my stylish french girlfriends - Christelle

A while ago I promised you a series of posts about some of the stylish girls I know here.  

I wasn't picky, I just wanted my candidates to be totally gorgeous, talented, creative, to live in a beautiful setting, to have a great job and to be willing to be interviewed and photographed by yours truly.  Surely not too much to ask!  Amazingly I found that I have friends who tick ALL the boxes - lucky, lucky me!!

I'm starting with Christelle.  Anyone who has visited me here will surely remember stopping at Christelle's beautiful little brocante shop.  It took some persuading for her to talk about herself but graciously she accepted, so here we go, a little Q and A, peppered with pictures taken in her home and in her delicious store:

Hi Christelle, thank you for accepting to kick off this French girlfriend series, first of all can you tell us how do you like to dress?

C:  - Merci de m'avoir invitée!  I'm a bit shy about talking about me, but I'll try!  I generally wear neutral, natural colours, often linen.  Clothes that fit in with my active days, my favourite shoes are simple white Converse, I wear them into the ground!

Your style comes across as very natural, rather like your interior design, do you sometimes dress up or wear a lot of make-up?

  C:   I hardly every wear any jewellery, unless it's very discreet, and I really don't use much make-up, sometimes a little mascara.

Your work looks such fun, and you do it so well and so passionately, but you have a young family, do you find it easy to be a maman and to run your business?

C:   I know how lucky I am to be working from my home,  and I try to be sure that the children make the most of me when they get back from school, even though sometimes it's difficult to shut the door to the boutique or to my workshop.   My 'me-time' in the week is early Sunday morning, when the family is still asleep, and I go to look for brocante treasures on the local fairs.

Would you like to live in town, or do you think your place is in the country?

C:  Oh non!!  I could never live in town, I love our home, I love being up early in the morning and enjoying a cup of coffee in my garden before anyone else is awake.  We have good friends in our little village, we love village life.  I wouldn't trade places for anything.

Do you think you could have opened your brocante shop, out here in the country, without your blog,    Bord de Scène?

C:  When I created my blog I met some lovely people, who have become good friends.  It was them who encouraged me to open my shop.  After that I began to realise how popular decoration blogs are, I'm sure that without the blog I could never have opened a store in such a small and remote village.

What happens about meals in your home?  Do you like to cook, do you spend a long time in your kitchen? 

C:    Ah! j'adore la cuisine!  I love to cook for my family, but I don't often follow a recipe.  I love to create in the kitchen, open the fridge door and put together a meal with whatever I find.  I cook with fresh ingredients, we buy our eggs from a neighbour, our vegetables from the village farmer ....  I often prepare dishes that bubble away for a while, like my grandmother used to do.  My sweet speciality is meringue, my friends love them     [yup, I can vouch for that!!]

I asked Christelle if she thought she is a real "femme française", she just laughed and said she couldn't possibly reply, the same answer came when I tried to discover how she stays so slim and lovely looking.

  Charming and modest ... maybe that's what it's all about, being truly French ....

I hope you enjoyed this mini-interview, if you come to visit me here one day, I promise I'll take you to Christelle's brocante and let you enjoy meeting her and seeing her store first hand!   In the meantime if you want to buy from her directly keep an eye on things here.    If you want to see more of Christelle's beautiful home you can see pictures here, or alternatively buy this book that features her salon on the cover and more inside!

Next week - a new French girlfriend tells all!