Nos Amies Françaises

Mélisande Buchet

Mélisande Éliane Buchet is a fashion photographer currently living and working in Paris, France. Her work has been featured in Vogue, Vanity Fair, and Elle just to name a few. Her favorite event is always Paris Fashion Week. She has also photographed stars at the César Awards and the Cannes Film Festival. Mélisande is from Amboise, France. She first fell in love with fashion photography when she was 9 and saw a glamorous Chanel ad. Her first photos featured friends dressed stylishly outside of the Loire Valley’s numerous châteaux. Mélisande is a Université de Tours dropout. She studied there for two years before she moved to Paris to pursue her dreams. She now lives in an apartment in Le Marais, Paris’s aristocratic historical district. Style-wise, Mélisande likes to take fashion risks and stand out, but she also likes to keep it simple. She best expresses herself through her clothing and photography.

Anaëlle Couillaud

Anaëlle Élisabeth Couillaud is from Toulouse, France. She is student at the Université de Toulouse 2 Jean Jaurès. Anaëlle is a dancer, and she had the opportunity to do the Paris Opera Ballet School's first-ever summer intensive. She does both modern and ballet. Anaëlle's favorite part of her city is the various salons du thé. Her favorites are Bapz and Dip's Tea. She loves trying new teas, but she always sticks with the same dessert- une tarte framboise pistache. Anaëlle also enjoys the outdoors and riding her bike or jogging along the Canal du Midi. She also loves hiking and skiing in the Pyrénées. Anaëlle is an absolute sweetheart and is always kind to everyone she meets. She is also biracial; many of her family members are from Cameroon.

Orianne Diouf

Orianne Ségolène Diouf is a franco-sénégalaise girl from Lyon, France. She dances for l’Opéra National de Lyon. Although she adores ballet, her true passion is modern dance. Aside from dance, Orianne takes advantage of living in “the gastronomic capital of the world” by running a food account on Instagram that showcases the best meals and treats of Lyon. Orianne is proud to be lyonnaise and loves her city’s rich history dating back to the Middle Ages. She is also proud of her sénégalaise roots and visits her father’s family in Touba, Sénégal every summer. One of her biggest inspirations is sénégalais poet Léopold Sédar Senghor.

Ophélie Ducatel

Ophélie Rosaire Ducatel is originally from Amiens, France. Ever since she was a young child, ballet has played a pertinent part of Ophélie and her fraternal twin sister's lives. They were raised by their mother, who dreamed of having a professional dance career. Ophélie doesn't know a life without ballet. At age 9, she participated in the Youth American Grand Prix, where she was awarded a scholarship for the Paris Opera Ballet's school in Nanterre, France (a banlieue of Paris). Ophélie then became a boarder at the school, which is about an hour and a half away from her hometown. Last year, when she was in the school's first division, through the internal competition, she earned herself a place in the Paris Opéra Ballet company as a quadrille. Ophélie lives and breathes ballet, and even though her mother did push ballet on her, Ophélie really does love to dance. Sometimes, she wonders how different her life would be if she didn't take the path that she did. She is still working hard and would like to eventually be promoted to the rank of étoile. As glamorous as Ophélie's life may seem, having lived it, she knows that it's only glamorous from the outside.

Christelle Lacaux

Christelle Antoinette Lacaux resides in Paris's Quartier Latin with her parents and two sisters. She studies lettres modernes, and her dream is to work for the Académie Française to preserve the French language. Christelle is haughty, rude, and believes that she is better than everyone else. She has more enemies than she does friends. She despises Americans, especially American tourists. Her catchphrase is "you stupid Americans". Christelle is stubborn and has a bad temper.

Marie-Christine Lacaux

Marie-Christine Agnès Lacaux is from Paris's Quartier Latin. She is Christelle's younger sister. Marie-Christine is the antithesis of Christelle; she is kind and cheerful. She has a lot of friends and loves to brighten people's day. Marie-Christine's number one passion is figure skating. She loves the glitzy outfits and routines. She also loves Disney and watching Netflix.