The Folies Bergère (established in 1869 and adorned with its landmark Art Deco façade in 1926) ought to be on every American arts-oriented heritage tour, given that the theater nurtured Trans-Atlantic talent like Chicago-born Loie Fuller (1890s) and Josephine Baker (1920s) whose dance acts (and banana tutus) were too daring for censors and sensibilities back in the homeland.

The lobby, decorated in the “too much is not enough” style, is almost worth the admission price so arrive early enough to take pictures of the gilded goddess statues and giant chandeliers before making your way to the tattered red-velvet seats (last re-upholstered in the Piaf era?) and accustoming yourself to the slightly hazy atmosphere (residue of Maurice Chevalier’s cigars?).

Jean Paul Gaultier has always been the offbeat enfant terrible of French fashion culture, holding some of his early fashion shows in circuses, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that his life and work are presented in a Barnum & Bailey version of Gay Pride in Las Vegas. The show is mostly visual; a certain amount of the narration is in French only but it’s easy to follow if you know the basic storyline.

The saga begins with the designer’s 1950s childhood, his early fashion experiments with a beloved teddy bear, and an homage to the grandmother who let him play with her corsets. We share the joy when Jean Paul meets the love of his life and share the sorrow when his lover dies of AIDS. We travel to the seamy sex clubs of London and the wild parties held in the infamous Palace night-club, the Parisian Studio 54 of the era.

But most of all, it’s about the clothes: Gaultier’s insanely inventive fashion manages to be playful and provocative at the same time. When the models sashay on stage in clothes from his debut show in the late 70s, the entire audience is swaying to the 1978 ear-candy hit “Ça plane pour moi” by Belgian punk artist Plastic Bertrand. (Check out this video if you want to sing along, or this audio if the previous one is blocked in your country.)

On-screen celebrity cameos of Gaultier muses are slipped in between the fashion shows. Some faces will be familiar to non-French visitors (Madonna, Kylie Minogue, Catherine Deneuve) although others (rock divas Catherine Ringer and Mylène Farmer; fashion pundit Cristina Cordula who critiques the cat-walking skill of a chosen member of the audience) will only be recognizable to the hometown crowd. There’s a funny, back-handed slap at fashion dictatorships with actors portraying Anna Wintour and Karl Lagerfeld. (That sequence is in French with sub-titles even though calorie-obsessed pseudo-Karl remarks that speaking French is fattening.)

The show ends with a taped video of Jean Paul Gaultier explaining that fashion is much more than a “commodity” and that everyone is beautiful in his or her own way. It’s a heartwarming happy ending to an upbeat evening.

A word about seating: unless you pop for the best orchestra or front-row loge seats, you won’t see absolutely everything. However, the show takes place on many levels (with video screens and acrobats on high platforms) so you will still enjoy a full two hours of fancy, freaky fashion wherever you’re sitting.

Jean Paul Gaultier Fashion Freak Show at the Folies Bergère through April 21, 2019. 32 Rue Richer, 9th arr. Metro Cadet or Grands Boulevard. Tuesday-Saturday at 8pm as well as Saturday and Sunday at 3pm. Tickets 30-99€.

© 2019, Corinne LaBalme

The post Jean Paul Gaultier Fashion Freak Show at the Folies Bergère appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

By Gary Lee Kraut and C. C. Bell

Partly sunny with a few dark clouds – that’s both the day’s weather and the mood of la flâneuse as she dresses for a day of idle wandering about the city. She’d like to get over to the Luxembourg Garden to see the tulips at some point in the afternoon, but she has no set schedule, no firm plans. She’ll do what she does, see what she sees.

Fresh from the shower she opens the top lingerie drawer of the dresser bought last fall at the neighborhood vide-grenier (garage sale). It’s a Made-in-France day, she thinks, a never-know-who-you’ll-find, never-know-who-you’ll-come-across day.

She smiles as she selects the comfortable Madame Aime (7 Fashion) mesh hipsters with lace trim, smiles as she recalls buying them as much for the look as for the name of the brand. Aime, pronounced like her first initial. This is Aime’s day, she thinks. She feels too nude in the matching bra so she chooses a simpler, blue Madame Aime triangle.

