On Oct.15, UMass Dartmouth’s Boivin Center for French Language and Culture brought author Kate Betts to usher in their first program of the fall semester.

Betts, an award-winning magazine editor, author and a current contributing editor at Time and The Daily Beast, discussed her memoir, “My Paris Dream: An Education in Style, Slang, and Seduction in the Great City on the Seine,” released earlier this year. The memoir was inspired by public interest regarding how Betts got into fashion and why she chose to go to Paris.

Paris is fascinating and romantic in a way that appeals to young people. The imagery of it makes us feel as though the whole world is before us, Betts said.

Betts set off to Paris in the late 1980s. Paris was dangerous at this time, the threat of terrorist attacks and bombings a fairly regular fixture in Parisian life. This nearly convinced Betts not to go until her mom told her, "Just go--you can always come back."

Betts rented a room from a young family when she began her new life in Europe. They helped her immerse herself in the language and culture, but it wasn’t until she “fell in love with a surfer from Brittany, [France]” that she fell in love with Paris, too.

Betts’ big break came when she was discovered by John Fairchild, the publisher of Women’s Wear Daily and W Magazine. She had submitted an article to European Travels Magazine about an eccentric hunt master that caught Fairchild's attention.

At first, she was slightly resistant to the idea of being a fashion reporter.

"'I don't want to write about fashion because fashion isn't really serious and I'm a serious journalist,'" Betts recalled telling Fairchild.

However, three weeks later, Betts found that she was reporting almost exclusively on fashion.

She became a regular fixture at high society events, parties and fashion shows. Her time was thoroughly filled with reporting, asking people who they were wearing and investigating the newest trends.

Betts described her journalistic career in France as being “a trial by fire.” She learned to trust her instincts and became “fearless as a reporter,” Betts said.

Betts was also privy to the shift in fashion from "[an] esoteric ivory tower to the street."

A new generation of young designers emerged, one that was fascinated by upcycling and reworking clothes, tearing up designer brands and reconstructing them. Betts was led to a young, aspiring shoe designer, unusual and sweet if not a bit over the top. He shared his vision of a line of shoes that would be outfitted in fish scales. Betts was a bit sceptical.

We know him now as Christian Louboutin.

There came a point where Betts realized that there was a glass ceiling in fashion industry and that working with Fairchild was very much a boy's club.

Betts’ Paris experience ended in 1991 when she returned to New York City to take over at Vogue as fashion news director.

“I had to let go of my Paris dream in order to hold onto it," Betts said. “Ultimately I realized my home was in New York.”

While in Paris, Betts was blessed with opportunities and freedom that, due to budget constraints, don’t exist for most young journalists today. However, they have an advantage now that she didn’t then: the Internet.

"You can have your own voice and develop your own voice – or not," Betts said.

There are no constraints on what this generation can accomplish through blogging and social media, she said. Fashion bloggers have the potential to be even more important and far-reaching than fashion magazines.

Betts makes time to go back to Paris twice a year. Her tip to people looking to make the best of their Paris experience is this: “Walk everywhere, don't be afraid to get lost, [and] sit in a cafe and watch people go by. Watch the world go by."