"Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)?" is a song by the British singer-songwriter Peter Sarstedt. Its recording was produced by Ray Singer, engineered by John Mackswith at Lansdowne Recording Studios and released in 1969. The music has been described as "a faux European waltz tune," and the arrangement is a very simple one of strummed acoustic guitar and bass guitar, with brief bursts of French-style accordion at the start and the end. The arranger and conductor was Ian Green. Lyrics The song is about a fictional girl named Marie-Claire who grows up on the poverty-stricken backstreets of Naples, becomes a member of the jet set, and goes on to live in Paris. The lyrics describe her from the perspective of a childhood friend; it is left unclear whether they have remained close. The rhetorical question of the title suggests that her glamorous lifestyle might not have brought Marie-Claire happiness or contentment. Even though Sarstedt himself was not French, the song benefited from the contemporary awareness in Britain of such French and Belgian singers as Serge Gainsbourg and Jacques Brel (Belgium-born of Flemish descent). The lyrics contain a large number of contemporary and other references: Marlene Dietrich: German–American actress and singer Zizi Jeanmaire: French ballerina Pierre Balmain: French designer of elegant fashions Boulevard Saint-Michel: street in the Latin Quarter of Paris The Rolling Stones: popular British rock and roll band Sacha Distel: French singer and musician Sorbonne: University of Paris Picasso: Spanish pioneer of modern art Juan-les-Pins: fashionable beach resort on the French Riviera Topless swimsuit: first conceived by Austrian American fashion designer Rudi Gernreich in 1964 Saint Moritz: fashionable ski resort in the Engadin, Swiss Alps Napoleon brandy: a blended brandy in which the youngest brandy of the blend has been aged for at least six years Aga Khan: world-traveling Islamic leader and racehorse owner The version on the album Peter Sarstedt is longer than the radio edit version released as a single, having extra stanzas beginning "You go to the embassy parties ..." and "You're in between twenty and thirty....". The difference in length between the two versions is approximately 30 seconds. Inspiration It is often suspected that the name Marie-Claire is inspired by Marie Claire magazine, a women's fashion weekly that began in 1937 in France. One theory says that the song is about the Italian actress Sophia Loren, who was abandoned by her father and had