The flaneuse opens her Ikea closet. Feeling both insouciant and determined she takes out her new pair of Terre des Anges (Kiplay) jeans.

To break them in, she thinks. She crouches down, as though to get close to the tulips, to see how the jeans feel. Just fine.

Light pink cardigan, decides the flaneuse. She puts it on. Then, opening the window and putting her hand outside, she recalls the saying En avril ne te découvre pas d’un fil (in April be wary removing too much thread). She’ll hold off on the cardigan until a sunnier day, or until May, when you fais ce qu’il te plaît (do what pleases you). The grey and ivory Chasse Marée (Bonneterie Dupé) pullover will work well today. Work: she laughs at the thought of the word as she pulls the sweater over her head.

Looking in the mirror above the dresser she admires the way the grey and ivory pullover casually shows off her figure (enough, but not too much to be bothered). The sun the dissipates behind a cloud, stealing light from the room. I need some color, she thinks.

She tries on a scarf. No, replies the mirror, too winter. A beret? No, replies the mirror, too… intentional. Several umbrellas hang from the coat stand which she inherited the former renter. That’s it, she thinks, my fuchsia and navy blue striped Pierre Vaux umbrella, practical yet suave on a you-never-know walk-about day like today.

La flâneuse goes into the living room and stands back from the ornately framed mirror above the chimney (circa 1890). She holds the umbrella against her chest like a sword. Perfect. Ready to rumble, she thinks, or at least amble. Only then does she look down at her feet and laughs at herself for having left them undressed.

Is it too early in the season to wear her Mangalani sandals?, she thinks. Oh, but the butterfly leather reminds her of a palate of spring flowers. In April, be wary of removing too much thread, goes the saying, but removing a bit of leather, why not! She take her sandals from the bookcase in her hallway, and with it her Mangalani purse.

Fatimata Soumare, Parisian designer of the confidential line of Mangalani sandals, ballerinas and purses, is a solo entrepreneur. Unlike the others mentioned here she came to the field not by following in the footsteps of her parents but by departing from the footsteps of her fellow lawyers.

One last look in the mirror and la flâneuse is ready to stroll, to wander, to idle, and to follow her nose, her eyes, her intuition, with the vague notion that she will eventually reach the Luxembourg Garden, to see the tulips in bloom.

© 2017, Gary Lee Kraut / C.C. Bell

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Here are five phenomena to watch for on the streets of Paris this summer.

1. Hot dogs
All you need to know to follow food trends in Paris is that banks will lend money to potential purveyors of food and drink whose business plans show that they’ll purchase relatively inexpensive products that are easy to decorate (high mark-up), easy to serve (low staff), easy to eat or drink (high traffic), offered in small settings with little, no or uncomfortable seating so that people won’t linger (low rent, high turnover).

The restaurant consulting firm Gira Conseil came out with a study in early 2014 finding that hamburgers have gone from representing one in ten sandwiches sold in France in 2000 to one in two sandwiches sold in 2013. Le burger is therefore old news.

It’s now le hot dog (pronounced ut dug), le chien chaud, that’s been gaining street cred. The Marais is the quarter that’s currently barking the loudest with stands such as Mosaique, 56 rue du roi de Sicile, and Kraft Hot Dog, 15 rue des Archives, a stone’s throw from Gucci et al., but if looking to nip at a dog with the word “French” in it, cross the rue from the Marais to Gabe, offering “French quality hot dog,” at 83 rue Turbigo (metro Temple; closed Sun.). French quality, perhaps, but Gabe’s garnished saucisses (pork, beef or chicken, service on decent rolls), sandwiches and salads are all named for parts of New York, along with a Jersey salad that would, however, never make it at the shore.

2. Beer
The word on the street is: guzzle. Even eating a hot dog can be too complicated when you just want to sit out with a tall can of beer and a bag of chips. While craft beer made its mark on the alcoholscape of Paris several years ago, industrial beer has conquered the street. Beer drinking while standing outside bars became common earlier in the century, but beer drinking is now so prevalent outside of cafés and bars and at picnic areas, street benches and sittable ledges that one wonders if wine is now taboo for anyone under 40. (Beyond that one enters the confusing nether-age of life in Paris.) At some picnic areas the only people seen with a bottle of wine are the tourists and the classier drunks. There’s so much drinking outdoors these days that picnickers are no longer asked to drink responsibly but to pee responsibly.

