The French Brown

French women have a colour palette that they stick too. Gd forbid they diverge and add a splash of yellow or pink.

They prefer to stick to 

1. Grey

2. Black

3. Brown

4.  What I refer to as "kaka brown"

Kaka brown is not a deep rich brown, but a brown with a hint of burgandy. It's awful, but the French can't get enough.

They will wear a shiny, quilted coat in this colour over cordouroy pants in this colour. They will probably often own a few sweaters as well.

This bodes well for me at sales time, because all the actual colours are left. 

I don't know why they like this particular shade of brown, it does nothing for them. Half the time the sky is dreary and you would think that they would want to cheer themselves up. 

There aren't that many blondes also so you see French women with boring brown hair, with a boring brown coat, over boring brown pants (that are always an inch to short to cover their heels) over black pointed boots. 

These brown coats are always reflectively shiny. It makes them look cheap, but I'm sure they are expensive. And always quilted. We wear those coats in Canada too, but it is cold in Canada, and we wear them in non-shiny colours.  Why don't they buy a nice peacoat here where the weather permits it? 

While I am on this subject I might as well describe the typical French women over 30.

Her hair is short, of course, for she chops it off around 30.  That is why there are a million and one hairdressers in my tiny town, French women are in them all the time making sure their hair stays short.

She wears funky glasses.

There is also a funky scarf, maybe with pompoms on the end. Usually patterned.

Underneath the coat there is usually a turtleneck, over which there is a sweater. Usually in brown, but maybe in grey or black.

The pants are rarely jeans, or proper work trousers  but are in an interesting (unflattering) material like cordordory. Like I said before,  even though French women are short, the pant is never quite long enough to cover the boot.

To their credit, they don't wear running shoes/uggs and sweatpants out like some people I know (ahem) in Canada. 

* all pics are from Etam, a popular woman's store in Europe. (except last photos which are from Roots)