BEAUTYDIRECTORY sat down with beauty journalist and author Katrina Lawrence to find out what inspired her to write Paris Dreaming: What The City of Light Taught Me About Life, Love & Lipstick.
[Click here to read an extract from the book]
"I was on a press trip in Paris, waxing lyrical about my love of the city, which I have visited countless times (literally: I’ve lost count) when my fellow beauty travellers said, “You have to write this down — this is a book.” It was one of those light bulb moments. Like every writer, I’d long fantasised about some day writing a book, but I’d just never found the time. Nor genre — I didn’t want to write a beauty book at that point, because beauty was my day job, my reality, and I wanted my first book to be a portal into another world. So what could be more perfect that a project that allowed me to explore Paris all the more, even if virtually?
As fate would have it, my two key work contracts unexpectedly ended upon my return to Australia (it’s no secret that this is a tough industry for freelance writers). Wanting to wrestle back some control of my career, I decided it was time to sit down and get started on that book. And so I took myself off the beauty circuit and did just that.
Not that I knew what I was doing at first. The manuscript meandered around like a first-time visitor to Paris without a map. It changed course depending on the advice given to me by various publishers I saw in those early days. It was a tough six months. I got rejections. I got dejected. (I ran out of face cream! I had to buy my own shampoo!). But I knew I was on the right path, even if it was taking some unexpected detours. At least the scenery was pretty.
Then I got an agent and things started to fall into place. She helped me hone the Paris story that only I could write: how the city had influenced me over the years, at various ages and life stages, but specifically during ten particular holidays — and what, in turn, it could offer other women. And of course, I came to realise, beauty was a big part of this. Paris is the beauty capital after all — the city of light and lipstick. I’d visited Paris for work, I’d interviewed many inspirational Parisian beauty experts, I’d swooned over gracefully-ageing Parisiennes as I, myself, was ageing ... So in the end, beauty made its way into my book, as I guess it was always going to.
But Paris has been such an influential city for so many industries. Art, architecture, fashion, food, feminism, politics, perfume … Which is why Paris Dreaming still has a meandering feel to it, wandering through a range of subjects as you might, when in Paris, flit from a cobbled lane to a grand boulevard to a glass-covered passageway, ducking into a few nooks and crannies along the way. Parisiennes, for me, are gorgeous and elegant and groomed and all that, sure, but they also want to be a whole package. Beauty has a more holistic definition in French; it’s about living well, not just looking good. So I really wanted this to come across in Paris Dreaming, to inspire women to see beauty à la parisienne."