3. Shorts
For a short while Parisian men, unsure about the fashion value of shorts, wore capris in the city. Flashing ankle and a bit of calf, they took their first timid steps toward what Americans and Brits have long thought of as summerwear. Les parisiennes were only slightly more favorable to shorts in the city in the past, though they always had skirts to lift to tan their legs on a sunny café terrace. Then, a couple of years ago, shorts started to come out of the closet, as reported here.

Now, en masse, Parisians, men and women, have understood that summer doesn’t stop at the edge of the city and that tourists, as shabbily dressed as they are (I know you’re proud of graduating from Georgia Tech in 1986 but you couldn’t find anything else to pack?), may have had a point about wearing shorts all along. Shorts may not have conquered every quarter of Paris, but this is the summer that they became common streetwear for men. Women, perhaps sensing competition from the men in the shapely leg department, are now marching by in short shorts. Anything goes as far as footwear: sandals, espadrilles and especially flat white-soled sneakers, whether sockless or with peds socks and footie liners. But no need to tell you how to dress in summer, you’ve known all along. Just don’t forget the sunscreen.

4. Pregnant women

In 25 years in Paris I’ve never had so many visibly pregnant women on the street. Why am I so susceptible to pregnancy sightings? Three possibilities:
1. The warm, dry weather in Paris since late May lends itself to wearing light fabrics that reveal baby bumps.
2. I’m going through something hormonal that I’d rather not analyze.
3. There was an actual spike in the number of winter 2014-2105 conceptions in Paris.

I’m betting on #3. Something societal is afoot. Did the terrorist attacks of January bring couples closer together and amplify their sense of the importance of family? Did constant news last winter of economic “crisis” make couples want to stay at home more? Are City Hall’s family-friendly policies intended seeking to keep breeders in Paris actually bearing fruit? I don’t know, but I’m guessing that September-December 2015 will break recent records for the number of births in Paris.

5. Parisians
One might think that the increasing net worth of Parisians would lead them to disappear longer, but paradoxically Parisians are more visible in their city this summer. Or perhaps not so paradoxical for those who can now afford to come and go between trips to Sicily and to friends in the southwest, between a week with parents in Normandy and a week on the coast of Croatia, between two weeks in the American west and another week on the coast of Brittany. Furthermore, increasing net worth can mean increased work obligations. When you’re working on opening a new hot dog stand in September you’ve got to be in Paris in August to oversee the renovation of the old flower shop. And who wants to travel when in August you’re expecting in September? Or when your mate is expecting? Put your feet up, cherie, I’ll go out to get you some ice cream, he says as he heads out in shorts to treat himself to a hot dog and beer.

© 2015, Gary Lee Kraut

The post 5 Phenomena on the Streets of Paris This Summer appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Imagine being invited into the home of modernists living behind 17th- and 18th-century facades in the Saint Germain Quarter, behind 19th-century facades near the Opera, behind early 20th-century facades near the Bois de Boulogne, studying the cover of a vinyl record while listening, perhaps with stereophonic sound, to Duke Ellington or Gilbert Bécaud or Sydney Bechet, maybe Miles Davis playing on a three-track stereo tape,

or stretching out to read Jean-Paul Sartre or Albert Camus or Alain Robbe-Grillet or Elle.

Imagine sitting in the living room of certain members of the comfortable class of la bonne bourgeoisie, looking to break with the 18th-century originals and copies that signified sophistication in the homes of their parents, debating whether to open dad’s 1949 Burgundy or Bordeaux, and if the Bordeaux then the Chateau Latour or the Chateau Petrus,

or facing a television set in the living room tuned to the single channel of Télévision Française, or discussing the politics of the flailing Fourth Republic and then of Charles de Gaulle’s return from the desert to take the reins of the Fifth.

