If berets, baguettes, and practically all French clichés can be found wrapped in the same place, this show is. “Sex and the City” fame Darren Star’s latest Netflix show – “Emily in Paris” is about a young midwestern woman Emily Cooper played by Lily Collins, moving to Paris for her job.
Emily in Paris may be wildly untrue depicting what a Paris life is like for someone on a humble salary, but fans don’t seem to care.
The show was renewed for two more seasons after the first one and achieved 107.6 million hours of viewing within the first five days of the second season’s release and topped the global top 10 list in 94 countries.
Keeping in mind that the first season also topped that list in 53 countries and astoundingly bagged an Emmy nomination for outstanding comedy series. The show’s third season is set to release on the 21st of December and has had many viewers eagerly anticipating diving into the fabulous luxuries of the main character’s lifestyle. But how feasible is it for the average person? Let us find out.
Why are fans willing to overlook preposterous stories on Emily in Paris?
Emily in Paris was a much-needed escapism from the bleak times of the coronavirus pandemic when it first came out in 2020. The show’s creators deliberately decided not to include the pandemic in the narrative , allowing viewers to live vicariously through the dramedy’s characters.
Parisians depicted as rude and lazy, all the men fawning over Emily, and a constant theme of adultery in the main character’s romantic interests is fantastical at best and stereotypical at worst. This ludicrous portrayal caused quite a stir on the internet, but something ever viewer probably asks themselves is “How does Emily afford that lifestyle?”
How does Emily’s salary line up with her spending?
Emily Cooper’s job profile suggests that she is a marketing strategist, and we are to assume that the job is how she makes ends meet as there is no mention of family wealth and we she’s not an influencer (at least not yet). So we are all left to scratch our heads to understand how a young women in her 20s manages to live extravagantly on her approximately $47,000 annual income.
Let’s start with her fully furnished flat at Place de l’Estrapade, which she receives from her employer and is close to the Panthéon in the 5th arrondissement, a major tourist attraction. It is hard to imagine that her apartment, called a “chambres de bonne,” was formerly a servants’ quarters. The location is quite bourgeois, and even though the company covers half the rent, it still is quite much.
What else does Emily in Paris spend her < $50k salary on?
Add in the couple thousand dollars a month in utilities and her morning coffee and she has already exhausted half her annual income. Emily is also never seen buying groceries or prepping her meals as she usually prefers to eat in expensive restaurants not to mention all the booze she drinks.
Paris metro, which is the cheapest way to get around in Paris, are never once used by Emily as her primary mode of transport are taxis. Over a year, this would be well above $2,000.
Her biggest expense, bigger than anything else is the extravagant (if not over the top) wardrobe.
And we would be remiss if we did not include Emily’s exquisite wardrobe, which some may say is far from ideal (even by Paris standards) and a little over the top but which is undoubtedly what made the show popular.The costume designer Patricia Field who gave us unforgettable looks in “Sex and The City” and “The Devil Wears Prada,” was charged with donning Lily Collins for this show. She never intended the pieces to be affordable and wanted the character to make a statement and dress to impress.
Emily typically wears clothing from various French fashion houses, including high-end labels like Chanel, Valentino, Prada, Christian Louboutin, and Balmain. The total cost of which turns out to be a whopping $78,000. A Vassilis Zoulias jacket, which costs more than $54,000, is one ensemble that strikes out for being unusually pricey. While this may be believable for Carrie Bradshaw and crew solidly in their careers and pushing 40, how does Lily Collins character, Emily afford such a dapper threads?
The table below is based on data from newcasinos.com, which thoroughly broke down Emily’s expenditures.
Why do we watch Emily in Paris?
The show is escapism, and viewers may well watch if purely for that reason. Showing Paris after several unfortunate events of terrorist attacks and mass protests probably might not have struck the right chord amongst the viewers. Still, it is a joy to watch nonetheless, especially for those who want a respite from our soaring inflation and crime spike rampant in the US.
As the third season of Emily in Paris debuts, we can only assume that Emily has maxed out all of her credit cards and is going bankrupt. But we’ll merrily cheer on nevertheless.
