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Where Aspirational French Lady Articles Come From

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Photo: Matlinski/Getty Images

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T Magazine, patron saint of timely-ish lifestyle pieces, published "A Parisian Editor's Best Natural Beauty Advice" last week. It's sort of making the rounds on Twitter today. Why did it take so long? The answer is in how this interview probably came to be.

Writer: What about a feature on this woman [holds up picture of a woman with hair in a loose, low ponytail, casually sitting in a crisp white button-down on her cell phone].

Editor: Who is that?

W: She's French.

E: Her name is "French?"

W: No, her name is Clémence von Mueffling.

E: Oh, she's French.

W: Yes.

E: But who is she?

W: She was the beauty editor of Casas & Gente for six years.

E: What is that.

W: I'm not a hundred percent sure. Something about furniture? It folded. But she has a blog now. Her mom and grandmother worked for French Vogue.

E: Oh wow, so she's super French?

W: Yeah.

E: But exactly how French is she? Does she know how to have legs?

W: Yes, her grandmother, who's also French, taught her to have legs.

E: I don't know. French is in, but so is natural.

W: She loves natural. Natural deodorant is one of her French woman secrets.

E: Like natural, natural?

W: Totally.

E: Great, find out what she thinks about spring's beauty trends.

Because of the hard-hitting process above, this quote lives in the world: "When I was 13 or 14, I went away to summer camp in the U.S. and my mother put inside my bag Estée by Estée Lauder fragrance, a Lierac stretch mark cream, and a Clarins Eau Dynamisante body moisturizer that had a very strong smell."

If you liked this article, here's some further reading!