Pascal Cuisiner, owner of the Galerie Pascal Cuisinier, invites visitors to take a seat, or at least a view of a seat, in the lap of years 1951 to 1961 through an exceptional collection of 100 chairs, armchairs, sofas and other seating from what he calls “the first modern French designers.” He uses the term to refer to those born around 1925 and 1930 who were among the first to design furniture for mass production. Mass production for these designers during the hinge years 1951 to 1961 often meant production in small series, hence the uniqueness of Cuisinier’s collection.

The exhibition “100 sièges français” runs Sept. 6 to Oct. 15, 2014 at two locations: at Cuisinier’s namesake gallery in the 6th arrondissement and at the Jean-Michel Wilmotte Exhibition Space in the Marais, the larger, more attractive setting of the two.

During an interview at the latter, Cuisinier speaks of his role, as gallery owner, in “defending a concept, a designer, a style,” ensuring an expertise for his clientele of collectors, decorators and individuals in tune with the aesthetics of the period from 1951 to 1961.

That’s a period when aspects such as tubular metal legs, flat springs and the use of latex foam and elastic strapping were considered ultra-modern or avant-gardist.

“Taken together,” he notes, “they represent one of the most radical departures from tradition ever seen in the history of furniture design, both in France and the world over.”

Citing René-Jean Caillette, Genevieve Dangles and Christrian Defrance, Pierre Guariche, Joseph-André Motte, Pierre Paulin and designers from the Atelier de Recherches Plastiques (ARP), Cuisinier says that many of the designers whose work interests him would go on to become well-known in the 1960s and 1970s and to run major design agencies.

Residents of and visitors to Paris are likely familiar with the work, if not the name, of Motte (1925-2013), who designed the brightly colored molded chairs that began to replace the old wooden benches in many metro stations in 1973.

Cuisinier typically holds two 6-week exhibitions each year in his gallery while otherwise showing a sample of assorted furnishings from the period of his focus in his gallery.

***

Wondering what to wear, Mesdemoiselles, Mesdames, while sitting your imagined chair on the Left Bank or on the Right? See this video about the exhibition about the “New Look” and the emergence of ready-to-wear at the Palais Galliera, the City of Paris’s Fashion Museum, running July 12 to Nov. 5, 2014.

***

Galerie Pascale Cuisinier, 13 rue de Seine, 6th arr. Open Mon.-Sat. 10am-7pm. Tel. 07 43 54 34 61.

Jean-Michel Wilmotte Exhibition Space, 9 rue du Roi Doré, 3rd arr. Open Mon.-Sat. 10am-7pm.

Cuisiner also presents his gallery at PAD London, Design Basel and Design Miami.

Palais Galliera, 10 avenue Pierre 1er de Serbie, 16th arr. Open Tues.-Sun., 10am-6pm, until 9pm on Thurs.

© 2014, Gary Lee Kraut

The post A Seat in Paris: 100 French Chairs 1951-1961 appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

***

Before asking yourself whether you want to be, or not to be, in Moulins, you’ll quite naturally ask yourself, as I once did, “O Moulins, Moulins, wherefore art thou Moulins.” For Moulins is an unlikely destination in the hinterlands of France that’s difficult to situate on the map. Being told that the towns of Bourges, Vichy, Nevers, Autun and Montluçon are within a radius of 60 miles only vaguely helps.

Ah, there you are, Moulins. Come, let’s away.

The thought of taking the train 2.5 hours from Paris to visit a museum dedicated to theatrical costumes did little in itself to get my travel juices flowing. Yet, accustomed to following the rails southeast and southwest from Paris, it felt strangely venturesome to ride due south beyond the Loire. I say there is no darkness but ignorance. Actually Shakespeare said that. But I was ignorant of Moulins, capital of the department of Allier and of the former duchy of the Bourbon family known as Le Bourbonnais. So I took this trip as a challenge to discover something new for myself while exploring an unheralded region.

