A sports stadium is, to some, a place to see and be seen. I’m not sure if Nicole Kidman, for example, has ever expressed an interest in artistic gymnastics or skateboarding–one of the latest additions to the roster of events at the Olympics–but she nonetheless seems to have enjoyed being photographed in the terraces with several laminated lanyards draped around her neck.
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Consider the images in this article: the actress posing hand on hip outside the Place de la Concorde, sometimes blowing kisses–which is, of course, very Parisian–towards the cameras as if entering a haute couture presentation. Kidman makes a convincing sports-head–don’t we all during the Olympics?–but her role playing as the archetypal French Girl is a perhaps more persuasive casting, costume designed with ruffled blouses, cropped jeans, Lanvin ballet flats, and Khaite X Oliver Peoples sunglasses.
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This is someone who knows only baguettes, red wine and cigarettes. “It’s seen as a form of nonchalance, and that freedom of being is what people find attractive,” said model Caroline de Maigret on the allure of the French girl back in June. (See: the pinstripe blazer and crisp white boyfriend shirt with artfully unbuttoned cuffs that Kidman wore earlier in the week.) “She’s the girl who looks like she’s just rolled out of bed and doesn’t care what people say about her. That is something that I really identify with, looking like I’m the one who has spent the least time in front of the mirror when I show up somewhere.”