French star goes viral for amazing sheer dress
Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu, the actress behind Emily in Paris’ Sylvie Grateau, has challenged what it means to be fashionable in a now-viral photo.
The 58-year-old actress turned heads at Paris Fashion Week’s Ami Fall 2022 show, posing in a sheer, forest green midi-length dress paired with a slouchy black coat, metallic heels, glittering earrings and scarlet nails.
Though many fans of the show have compared her to her fictional role as the former matriarch of Savoir, the actress says her style doesn’t reflect Sylvie’s at all.
“I loved being overdressed in Emily, because I don’t do it in real life,” Leroy-Beaulieu said in a 2020 interview with The New York Times.
“I wouldn’t wear those heels on Paris sidewalks. But it doesn’t matter. The idea was to push all the fashion higher than real.”
But, the risque photo has also sparked discussions around the relationship between ageing and fashion.
In a recent interview with Glamour, Leroy-Beaulieu said we should feel “no guilt or shame around ageing”.
“A world where people cannot age is a dangerous world,” she told the publication.
“I had a talk with my daughter who’s 30 about this recently. She said, ‘Mum, I don’t want to live in a world where women cannot age’.
“I think it’s important to really own this ageing thing and not make it a problem, not make it something we can’t talk about. There’s no guilt or shame around ageing. This is something that happens to everyone, you know?” she said.
“I understand the insecurity, the pressure that we get, especially in our business. But if somebody doesn’t start saying, ‘This is my age, this is who I am, my wrinkles are my wrinkles, I own my wrinkles, this is my whole life…’ it’s kind of sad.”
Having landed her first big break at 52, Leroy-Beaulieu knows what it means to be an older woman in an industry that prioritises youth above almost everything else.
But she wants to pass on this message that getting older doesn’t mean you need to quietly disappear.
“You know how hard it is when you pass 45 or even 40 and people start thinking, ‘Just get out of the scene’. But there’s so much we can do and transmit,” she told Grazia.
“We have a lot to teach the younger girls.”
Image: Getty Images