Moulins has since 2006 been home to the National Costume Center, Centre National du Costume de Scène or CNCS. In the world of theater, the CNCS is unique in its devotion to preserving, studying and exhibiting exceptional and histsorical theater costumes and elements of theater sets. Much of the collection comes from three founding institutions, the Comédie Française, the National Library (BNF) and the National Opera of Paris. The center also receives donations from costume designers, theaters, acting companies and artists and their heirs. Its vast collection of 10,000 costumes and another 10,000 articles largely remains in the on-site reserves. Choice items are then brought out thematically for evocative, even dramatic, temporary exhibits mounted twice yearly.

In 2014 the CNCS honors the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth with the exhibition Shakespeare, l’étoffe du monde (the fabric of the world), presenting costumes, mostly from French productions over the past century, of some of the bard’s most emblematic plays.

The exhibition begins by introducing visitors to the world of Elizabethan theater, then displays in a dozen rooms the diversity of Shakespeare’s world through the costumes of kings, queens, soldiers, jesters, witches, cross-dressing actors and assorted ghosts and spirits. The exhibition runs through Jan. 4, 2015.

Information about this and upcoming exhibitions can be found here.

O, had I but followed the arts!

It’s rare for France’s Ministry of Culture to allow a national collection to stray far from Paris, but the relative obscurity of theater costumes and the knowledge that the conservation of the vast collection required significant space, led to its removal from the capital region. For Moulins, a service town with a population of 27,000, 40,000 with the suburbs, the center’s creation here in 2006 was a coup that placed it on the cultural radar of the map of France.

Moulins is capital of the department of Allier and of the former duchy of the Bourbon family but had no particular historical relationship with theatrical costumes, unless one counts the uniforms of the cavalrymen who occupied the exhibition building when originally built as barracks in the late 18th century. The architect Jacques Denis Antoine (1733-1801) also designed the old mint (Hôtel des Monnaies) in Paris near Pont Neuf on the left bank of the Seine.

The CNCS is a 20-minute walk from the center of Moulins, on the left bank of the Allier, past the terns nesting along the river from April to early August. (The name Moulins refers to the mills that were once here.) On the approach the building appears rather sparse and uninviting. But the CNCS is appropriately theatrical in the presentation of its exhibitions, and there’s a nice airy brasserie inside.

While much of the CNCS’s public space is dedicated to its temporary exhibitions, the center also presents a permanent exhibition of the Noureev (Nureyev) Collection. That exhibition displays artifacts from the life and career of Rudolf Noureev (Nureyev) (1938-1989) the danceur étoile who, in the 1980s, danced with the Paris Opera Ballet and became its director (1983-1989).

In addition to its exhibitions, the CNCS is an important resource center open to stage professionals, researchers and the general public.

Shall I compare thee, Moulins, to a summer’s day?

Perhaps not, but the sun needn’t be at its peak for the curious traveler to visit a lesser-known region such as Moulins and its surrounding.

* * *

The building blocks for making a day or more of Moulins and the surrounding area of Le Bourbonnais include the following:

National Center for Theatrical Costumes and Scenography, Centre National du Costume de Scène. Tel. 04 70 20 76 20. Open daily 10am-6pm (until 6:30pm in July and Aug.). Closed Dec. 25 and Jan. 1. Tickets: 6€ for entrance to both the temporary and permanent exhibitions. Free for children under 12. For several weeks between exhibitions only the permanent collection is visible.

Moulins Tourist Office. 11 rue François Péron. Tel. 04 70 44 14 14

Choice café: Le Grand Café, 49 Place Allier. Tel. 04 70 44 00 05. An Art Nouveau café-brasserie whose 1899 décor is listed as a historical monument. Open Mon.-Sat. 8am-11pm.

Choice restaurants:
– Le Grand Café (see above)
– Le 9/7, 97 rue d’Allier. Tel. 04 70 35 01 60. Olivier Mazuelle serves fresh market fare in the center of town. Closed Sat. lunch, Sun., Mon. dinner.
– Le Trait d’Union, 16 rue Gambetta. Tel. 04 70 34 24 61. Trait d’union, meaning hyphen, refers to the link that chef Vincent Hoareau seeks to create a link between classicism with modernity. Closed Sun., Mon.
– Hôtel de Paris (see below).

