The Parisian Gaze: On Beauty, Identity, and Becoming Enough
Words by Amal Tahir
Heritage of Rituals
Paris, Saturday, September 20th, 2025. I love waking up in my 18th arrondissement. Its charm, its cafés, its restaurants, and the endless parade of looks I devour from morning to night like an open-air runway. In Paris, fashion and beauty aren’t accessories—they’re a language. Every morning I order my iced coffee at the corner café, thrilled to see my baristas who know my order by heart. And let’s be honest: it’s never just the coffee we love, but the ritual, the comfort of being recognized, of belonging.
The 18th is an ambivalent arrondissement: on one side, Montmartre, Sacré-Cœur, and stories in every street; on the other, a diverse and vibrant community, where small restaurants bring food culture from all over the world. Dalida once lived here, an iconic Italo-French singer, independent and unapologetic, and her presence still lingers in the atmosphere. The 18th is dynamic—full of bikes, girls running in and out of their apartments three times a day between work, sport, and soirées. It’s not about the Eiffel Tower view; it’s about authenticity, energy, and the intimacy of a neighborhood that belongs to women who love Paris in all its contradictions.
That’s how I would describe my heritage—passed down by my grandmother, a grande dame with flamboyant red hair who gave me an entire grammar of beauty. I still hear her voice: Amal, ma chérie, don’t wash your face in the morning. Double cleanse at night, but in the morning it’s toner, serum, and cream. She was relentless about protecting the skin barrier. She would perfume my hairbrush so that every strand carried fragrance through the day. These rituals are stitched into me; I repeat them every day, and in Paris they feel even more sacred.
Becoming Parisian, Becoming Myself
People often believe French women are merciless about their looks, that Paris leaves no room for diversity or individuality. But for me, the opposite is true. To be Parisian today, after the shifts of culture, means above all the courage to be yourself.
For a long time, the mythology of Parisian beauty was narrow: slender silhouettes, effortless chic, the brunette who applies one coat of mascara and slips into a simple dress. It’s the “oops, I didn’t try” aesthetic—a beauty that pretends it never thought about itself. That image was seductive, but suffocating.
Today, representation has shifted. Diversity has entered the frame: more bodies, more hair, more colors, more ways of embodying beauty while still keeping that effortless allure. On Thursdays I stroll with my girlfriends, thrifting treasures, trying on identities. Compliments may not come easily in Paris, but whenever I see a woman daring with
her personal style, I stop her to say something. Because here, everything can be in fashion—if it’s worn with conviction. Makeup or bare skin, sequins or simplicity: it’s all perfect when it tells a story.
Dating Myself
It isn’t easy to sit alone at a table with yourself. We’re trained for dinners with lovers, with friends, with colleagues. But when it’s a date with yourself, sometimes fear creeps in.
I take myself on dates in Paris often: me, a giant coffee, a pen, and my favorite notebook. Writing, uncovering, cultivating curiosity about who I am—even when the answers don’t fit what society expects. Paris is the perfect backdrop for that kind of inner travel. Everyone should date themselves at least once. Yes, it’s unsettling, even dangerous. But you leave stronger, sharper, more certain. You stop chasing what’s in fashion, because you’ve become it. You embody your essence.
Body as Battleground, Body as Home
And in those dates with myself, I always return to my body. My relationship with it has been complicated, sometimes brutal. For years I lived only on the surface, convinced beauty was a game I could never win. My body was never enough—always too much, or too little, wrong in some impossible equation.
I feared weight gained, weight lost, the wrong dress, the wrong mirror. Body image and the relationship we build with ourselves are the real pillars of well-being, yet for so long I abandoned both. Judgment, tears, anxiety—my reflection felt like an enemy. Good enough for who? For me. My mind was a storm of comparisons. And sometimes I think my first real heartbreak wasn’t with a man, but with my own body.
From Mythology to Reality
Paris sharpened the wound. This city carries a mythology of beauty: the effortless silhouette, the untouchable chic, a suffocatingly narrow idea of what it means to be enough. Representation was missing—bodies, faces, hair that dared to be different were invisible.
But change happens when we force it, when we stop waiting for an invitation and build our own chair at the table. I stopped bending to Parisian clichés and started honoring my own beauty, layered with my grandmother’s wisdom, layered with French culture itself. That, to me, is powerful: connecting to culture and self-expression without clinging to outdated standards that never told my story.
Beauty in culture is unique beauty. For too long we were told that bold noses weren’t beautiful. But every nose carries a story, a lineage, a power. Paris has taught me to walk into a room with my beauty, unapologetic. The transformation came when I shifted from “I am not enough” to “I am.” From the endless not-enough to the full force of identity.
The Ritual of Skincare
I remember myself as a teenager, spending hours in front of the mirror. How do I learn to love my face? How do I wear makeup? How does beauty become a language of expression rather than a kind of torture, a spiral into “I am not enough”?
At thirty, I cherish skincare and makeup the way I cherish writing: as a ritual. I give myself the best of what I can, for my own definition of beauty. Skincare, makeup, hair, clothing—every axis of beauty is part of a long journey of healing.
At sixteen, I didn’t understand skincare. All I wanted was to erase the pimples that haunted me, without any understanding of how to respect or protect my skin. I hid behind makeup. Today I call this stage “healing”: not hiding, but revealing.
My skincare, morning and night, has become a moment for me. Sometimes I listen to a podcast or flip through the pages of Vogue while my serum sinks in. It is not a desperate gesture anymore, but an act of protection, of listening, of allowing my skin to speak.
I’ve also accepted who I am in beauty: I can admire the iconic full-face looks, but my heart belongs to the “fashion + skincare with lips combo.” I’ve stopped pretending I love spending an hour on makeup. What makes me happy is five minutes of makeup and thirty minutes of skincare. Knowing this about myself makes me more at peace, more aligned.
The Lineage in the Mirror
When I look at myself, I see the women in my family. Strong, resilient, powerful. Some I never met, others I know by heart—the ones who gave me my very first skincare routine. In my reflection I see a history, a resilience, a lineage, and I want to see that every day. The Parisian doesn’t need to be a cliché from the movies. She makes her own rules. She is strong. She is hydrated. And she never fears being too much or not enough. Her own gaze, turned inward, is what matters most.
And maybe that is what moves me most: the thought that my grandmother Malika would have loved to read these words. Because they honor the inheritance she gave me, while also naming the new battles my generation has fought—and won—in places she could not. Transmission is personal, intimate, almost secret. But the moment you share it, it becomes alive again. Each story, each ritual, is another way of keeping her present. And maybe that is the real definition of beauty: to inherit, to transform, and to pass it on.