“France gave the US the Statue of Liberty, now we are taking Vogue.fr to the wider world… get ready for #VogueParisinEnglish”
I’m glad France is still holding that statue over our heads; we all need to find a way to sleep at night. Because even though our exports — the multinational corporations, the film and music industries, the Apple products — have been eating away at the French national identity for a good while now, at least we spoke what’s long been considered an inferior language. American English is a mutt, and not a particularly endearing one. American English snarls when you try to pet it and digs through the kitchen trash and falls asleep in the middle of the street when you take it for a walk. You love it anyway, because it’s yours — but objectively speaking, you know you got the short end of the language stick.
It’s actually not quite clear whether Vogue Paris will stop publishing in French, or if the glossy will simply be available in two languages. Translating an entire magazine each month sounds like a lot of work, and since the French tend to speak English far more fluenty than we speak French (Zou bisou bisou or whatever), it’s possible that Paris Vogue will be published only in English, even in France. And sure: the glossy will get our money and our attention, but it’ll come at a cost.