Choice hotel: Hotel de Paris, 23 rue de Paris. Tel. 04 70 44 00 58. A 4-star hotel with 32 rooms and suites, AC, spa, gastronomic restaurant (opening Sept. 2014), brasserie. Member of Chateaux & Hotels Collection.

Others sight in Moulins:
– Maison Mantin (Mantin Mansion). The home of an upper-class resident (a bourgeois) of the late 19th-century left more or less as it was and according to his will.
– The flamboyant Gothic Notre-Dame Cathedral of Moulins and its late 15th-century/early 16th-century triptych of the Virgin of the Apocalypse.
– Le Jacquemart, a15th-century belfry.

Near Moulins:

– Souvigny and its Romanesque abbey church containing the tombs of the Dukes of Bourbon.
– Saint Menoux Church, another beautiful Romanesque church, and its legend that sticking ones head in the hole of the saint’s tomb will render the simple-minded more intelligent.
– Bourbon-l’Archambault, an old spa town containing ruins of a fortified castle.
– Vineyards of Saint-Pourçain, a little-known appellation using Gamay and Pinot Noir for the reds and rosés and Chardonnay, Sauvignon and Tressallier (a local grape) for the whites.

See this companion article about sights, food and drink in Moulins and the surrounding region: Tasted, Tested in Allier.

© 2014, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Moulins (Auvergne) and the National Costume Center appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Some occasions are more challenging than others. Consider fashion standards for women visiting their near and dear in a maximum security prison. Their dress style depends on their relationship to the prisoner. Mothers and friends choose clothing that is practical—warm coats, pants and pullovers—because the prison visiting room is cold and dank.

For the young wife, a black lace dress with a very short skirt is the ultimate in prison chic. Young wives wear this kind of outfit to titillate their men. No, it’s not being mean. They know that in this maximum security prison, sex in the visiting room is tolerated. That’s why they also wear voluminous scarves, draped not tied in the fashion of chic Parisian women. These scarves will be used to turn the semi-private visiting booths into more private enclosures. The rule for everyone in the drab blue visiting room, from the guard on duty at one end to the other visitors in neighboring booths, is “don’t ask, don’t look.”

The sexy wives do not, however, wear shoes with spike heels. Those don’t make it through the metal detector. These wives know, as do all the other women, that stiletto heels contain hidden metal stiffening. They don’t want to attract attention by tripping the metal detector, especially if they are smuggling in contraband, drugs, or more innocently, chocolate chip cookies. Boat shoes or rubber sandals may not be very glamorous, but in a maximum security prison, fashion sometimes has to adjust.

© 2014, Donna Evleth

Alice Evleth is a long-time American expatriate living in the 6th arrondissement of Paris.

The post Maximum Security Fashion appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

In a remote yet happening Seine-side quarter of Left Bank Paris, Corinne LaBalme checks out  the chick-pea hot-dogs and cheese-less cheesecake at MOB—the Brooklyn-inspired HQ for a new wave of vegan fare—with “recovering carnivore” Cyril Aouizerate.

* * *

Toulouse-born Cyril Aouizerate didn’t grow up with veggie credentials. In fact, his father’s family ran a kosher butcher-shop in Marseille. But what a difference a vegan girlfriend can make—enough to make a man switch the philosophy in his fridge.

Philosophy is Cyril Aouizerate’s home-turf, even if he gave up teaching it at the Sorbonne after one semester.  He trended towards commerce and became (with Patrice Trigano and Philippe Starck) one of founding fathers of the Mama Shelter phenom, the rapidly-expanding chain of affordable hotels that are both fashion-forward and budget-downward.

But that wasn’t enough. If no one has trouble believing that Woody Allen finds inspiration in Paris, why shouldn’t a Frenchman find his mojo in Flatbush? A trip to Brooklyn in the 80s was “transformational,” says Cyril. And that’s why the first MOB (Maimonides in Brooklyn) was founded on Atlantic Avenue.

MOB is a burger and hot dog joint with a twist: it’s vegan (végétalien in French)—no animal products: no meat, no butter, no eggs, no cheese, no milk… yet burgers and dogs nonetheless. In New York, the Daily News praised MOB for its “natural” cuisine. But what would the cholesterol-philiac French think?

