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Expatriate Games: FOR CATHERINE MALANDRINO AND HER GANG, IT'S A MOVABLE FEAST.  

Even after 12 years in New York, the French designer Catherine Malandrino speaks in an accent as thick as rouille. It’s an unmistakably Gallic lilt that makes her frequent pronouncements about ‘‘celebrating individualité’’ and ‘‘sharing énergie’’ all the more beguiling.

On a recent afternoon, Malandrino was sharing énergie, many cigarettes and a few bottles of pastis with friends at one of her regular haunts, the Chinatown restaurant Les Enfants Terribles — a neighborhood joint whose high-low clientele, an eclectic mix of arty types and downtown demimondaines, brings to mind a hipster La Coupole . . .

Malandrino, a picture of chic in a black ruffled dress accessorized with oversize men’s sunglasses, a bracelet from her new line of costume jewelry and a permanently lit cigarette.

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