Kate Betts. (2015). My Paris Dream: An Education in Style, Slang, and Seduction in the Great City on the Seine. Random House Publishing Group.

Kate Betts. 2015. My Paris Dream: An Education in Style, Slang, and Seduction in the Great City On the Seine. Random House Publishing Group.

Kate Betts, My Paris Dream: An Education in Style, Slang, and Seduction in the Great City On the Seine. Random House Publishing Group, 2015.

Kate Betts. My Paris Dream: An Education in Style, Slang, and Seduction in the Great City On the Seine. Random House Publishing Group, 2015.

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1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: Betts, Kate
   • bioText: Kate Betts has been covering the world of style for twenty-five years, first as a reporter in the Paris bureau of Women’s Wear Daily and later as an editor at Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and Time magazine. The youngest person ever to serve as editor in chief of Harper’s Bazaar, she is also the author of the critically acclaimed book Everyday Icon: Michelle Obama and the Power of Style. Betts lives in New York City with her husband, the writer Chip Brown, and their two children.
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My Paris Dream

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A charming and insightful memoir about coming of age as a fashion journalist in 1980s Paris, by former Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar editor Kate Betts, the author of Everyday Icon: Michelle Obama and the Power of Style

“You can always come back,” my mother said. “Just go.”
As a young woman, Kate Betts nursed a dream of striking out on her own in a faraway place and becoming a glamorous foreign correspondent. After college—and not without trepidation—she took off for Paris, renting a room in the apartment of a young BCBG (bon chic, bon genre) family and throwing herself into the local culture. She was determined to master French slang, style, and savoir faire, and to find a job that would give her a reason to stay.
After a series of dues-paying jobs that seemed only to reinforce her outsider status, Kate’s hard work and willingness to take on any assignment paid off: Her writing and intrepid forays into la France Profonde—true France—caught the eye of John Fairchild, the mercurial fashion arbiter and publisher of Women’s Wear Daily, the industry’s bible. Kate’s earliest assignments—investigating the mineral water preferred by high society, chasing after a costumed band of wild boar hunters through the forests of Brittany—were a rough apprenticeship, but she was rewarded for her efforts and was initiated into the elite ranks of Mr. Fairchild’s trusted few who sat beside him in the front row and at private previews in the ateliers of the gods of French fashion. From a woozy yet mesmerizing Yves Saint Laurent and the mischievous and commanding Karl Lagerfeld to the riotous, brilliant young guns who were rewriting all the rules—Martin Margiela, Helmut Lang, John Galliano—Betts gives us a view of what it was like to be an American girl, learning about herself, falling in love, and finding her tribe.
Kate Betts’s captivating memoir brings to life the enchantment of France—from the nightclubs of 1980s Paris where she learned to dance Le Rock, to the lavender fields of Provence and the grand spectacle of the Cour Carrée—and magically re-creates that moment in life when a young woman discovers who she’s meant to be.
Praise for My Paris Dream
“[A] glittering coming-of-age tale.”—Entertainment Weekly (The Must List)
“Fashion and self-examination—froth and wisdom—might seem like odd bookfellows, but Betts brings them together with winning confidence.”—The New York Times Book Review
“As light and refreshing as an ice cream cone from the legendary Berthillon, My Paris Dream evokes the sights, sounds, smells and styles of 1980s Paris.”—USA Today
“My Paris Dream is awesome.”—Man Repeller
“What was Bett’s Paris dream? Her dream was her awakening, [which] is elegantly chronicled in these pages.”—The Daily Beast
“For those who are interested in the men and women involved in haute couture, Betts’ reminiscences will be a delight.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Full of slangy French, delectable food and swoon-worthy fashion.”—BookPage
“An amazing story of a young woman in Paris trying to break into the fashion business.”—Sophia Amoruso, author of #GIRLBOSS
 
“Kate Betts’s story brought me back to my own young self and the journey I...

