Part of fashion designers’ adaptation after 2020 will be introducing a younger generation to fashion week. As a response, the goal of this assignment was to design an independently published promotional giveaway zine to be sold to fashion houses and media for distribution at Fashion Week. This French Fashion Dictionary titled "What in Je Ne Sais Quoi" will be delivered in sleek black swag bags on the front rows of Paris Fashion Week’s Pret-a-porter shows and sponsored by Refinery29, a leading global media company focused on young women.

The process behind this zine was to create a didactic and playful visual reference guide for some quintessential French fashion terms. Storied with colorful pages, fashion week trivia, and French fashion designer quotes, the purpose of this zine is to introduce a new generation of influencers to fashion week. Curated with gestural fashion illustrators and vintage runway photography, each definition is complemented by some of the works of Amelie Hegardt, Aurore de la Morinerie, Rosie McGuinness, Tina Berning, and Mark Shaw. The imagery itself is designed to put the fresh invitees of ready-to-wear shows in the mindset of Parisian grandeur.

This French Fashion Dictionary zine evokes the elegance of Parisian couture while also defining the qualities of fashion week, such as innovation and a certain Je ne sais quoi. “Je ne sais quoi,” an English euphemism meaning an indescribable, desirable quality and literally meaning “I don’t know what” in French, is the title of this zine. The final zine gives you that special “what” to survive Paris Fashion Week and presents those new invitees with terms that can help them talk the talk.