Interesting that France’s 24-hour news channel, LCI, referred to the swine flu epidemic as the “Mexican flu” both in text and spoken news last night. Why pick on pigs, many of whom live in France, when you can blame a country across the ocean?  Actually, after the many very sad and serious televised images of farmers during the Bird flu epidemic and of course the beef bans during the Mad Cow scare, you can’t blame the pork lobby for being worried. Unlike, other viruses, however, people cannot get Swine  flu, from eating pork, a food the French love (jambon, saucisson). Still, seems the pressure might be on the media to head-off a pork scare. 

Finally a bright spot in another cool and cloudy Paris week. Coco Avant Chanel (Coco Before Chanel in English) directed by Anne Fontaine came out April 22, and I was in the theater the next morning to check it out. The movie covers Chanel’s early life from the orphanage, to the beginnings of her Paris couture house. Along the way you see her determination to become someone unique, and her complete belief in her own taste and style. You also see where her signature looks come from: the Peter Pan collars, men’s shirts and jersey fabrics. The film is sprinkled with “fashion moments” as well as beautiful settings and a dashing hero. And, at the end, a very stylized, “ode-to-Chanel” fashion show for which the actual House of Chanel obviously opened its archives. Karl Lagerfeld is credited with designing the film’s star — a sometimes bratty Audrey Tautou — outfits.Overall, I liked the film, which will be released in the USA this Fall. I had read and enjoyed the biography by Edmonde Charles Roux, and I simply sat back and enjoyed the gorgeous images of country houses, horse races and the beach at Deauville. Not to mention some great clothes and excellent acting by Benoît Poelvoorde as Balsan.