but, as we discuss the indignities of the fifth decade, there's much nodding. We giggle about catching sight of ourselves when our phone's accidentally in selfie mode and thinking, who's that crone? "I've thought of posting one of those on Instagram, but I don't have the guts," de Maigret says (she has 883,000 followers).
"I had a moment recently when I woke up and had what I was sure was a pillow mark," she continues. "Then a week later it was still there and I thought, 'I have to get used to it.' " Another jarring moment was when de Maigret visited the dermatologist to have some moles inspected. "She puts her fingers over my face and says, 'So what are you going to do with these lines? Do you want me to fill them?' I'd gone for a medical reason and I ended up having something put in my mind that I hadn't asked for, because so far I was lucky enough to be OK with myself. The dermatologist said, 'Oh, but it's almost too late now.' " Too late for what? "Too late because the lines have started and now people are going to see them. It wasn't very nice."
It's not, de Maigret adds, that she's against Botox and fillers. "I would love to have some, but I don't have the balls." What about her friends? "Some have had injections for a long time. It's a big cliché to say Frenchwomen don't do anything. Of course they do; it's just not too often. In France, if you can see a woman has had surgery or Botox, it's considered a botched job."
We agree that these days if we don't wear at least some make-up we look ill, and the cosmetics we've used for decades have suddenly become obsolete. "All that knowledge you have acquired should be useful, but the shape of your face has changed. No sharp lines any more. Everything should be a bit blurry, because blurry make-up goes with a blurry face."
De Maigret dyes her hair and - even if she still eschews conditioner because it makes her Aerosmith locks too slick - has recently started brushing her hair. "When your face is not so perfect any more, you don't want to add more mess."
Does she understand the term bag lady? De Maigret looks blank. What about "mutton dressed as lamb"? Again, de Maigret needs an explanation. "Ah! Yes, I've had to change a few things in my wardrobe, because suddenly you're in front of the mirror and they don't work any more.
"I can't do the preppy look now - the Claudine collar [she's talking about a Peter Pan collar]. It looks super-old on me now." I make a mental note to send my Agnès B dress with just such a collar to the charity shop. "And I have to be careful with anything too classic. There's a limit. If I wear a collar with a jacket, it's going to look very stiff."
Has de Maigret, like me, recently noticed she's gone up a trouser size? "Ah, oui, it's so unfair when I eat the same as always. Too tight clothes don't work so well on me any more. I've found if I still want a certain look, the best thing to do is to take two sizes up. A bigger coat is much more flattering than one in my actual size."
Have her feet grown? "Yes, I have gained half a size." Mine too, I say, adding that I've long given up on high heels. For de Maigret, however, this is a frumpish step too far.
"I am lucky - I am 5ft 10½in and my man is much shorter than I am as well, so I don't need heels all the time, but when I go to party, I need them. Heels create a good figure. They help you hold yourself differently; they lift up your bum. But I wear them maybe two hours maximum. It's why I don't like weddings. You have to wear heels for too long."
How about bikinis? "I gave them up 10 years ago. I maybe would wear them in a very faraway place where no one would see me, but if I am on holiday with friends - never. You have to keep some part of the mystery, to make people think you are still the same as ever. They say Frenchwomen don't get fat, but everyone gets fat. It's just that we don't talk about it, so nobody need know."
That, essentially, is the key to de Maigret's gang's je ne sais quoi - they don't bang on about their flaws, but just discreetly do what they can to fix them. There's also the fact - as her last book affirms - that the Parisienne is a "selfish woman" who "does not stop existing the day she has a child" and "does not give up her somewhat adolescent lifestyle".
"The therapists say that a frustrated mother is going to have a frustrated child," de Maigret shrugs. "I know that I can pay my son better attention if the rest of my life is filled with things I want to do."
"Things I want to do" - that seems to encapsulate the Parisian philosophy. Apart from pounding the trottoirs, de Maigret doesn't exercise at all. "I've never worked out. I understand I really need it, but it's never interested me," she shrugs. "People say you will learn to love it, but I can't force myself."
The only indulgence de Maigret has cut out is smoking - a direct result of her Bowie inspired crise. "I realised I can't be scared of dying and still smoke. But it's still hard. Every time I get a little wasted, I miss it."
Ah, getting wasted - a near-nightly component of my twentysomething life, now impossible, so dire would be the consequences. "I know. When young people complain about having a hangover I'm like, 'You wait.' Now a hangover isn't being a little tired; it's about not being able to get out of bed in the morning. I need 48 hours to recover, so I like to go out on a Friday night and then I spend a lot of time working out how many aspirins I can take in a day. I still go out with my friends on week nights. It's just all I drink is a little beer."
I say my friends now like to meet for dinner at 6.30pm. De Maigret looks horrified. "We would never eat so early." Even her quiet nights finish around 1am. "I'm with my son until about 9.30pm, so after that is when my other life starts, with my man or by myself, reading a book or watching a movie."
I love how de Maigret always refers to Poupaud as "my man". They've been together 15 years and there are no plans for marriage - that's very un-Parisian. "But I am very happy. I'm not with him just because I want to be in a couple. Once you've experienced a few relationships you know that the grass is not always greener, that after two or three years the romance will be not so strong, so you might as well stay with the person with whom you have the coolest conversation."
Instead, she lives vicariously through her single girlfriends, many of whom are "having a blast" on Tinder. "I'm always pushing them to do the most outrageous stuff and they're like, 'I'm not your guinea pig.' " As she leaves on her motorbike taxi, I spot she's only eaten one of the two truffles delivered by the adoring waiter and, as soon as she's out of sight, I gobble the remainder. I don't feel guilty. I'm just following what I now know to be the middle-aged Parisian creed: "Enjoy every moment. You don't know how long you have left."
Written by: Julia Llewellyn Smith
© The Times of London
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