MOB made an 8-month test landing in a small space on rue Charlot in the Marais before reopening large in the decidedly non-central Cité de la Mode and du Design at Les Docks near the Gare d’Austerlitz.

Since its Seine-side opening in June, MOB has found a new following with people who have no problem believing that his culinary alchemy can transform coconut milk into cheesecake.

And the cheesecake is very good (if a trifle tropical island-ish), as are the chick-pea hot-dogs which get their frankfurter-appropriate orange tint from minced carrots and a dash of saffron. The burger deluxe is Fourth-of-July delicious. Indeed, this French vegan fare is steeped in Americana, beginning with an image of the Brooklyn Bridge on one wall, part of the restaurant’s graphic design for which Cyril worked with the singularly named Moossa. And you can soup up the burgers with Heinz ketchup and imported French’s mustard then wash it down with a designer fruit juice although Aouizerate is French enough to include a tri-color selection of wine and champagne (Ruinart) in the beverage fridge.

The Cité de la Mode et du Design is ensconced in a 1907 warehouse, one of France’s first experiments with re-enforced concrete, which got a green-colored “plug-over” makeover by the Paris-based architectural team Jakob+MacFarlane, best-known for the Georges restaurant in the Pompidou Center. It’s an offbeat space known as Les Docks with open terraces, a warm weather lounge bar, exhibitions and a fashion school. Through October 2, hula hoop lessons are given on alternate Wednesday nights.

[View the 48-second video intro to this review]

Tuck this address into your notebook for vegan (and proto vegan) pals, but you may not need to direct them this far afield for high-falutin’ (Alain Senderens consults on the recipes), eco-falafel for long. Cyril Aouizerate is already scouting future MOB outlets in Saint-Germain-des-Près, Montparnasse and the Garnier Opéra district.

© 2013, Corinne LaBalme

MOB, Les Docks – Cité de la Mode et du Design. 34 quai d’Austerlitz, Paris 75013. Metro: Gare d’Austerlitz. Open daily noon to midnights. Burger €4, burger deluxe €8.50, hot dog €8.

For information about Les Docks, visit  www.paris-docks-en-seine.fr.

For more on Seine-side developments of the 13th arrondissement on France Revisited read Paris Rive Gauche: a 21st-century Left Bank.

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Tourists have been doing it for some time already, other than the self-censoring “Parisians don’t … so I don’t” crowd.

But this year another “don’t” bites the dust.

“Parisians don’t wear sneakers” fell by the wayside in the 90s.

“Parisians don’t eat hamburgers” got gobbled up in the 2000s.

The demise of “In Paris men don’t wear shorts” is now official.

The signs were already here in the dead of winter as men of all ages set about jogging in tights. Men’s running tights, like shorts, are nothing new on the market but rarely had Parisian men dared such public snugness off of the beach. I figured that if men can run around in tights then it’s no daring leap to wearing shorts as the weather warms, even though warmth has been a frustratingly relative term thus far this year.

And so it has come to pass, weather permitting, with men being spotted wearing knee-length cargo shorts, straight shorts showing a flash of knee, flappy shorts showing a glimpse of thigh and the occasional Bermuda, and I’ve even seen some 70s style jean cut-offs on the cobblestone catwalks of my quarter.

The arrival of shorts will now, one hopes, lead to the demise of that most unfortunate article of recent men’s fashion, the pedal pusher, the capris, le pantacourt, those sockless little-boy knickers that found their way into the closets of men and that for several years now have provided proof that les parisiens take their fashion clues not from other men but from les parisiennes. Adieu, then, as pedal pushers find their rightful place in the garbage bin of recent fashionography.

And a hearty and long overdue bienvenue to shorts on men in Paris.

As to that old favorite, “Why do they all smoke?” that’s still got wind in its sails.

© 2013, Gary Lee Kraut

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The ever-chic Théâtre des Champs-Elysées,  designed by the Art Deco dream-team of Auguste Perret, Antoine Bourdelle and Maurice Dénis, opened on March 31, 1913, followed three weeks later by the ever-fashionable Hôtel Plaza Athénée.

