All the phrases you need to sound like a local.

Dropping the occasional French word into a sentence often sounds like a better idea than it is. Nobody knows that better than us. We recently launched 14 exclusive capsule collections with the French brands that we stock on MR PORTER, and in introducing said collections have stuffed our articles with what we hoped were pithy borrowed phrases from our soigné cousins on the continent, but were in reality likely problematic (and rather dated) Franglais platitudes. Sacre bleu, anyone? To remedy that, we asked the guys at Maison Labiche – whose T-shirts and sweatshirts in our collection are all embroidered with French words and phrases – to teach us some proper language skills, and give us the lowdown on some French slang au courant. So, from French kissing to cigarettes, read on for a short glossary on some of the French terms you should know.

To be at the frontier of style

Clobber

Be duded-up/dressed to the nines

Easy peasy

Wicked/great

To give a French kiss

Crazy

Dosh/cash

Sneaky

A cigarette