{"id":148,"date":"2017-03-19T19:16:35","date_gmt":"2017-03-19T23:16:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/pariscasestudy\/?p=148"},"modified":"2017-04-02T21:56:27","modified_gmt":"2017-04-03T01:56:27","slug":"baby-swag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/pariscasestudy\/2017\/03\/19\/baby-swag\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Swag!"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY LAVINIA LIANG<\/p>\n

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In line for the Restaurant Chartier. (C) Lavinia Liang, 2017.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sofie Skitt was born in China\u2019s Hubei province and moved to Paris in her twenties. Her husband, Cyriel Skitt, was born in Cameroon, and moved to Paris as a teenager with his family. This makes their 16-month-old Aoki\u00a0(yes, \u201clike the DJ\u201d) Cameroonian-Chinese-French. More importantly, Aoki is also a\u00a0rising Instagram star<\/a>. The toddler has over 600 followers on the social media platform, and even now, waiting in line for dinner at the Bouillon Chartier, his mother is taking photos of him on her phone, trying to get the perfect shot for their next post.<\/p>\n

One look at the Skitt family shows that they\u00a0know\u00a0fashion. (Cyriel\u2019s\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0bio reads:\u00a0Stylist, Fashion buy and Jewelry designer in Paris<\/em>. The link to his website does not work, unfortunately.) Sofie wears her straight, black hair parted in the middle, and sports large black statement glasses frames. She has on a white knit turtleneck that is mostly covered by a loose-fitting black bomber jacket. Her cross-body purse is a bright grass green. The handle of it is wrapped in a colorful fabric that is reminiscent of La Sape patterns. Cyriel has his hair tied back in long braids (which he ponies up further to get his picture taken.) He wears an olive-green tee under an unbuttoned chambray shirt, under a long black coat. Several gold Hands of Hamsa amulets dangle from his neck.<\/p>\n

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Sofie and Cyriel are big fans of the Restaurant Chartier (Sofie recommends the duck confit.) (C) Lavinia Liang, 2017.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chinese aesthetics or sensibilities do not really influence Sofie\u2019s fashion sense or her shopping habits. \u201cBut you should ask my husband if you want to talk cultural influences,\u201d she says excitedly in Mandarin. \u201cThey have this\u2026this cultural thing\u2026it\u2019s spelled with s-a-p-p\u2026it\u2019s like, when you care so much, you can have a refrigerator that doesn\u2019t have any food in it, just shoes.\u201d She taps Cyriel on the arm and asks him a flurry of questions in French.<\/p>\n

What Sofie was trying to convey was the concept of\u00a0La Sape<\/a>, an African subculture movement that \u201cembodies the elegance in style and manners of colonial predecessor dandies,\u201d and is centered around the cities of Kinshasa and Brazzaville in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of Congo. Practicers of La Sape (which is an acronym for the French translation of \u201cSociety of Ambiance-Makers and Elegant People\u201d) are known as\u00a0sapeurs<\/em>. Sophie was trying to spell\u00a0sapeur<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Aoki Skitt sporting his latest outfit! (C) Lavinia Liang, 2017.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today, young Aoki is sporting a navy snapback, a speckled white knit sweater, a sheepskin coat, and tiger-print gray sneakers. (His Instagram account\u2019s\u00a0first post<\/a>\u00a0is of his orange leather Hermes booties. His Instagram account\u2019s bio reads:\u00a0My name is Aoki Skitt, AKA baby swag in Paris.<\/em>)<\/p>\n

But Baby Swag is not only a term used by the Skitts. Earlier that morning, in the Sunday market of Seine-Saint-Denis in the 93rd<\/sup>, a young black man handed out flyers for a newly opened, high-end baby accessories store called \u201cBaby Swag.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Baby Swag store was sandwiched between several women\u2019s clothing stores. These stores sold burkas and hijabs, but were owned by Chinese immigrants. \u201cHappy Miss\u201d was the name of one such store. Happy Miss was situated across the street from Baby Swag, and was staffed by Chinese attendants who did not speak English and spoke shaky French. They directed all questions to their manager at the front desk.<\/p>\n

The manager of Happy Miss dressed simply, wearing a gray polo shirt and thin glasses frames. \u201cI don\u2019t answer journalist\u2019s questions,\u201d he said. \u201cBut you can stand in front of that store across the street and take a picture of my storefront, if you really want to.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY LAVINIA LIANG Sofie Skitt was born in China\u2019s Hubei province and moved to Paris in her twenties. Her husband, Cyriel Skitt, was born in Cameroon, and moved to Paris as a teenager with his family. This makes their 16-month-old Aoki\u00a0(yes, \u201clike the DJ\u201d) Cameroonian-Chinese-French. More importantly, Aoki is also a\u00a0rising Instagram star. The toddler … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Baby Swag!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":173,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/pariscasestudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/pariscasestudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/pariscasestudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/pariscasestudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/173"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/pariscasestudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/pariscasestudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":795,"href":"http:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/pariscasestudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions\/795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/pariscasestudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/pariscasestudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/pariscasestudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}