For our fall  issue, and on the heels of Paris Fashion Week and Highsnobiety’s Not In Paris activation, we asked a handful of writers and designers to give us a short essay –– or prose poem or something in between –– about something they found in Paris that changed them. Could be an article of clothing. Could be a phrase. Could be a meal. For Eileen Myles, it was language. For Arisa White, it was a dress. Natasha Stagg wrote about a perfect tee shirt. Ryota Iwai told us about a new tea routine. And Marine Serre described a bicycle. 

I was hitchhiking into Paris with my friend Anne in 1971. We spent two weeks there, and so I was sitting in a café in Paris during a light snowfall on Thanksgiving when I realized it was not a holiday here. I could actually be outside of America and our thing didn’t exist at all. I knew that the world was not America but I never felt it before. I felt wildly free in its absence. But that was not the thing I took from Paris. It was language. I think that’s a thing and I hope you agree. On the way into Paris we got picked up by these two guys, Didier and Guy. They told us they had a loft where we could stay. I think it was one of their families’ businesses. It was some kind of manufacturing space. It wasn’t cozy, it was cold, drafty. But these guys provided us all some beers to warm us up and just hang out and since we were traveling with backpacks and attached were sleeping bags we just rolled them out and we were home. Since we were young we sat on our sleeping bags and hung out with these two long-haired French men who also spent the night so we wouldn’t be vagrants and impressively they didn’t hit on us, they were just nice sweet guys. We were immediately apologetic about having such lousy French. We trotted out what we had learned in grade school and high school and it was “très formidable” and “Je m’appelle Helene,” that was me, and a few other choice phrases. They explained in their bad English, better than our French, that though the French were snobs about their language and they really were back then, Didier or Guy told us that the way to get around not speaking a language or in this case French was to know one very special and incisive phrase. Use this at every interval said Didier. “C’est la même chose.” It-is-a-memory-thing I queried. No he laughed but try it. Say la mim showz I repeated phonetically. Okay what am I saying. They conferred among themselves. It is not different said Guy. Huh I looked at Anne. No no said Didier it is all the same thing. It is all the same thing? I don’t get it. It is important how you say it. It is important to use your shoulder — I shrugged — yes he said now turn your head. It is very good in all situations and people will think you are very smart. Try it he said. Helene: How do you like Paris? I blew air through my lips the way the French do. C’est la même chose, I shrugged. French men? Wait, but speak it like you are weary, and then of course look away. Out the window. Are you glad to be out of America. Omigod yes. But why they laughed. America, I paused — c’est la même chose. See, they replied I think it is very good. I’m not so sure. Democracy or a constant state of war. Puff. I look up wanly at the cloudy sky. It’s 2024. C’est la même chose.