I am back in Paris, temperature here is minus 9 degrees, when we landed in Charles de Gaulle, we had to wait for two hours for our luggage because the holds were frozen ! By chance I had a bad feeling in the plane and stole one of those itchy Air France blankets to put around my hips, which definitively prevented me from catching a flu. 

Anyway, I read this book during our australian trip…

For those who wouldn’t be familiar with the author, Francoise Hardy is famous for her singular participation in french music. She started her career as the androgyn outsider during Brigitte Bardot’s golden era, but she was more fitted for a Paco Rabanne or a Courreges dress than Vichy prints, celebrating more than anyone the painful and lonely teen years some get to know.

Her long-limbed silhouette has been part of the scene since, she built her own label, managed to raise her child while working and befriended with icons such as Serge Gainsbourg, Yves Montant, Michel Berger… Bob Dylan even asked her to come backstage at the Olympia in Paris or he wouldn’t sing the second part of his show. So it was almost relief to me to learn an artist of her range was most of the time unsatisfied with her recordings, her album covers or her press releases, many people she worked with didn’t really understand her and tried to push her in what was trendy or agreed on projects with her and changed it last minute, things that already happened to me.

Francoise was married with Jacques Dutronc, their couple was based on -how can I say- freedom of relationship, no strings attached ? Well for him at least…How interesting to realize once again, through her eyes, drastic differences between men and women on random subjects… Which one of you bitches would be up to become best friend with your man favorite lover and get ready to receive advice from her on how to bring him back in bed for good ?

Even though I wouldn’t be able to cope with most of the things Francoise had chosen to, I loved to follow her all these years through her book, her smoothness has never been weak to me and if she was not the kind to punch her fist on the table, she managed to get what made her happy in the end.