Your Elegance Questions, Answered

Readers' most-asked elegance questions, answered: dressing elegantly in casual settings, adding personality to professional outfits, the skirt-and-heel rule, elegance in a bigger body, wearing a headscarf elegantly, watches, speaking well, handling criticism, declining intrusive questions, and the stories behind how I learned all this.

These questions came in from readers and viewers, and I selected the ones I thought would interest most of you, from practical styling to the more personal. Coffee and pastries optional, but recommended.

How do you dress elegantly in a casual environment?

By balancing connotations. A very strict, office-like outfit overshoots a casual setting like a school or a clinic, so add laid-back elements to a classic base. Two formulas work reliably: jeans with a casual top, elevated by heels, a classy bag, or fine jewelry; or jeans with a structured blouse and more relaxed shoes. Whichever you choose, an elegant outfit always keeps one classic element, in its structure, its colour, or its material. And when in doubt, remember it is always better to be slightly too classy than not classy enough.

People's opinion of you does nothing to your life unless you decide it matters.

How do you bring personality into professional outfits?

Through one statement piece against a classic base. A slightly funky shoe under a classic outfit; a blazer that is classic in shape but personal in material, tweed, velvet, or silk; or, my favourite discreet trick, a blazer or coat with a playful inner lining, patterns or drawings that only flash when you move. A designer friend of mine lined her coat with the same motifs as the mouldings on her ceiling. You keep the professional codes doing the talking, and one detail quietly tells your story.

Is "the shorter the skirt, the flatter the heel" a real rule?

Yes, and French women still live by it. A short skirt already shows a lot of leg, which reads as sexy on its own; add a high heel, also sexy, and the outfit tips over the top. With a flat shoe, the leg is the only sexy element, and the look stays elegant. The reverse holds too: very high heels work beautifully when nothing else in the outfit is sexy, because the heels do the talking for the whole look. Elegance is the suggested kind of attractiveness, never the obvious kind, so let one element speak at a time.

Can you be elegant in a bigger body?

Absolutely, and I am glad this was asked. Elegance lives in how you carry yourself, how you speak, and the energy you convey, and the clothes follow the same principles on every body. The key, which can feel counterintuitive, is structure: shape at the shoulders, and a marked waist placed just under the ribcage, which creates the classic elegant proportion of long legs and a shorter torso. Then avoid anything skin-tight, not because you should not take space, but because flow is where grace and femininity live. Structure at the frame, flow over it, on any body, that is elegance. And there are plus-size creators who dress beautifully and move with real delicacy, living proof of it.

How do you wear a headscarf elegantly?

I will answer from the French-elegance perspective, which you can blend with your own knowledge of what a headscarf means and requires. French elegance asks that femininity be conveyed through suggestion rather than display, and a headscarf is naturally aligned with that: its flow conveys femininity, and it frames the face, drawing the eye upward. Build the rest of the outfit on the usual French mix of classic and laid-back. Then play with the scarf's own connotations: soft colours add a gentle, girlish note, dark ones read serious and mysterious; silk or muslin flows more femininely than thick cotton; and a boldly patterned scarf should be the statement piece over a minimal outfit. Since it sits beside your face, matching your undertone keeps the harmony.

Do watches count as jewelry, and how do you wear one elegantly?

They absolutely count, and as a visible piece: a watch takes real space on the wrist, so choose it as deliberately as any jewelry, not as a gadget that happens to tell the time. Wear it as the only piece on that wrist, never stacked, and proportioned to your wrist. Keep it as close to jewelry as possible, in gold, silver, or rose gold. Smartwatches, useful as they are, are not the most elegant object; if you rely on one, treat it as the practical exception rather than part of the outfit. I rarely wear mine, precisely because it catches the eye more than I want it to.

Does speaking formally ruin the impression you make?

Quite the opposite. The more careful your words, whatever your tone, the more seriously you are taken. I have been told I "speak like a book," and the only people who meant it as an insult are people whose opinion I would not take. I barely swear and rarely use slang, and I have never once missed them. Better still, when beautiful language comes casually, people are doubly impressed: they meet someone articulate and approachable, and they respect both. Speak as beautifully as you can; it has only ever brought me good.

How do you handle criticism for dressing elegantly?

By saying thank you, because I am proud of it. When someone says "oh, you're so fancy today," the criticism is never really about you; your presentation stirs something in them about their own. Presenting well earned me my education, my scholarship, my jobs, my pay, and my business, so yes, I take it seriously. And here is the deeper truth: people's opinions are only reflections of their own beliefs. They do nothing to your life unless you decide they matter, and I have decided mine is too happy for that.

How do you elegantly decline questions about marriage and children?

By starving the conversation. I am thirty-three, I do not have children, and it is not currently my desire, so I get this question often. Never give a reason: a reason gives people something to chew on, and you owe no justification. Say simply, "I've thought about it a lot, and it's not something I want," with kindness in your voice and firmness in your words. Then be the broken record. "You'll change your mind." Maybe. "You'll regret it." That's a risk I'm willing to take. "Have you considered..." I'm not looking for advice on this, thank you. Remember that the disrespect is theirs for prying, not yours for declining, and in my experience the broken record simply bores people back into leaving you your peace.

How did you learn so much about fashion?

A mix of obsession, education, and time. I pored over fashion magazines as a child, studying lines, materials, and silhouettes, and drew elaborate outfits for my characters. My grandmother and mother educated my eye. And I remember the exact moment connotations clicked: at ten, I fell in love with a white lace top in a shop, and my mother gently explained that it borrowed the codes of lingerie and would tell a story about me I did not intend to tell. I took it off immediately, and spent the rest of the day turning it over in my head. That was the door opening. Growing up in France, surrounded by well-dressed women, I then spent years reading outfits until the system I teach today took shape.

Why did you stop being a lawyer?

Because I was not happy, and I believe happiness in life is possible; I see people who have it, and I have it now. I genuinely enjoyed how law works, applying text to facts to reach an outcome, and a data-protection specialisation carried me abroad. But the day-to-day was nothing like what I had imagined, and I never loved the professional crowd, which could be rather presumptuous. I had always dreamt of independence, so when the world shut down, I quit, built a following as an illustrator, then spent three years teaching others to grow on social media, then worked in marketing. The entrepreneurial fire never left. I remain grateful for the law, though: not a week goes by without me relying on my legal training.

Where does the name Mademoiselle Spends come from?

It was almost a finance podcast. I wanted to share what I had learned about money with other women, told through my passion for fashion, and one night, half-asleep and asking for a name, "Mademoiselle" arrived; "Spends" followed, because it was to be a podcast about money. I recorded a few episodes. Then, planning the YouTube channel to go with it, my husband wisely pointed out that finance was a skill I was still building, and asked what came effortlessly. I heard myself say, "If I could, I would only talk about handbags." So why not do exactly that? By then I had fallen in love with the name, and I kept it, even if it is not the obvious one.

What was growing up in a château really like?

Far more casual than people imagine. In public, people behave formally; at home, a château is simply a home, with television, cooking, mess, and laughter at dinner, just in a castle setting, though my grandfather did hold to his rules. To be precise, my grandparents' home was technically a manoir, a manor house, which I call a château because it travels better culturally. There were absolutely unused rooms: a tower room that went from my grandmother's atelier to permanent storage, and attic rooms full of boxes, until a renovation turned that attic into her grand atelier, my favourite room in the house, all paint tubes, brushes, and half-finished canvases. Pure poetry.