Thanks to the twin anchors of the TCE and the PA, Avenue Montaigne became an international roadway of haute couture, especially after WWII when Christian Dior et al. set up shop along the avenue.

While the venue that showcased Nijinski, Stravinsky and Josephine Baker “back in the day” focuses its centennial season on its greatest hits with a dash of 21st-century stardust, the hotel that Dior was so fond of celebrates its birthday with a year of special menus and surprises.

The TCE’s first 2013 production opened on a high note in February with Donizetti’s La Favorite, a slice of gorgeous 1840 bel canto rarely performed in its original French. Against a minimalist set by New York artist Andrea Blum, director Valérie Nègre skillfully underlined the contemporary political implications of the twisty baroque plot.

After a Don Giovanni  (seen through the eyes of Stéphane  Braunschweig) that debuts on April 25, the TCE goes into nostalgia overdrive with Le Sacre du Printemps… the earthshaking ballet that premiered on this gilded stage in May 1913. Starting in May 2013, dance fans will get numerous spins on this classic: Stravinsky’s wonderpiece plays to Nijinski’s original choreography, followed by new interpretations by Sascha Waltz and Pina Bausch.

Not to forget productions by Sylvie Guillem and Akram Khan, Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, Benvenuto Cellini (Berlioz), Agrippina (Handel), The Barber of Seville (Rossini) and a dance-in-the-aisles Big Band homage to Josephine Baker and Sidney Bechet on July 5. Ticket and schedule information at www.theatrechampselysees.fr.

Meanwhile, several graceful steps away, one would expect a fashion-conscious belle like the Plaza Athénée to lie about her époque, but instead she’s releasing 100 birthday balloons over the 8th arrondissement on April 20th, drinking “Baccarat Harcourt” cocktails from cut-crystal glasses in the bar, and definitely not watching her waistline with special centennial dishes like pâté chaud de pintade truffé in her three-star restaurant which operates under the supervision of ubiquitous stellar chef Alain Ducasse.

The Plaza-Athenée is also planting 100 trees at Versailles this spring, minting a special (gold) card for her favorite customers, and offering packages that include tickets to Le Sacre du Printemps next door.

The Plaza-Athénée is classified as a “palace” (i.e. a rare and exceptional 5-star) by official French hotel standards. All the info at www.plaza-athenee-paris.com.

Théatre des Champs-Elysées, 15 avenue Montaigne, 8th arr. Tel. 01 49 52 50 50. Metro Pont de l’Alma.

Hôtel Plaza-Athénée, 25 avenue Montaigne, 8th arr. Tel. 01 53 67 66 65. Metro Pont de l’Alma.

© 2013, Corinne LaBalme

The post Centennial Celebrations on Avenue Montaigne: Théâtre des Champs-Elysées & Hôtel Plaza Athénée Turn 100 appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

In 1912, dance fanatics flocked to the Théâtre du Châtelet to watch Vaslav Nijinski and Tamar Karsavina of the Ballets Russes perform new-fangled ballets like Firebird and Spectre de la Rose. During intermission, bemused spectators would thumb through elaborate programs for Cocteau’s take on what it was about.

Parisian couturier Jean Doucet chose this historic venue to premiere an All-About-Avian Spring/Summer 2013 haute couture collection that didn’t need any footnotes.

With Irina Kolesnikova of the Saint Petersbourg Ballet making a star pirouette on the runway, fashionistas checked out a Very Vogue Version of Swan Lake.

In Doucet’s re-staging, good girl Odette snags the guy since Irina got to wear the feathered wedding dress in the finale—although, come to think of it, back-stabbing Odile was also invited to the party.

Far, far from the avenue Montaigne crowds, Jean Doucet’s salon adds a spark of glam to ever-so-slowly gentrifying Bercy district at 6 rue Jean Renoir in the 12th arrondissement.

© 2013, Corinne LaBalme

Corinne LaBalme, a Paris-based writer, journalist and editor, is currently working on development of a series life-style documentaries for Muses Productions.

The post Paris Haute Couture for the Birds appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.