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: Entertainment Weekly (The Must List)
   • content: "[A] glittering coming-of-age tale."
2. • premium: False
   • source: USA Today
   • content: "[Kate Betts] shares her coming-of-age in a self-assured book that should be given to every college senior with a Doisneau poster (or Chanel ad) on her wall. . . . Fashion and self-examination--froth and wisdom--might seem like odd bookfellows, but Betts brings them together with winning confidence. . . . Young worshipers of Paris--and of fashion magazines--are in for an education. Those of us who've been there and back will find it entertaining and sneakily poignant reading on the flight to Charles de Gaulle."--The New York Times Book Review "As light and refreshing as an ice cream cone from the legendary Berthillon, My Paris Dream evokes the sights, sounds, smells and styles of 1980s Paris."
3. • premium: False
   • source: Man Repeller
   • content: "My Paris Dream is awesome."
4. • premium: False
   • source: Kirkus Reviews
   • content: "What was Bett's Paris dream? Her dream was her awakening, [which] is elegantly chronicled in these pages."--The Daily Beast "For those who are interested in the men and women involved in haute couture, Betts' reminiscences will be a delight."
5. • premium: False
   • source: BookPage
   • content: "Full of slangy French, delectable food and swoon-worthy fashion."
6. • premium: False
   • source: Elizabeth Berg, author of The Dream Lover
   • content: "An amazing story of a young woman in Paris trying to break into the fashion business as a journalist, My Paris Dream is a fun read. Kate Betts's trajectory of inventing herself is uniquely her own but incredibly universal as well."--Sophia Amoruso, author of #GIRLBOSS "With beauty, poignancy, and stirring precision, Kate Betts describes what it means to come into your own by going far from home. My Paris Dream is a valentine to a city, a language, and the thrills and confusions of young love and young ambition. But, even more so, it's a tribute to style itself. Betts has all the elements--grace, humor, humanity, wisdom. What a gift that she has shared them in these delightful pages."--Meghan Daum, author of The Unspeakable "Kate Betts's story brought me back to my own young self and the journey I made--in my case, from a small town in Illinois to New York City. She's captured that youthful fearlessness and the romantic impulse we have to strike out and find ourselves--through work that inspires us, through friendships that sustain us, and through heartbreaks that help us learn about our deepest desires. This is an enchanting, magical memoir."--Cindy Crawford "When I first met Kate I was wowed by her intellect and dazzled by her style--I idolized her. Now that I've read her brilliant and stylish memoir of her early years breaking into fashion, it is clear to me that Paris was the catalyst that turned her into the woman she was always meant to be. And this is her unforgettable story."--Stacy London "We all have our own Paris, wherever it is--the place that made us who we are--and this is Kate Betts's: vintage late 1980s, effortlessly stylish, a little gritty, and seductive as hell. My Paris Dream is a coming-of-age story that crackles with brilliantly drawn, larger-than-life characters, fashion-world intrigue, and a hint of bittersweet nostalgia."--Luke Barr, author of Provence, 1970 "What an entertaining read this is! This is a paeon not only to the City of Light but to the pleasures--and perils--of following your heart."
7. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     March 1, 2015
     One woman's passionate pursuit of fashion in the City of Light. When Time contributing editor Betts (Everyday Icon: Michelle Obama and the Power of Style, 2011) went to Paris as a high school graduate in 1982, she dreamed of returning to the city to live. After graduating from Princeton four years later, she fulfilled her dream. She wanted to be a foreign correspondent, writing articles and news stories on the important events happening around her, but she quickly became immersed in Paris' dynamic world of fashion. In this lighthearted, appealing memoir, Betts takes readers back in time to when she was a young woman, still searching for her identity, a tribe, or family of her own choosing, and a place to call home. She intermingles memories of life in her little flat in Paris, her French girlfriends, and long weekends with her lover with the rapid-paced world of writing about French haute couture. After landing a job at Fairchild Publications writing for Women's Wear Daily and W magazines, Betts' life escalated into the whirlwind that constitutes the fashion scene in one of the most fashion-conscious cities in the world. She learned to interview well-known designers and models and those whose work had yet to hit the big time, and she includes enjoyable anecdotes about many of these people. However, with impossibly long work hours and a highly demanding boss, the author's world telescoped inward until every waking moment revolved around the gossip and anticipation of each new fashion season. Suddenly, she discovered she had lost her Paris dream. For those who are interested in the men and women involved in haute couture, Betts' reminiscences will be a delight. For those who know nothing about fashion, the name-dropping may be tiresome, but the book is diverting nonetheless. A colorfully descriptive memoir of life as a writer working the Paris fashion beat.

8. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     April 15, 2015
     

     A move to Paris after her graduation from Princeton University provided journalist Betts (Everyday Icon: Michelle Obama and the Power of Style) with a real-life postgraduate education in both French life and fashion. Betts, who eventually rose through the well-dressed ranks at various publications before becoming a senior editor at Vogue and editor of Harper's Bazaar, concentrates her attentions here on the several years in the 1980s she spent in Paris. This was a time of absorbing the mysteries of French chic from friends and lovers as well as the realities of the fashion publishing world from her associates at W and WWD, where she toiled while trying to figure out whether her future was in France or the United States. The breakneck pace of magazine publishing was often at odds with the more leisurely milieu of friends, food, and fun the author's Parisian acquaintances inhabited, and required a fair amount of juggling of travel, dates, and wardrobe. Betts's account of those tumultuous years is replete with industry gossip but also conveys the importance of the business in economic and historic terms. VERDICT Francophiles and fashonistas alike will enjoy this look back at the practical, not sentimental, education of an American in Paris. [See Prepub Alert, 11/10/14.]--Therese Purcell Nielsen, Huntington P.L., NY

     Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

9. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     May 1, 2015
     Just go. That's what Kate Betts' mother told her when bombings in Paris threatened to derail her plans to move there after her graduation from Princeton in 1986. Kate had become enamored with the city on a visit years earlier, and in following her mother's advice, she entered a world of surprise and sophistication. Her planned one-year stay stretched into several, during which she made friends and had some flings. Betts, who would later hold editorial positions at Vogue and Harper's Bazaar, brings a fashion expert's practiced eye to how people present themselves and what it says about them. Her general pronouncements about the habits and character of the French people are mixed with enough gritty insider detail to make this perfect reading for armchair travelers. Fashion fans will be drawn in as well by learning how Betts broke into the business writing for men's and society magazines after a series of entry-level jobs. Although Betts would never fully belong in Paris, she learned, during her stay, some of what it means to be French, which is all that travel-memoir readers seek.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

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A charming and insightful memoir about coming of age as a fashion journalist in 1980s Paris, by former Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar editor Kate Betts, the author of Everyday Icon: Michelle Obama and the Power of Style

“You can always come back,” my mother said. “Just go.”
As a young woman, Kate Betts nursed a dream of striking out on her own in a faraway place and becoming a glamorous foreign correspondent. After college—and not without trepidation—she took off for Paris, renting a room in the apartment of a young BCBG (bon chic, bon genre) family and throwing herself into the local culture. She was determined to master French slang, style, and savoir faire, and to find a job that would give her a reason to stay.
After a series of dues-paying jobs that seemed only to reinforce her outsider status, Kate’s hard work and willingness to take on any assignment paid off: Her writing and...

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