I keep confusing Marie Bouillon and Maron Bouillie. One is the designer with an infectious smile and the other is the brand with lilting humor. When I phone up Marie and call her Maron—or is in the other way around?—she answers as though the two were interchangeable.

So I’ve checked my notes once again. Yes indeed, Marie Bouillon is the one who has playfully teased her name into the tradename Maron Bouillie. It’s the Maron Bouillie products—fabric tote bags, shoulder bags, storage boxes, purses, clutch bags, cushion covers and book covers—that are digitally printed with photographic images that speak of daily life in France.

Learning sewing from her mother as a child sparked Marie’s interest in fashion design. Fashion interested her as a field “teeming with ideas and creativity,” but while at fashion school in Paris she was put off by the push to conform to a business model requiring significant investment for the development of collections with a limited life cycle. After completing her studies in 1999, she began working independently and has done so ever since. She created her company Maron Bouillie in 2003.

Not that Marie wouldn’t be thrilled for her products to be considered as “fashionable,” she says, but she sets out to create to create timeless, useful products that contain touches of humor and poetry. Furthermore, she recognizes that by selling shopping bags, for example, at 30€ or shoulder bags at 125€, her artisanal, small-series pricing is higher than what trendy young women are typically looking to spend for a fashion accessory.

Her collections are inspired by various, often shopping-related aspects of life in France, from food markets to bread to old boutiques to flea markets. Images are printed on both sides of the recycled plastic fabric as well as on the strap and bottom of bags and storage boxes so that the narrative runs throughout the product. The objects depicted often define the size of the object created. For example, her market collection plays with the dimensions of each vegetable so that a bag imprinted with an image of, say, zucchinis or leeks is the size of those zucchinis or leeks, or the bread collection that includes a baguette-size tote with four sides, each presenting an image of a different type of stick of bread.

In addition to the market and bread collections, others focus on images of retro boutiques or vegetables (for storing veggies in the kitchen) or letters of the alphabet. Items also remain available from older collections imprinted with images of Provence and of second-hand goods. There are notes of French or Parisian clichés to some of these but especially notes of authenticity and cheerfulness, making them delightful gifts for Paris-lovers and other Francophiles, including yourself.

The full range of products can be seen on Marie Bouillon’s website, maronbouillie.com, through which the vast majority of Maron Bouillie products are sold. Some items are carried by shops in Japan since several years after creating her company she began working with a partner in Japan for distribution and production there. In France, she remains a one-woman show. Products sold online may be made in Japan or France. Those indicated as being made in France are fully made in France. All are made primarily of recycled plastic, though some with lining of organic cotton.

Having said all this, your best introduction to Marie Bouillon’s work is through her own explanation in this France Revisited video.

© 2019, 2020, Gary Lee Kraut

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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

The post Made in France: La Flâneuse Dresses for a Stroll Through the City appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

I’m looking for a new suit in a shop on rue de Turenne. I explain to the saleswoman that there’s a certain medium blue that I’m looking for, in a size 50.

She asks me where my accent is from.

“I’m American,” I say. “How about your accent?” I can hear it.

She glances to a man in the open back office who looks up from his desk.

“Not important,” she says.

I try on a jacket. She tells me that it’s a beautiful fit and that I’m very handsome in it. This is the fifth jacket I’d tried on today and that’s the fifth time that I’ve heard that. It does fit, but I’m not sure that it’s the blue I had in mind. I ask her the price.

“349,” she says.

“That’s more than I want to spend,” I say.

“I’ll throw in the tailoring,” she says. That’s also the fifth time that I’ve heard that today. She gives a reason: “I like Americans.”

“Where are you from?” I ask.

“It’s important for you?” she asks.

“If you’re offering me a price because you like Americans I might buy the suit if you like I like where you’re from.”

“Where do you think?”

“I’m guessing Greece.”

“Do you like Greeks?”

“Well enough.”

“I’m Greek.”

I wasn’t buying it.

***

Blue T-Shirts

I’m having a friend’s name printed on a t-shirt that I’d bought as a retirement gift. I planned on being in the area of the shop in the afternoon I’ve paid 3€ extra to have it printed by 2PM rather than the usual 6PM delivery time. The shop manager, who spent a half-hour with me the day before, doesn’t recognize me when I enter to pick up the shirt.

She says, “What’s your first name?”

“Gary.”

“Your first name.”

“Gary.”

“No, your FIRST name.”

“Gary.”

She looks through the packets of printed t-shirts and other objects on the shelves behind the counter.

“I don’t see anything, but the delivery man doesn’t come before 6.”

“I paid 3€ extra to have it here by 2.”

“Can’t be. Are you sure that’s your first name?”

“Gary. It’s a blue t-shirt with a cycling motif.”

“Oh, now I remember. But it was for 6 o’clock, right?”

“No. 2 o’clock… Gary.”

She calls the place where the printing is done to say that she’s missing something from the 2PM delivery. The person on the other end asks her a question that she then repeats to me: “What’s your first name?”

“Gary.”

“C’est bien votre prénom.”

“Oui. Gary.”

“He says ‘Gary,’” she tells the man on the phone.

A minute later she hangs up. She tells me that my t-shirt didn’t go into the rush pile so it’ll be here after 6. She says that they printed my t-shirt and mistakenly also put in a second order for a plain blue t-shirt and printed it as well.

She says, “The good news is that you’ll have two t-shirts after 6 rather than one t-shirt now – and for the same price.”

“That’s not good news to me,” I tell her. “I’d rather have the correct one now. And if it isn’t ready then you can reimburse me the 3€ for the rush order and keep the second t-shirt for yourself.”

“What would I do with a t-shirt with Schulman written on it?” she says.

“What would I do with it?” I say.

“We’ll it’s your last name,” she says, “not mine.”

***

Some Change

I’m on a bike, stopped at a light, my right foot on the curb, waiting for people to cross the street. A man teeters up to me, drunk.

He says, “I won’t ask you for a little change to buy something to drink.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re North African and you don’t drink.”

“And if I told you that I do drink?”

“Can you give me some change?”

© 2017, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Three Paris Vignettes: A Suit, Blue T-Shirts and Some Change appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Not just any Black Friday, but LE Black Friday, so evocative and so directly imported from the New World that no one even bothered to translate the words, let alone explain the concept. One major retailer promised “jusqu’à“ (up to) 15% off… for those armed with a membership card discounted to 10€. If they plan on inciting a stampede and some shopper-on-shopper violence in Paris they’ll have to do better than that! As it was the so-called discount didn’t promise anything more than the usual salesperson-on-shopper abuse.

But now that France has gotten a whiff of Le Black Friday, can Le Thanksgiving be far behind?

Nevertheless, there’s no denying that the holiday season is upon us in France as elsewhere and that a traveler may well wish to embrace it. The City of Light, which, ironically, has some of the wimpiest holiday lighting of any major capital north of Belgrade, has actually perked up a bit this year in some quarters. You’d think that high brand shops were about to invade the Marais the way they’re stringing lights up there this year. (Well, actually the invasion has begun.)

A Christmas Tour of France
France may be a deeply secular nation, but everyone gets into the spirit of what are called “les fêtes de fin d’année”, the year-end holidays, meaning Christmas and more. Allow me then to take you on a tour of the Christmas season through Alsace, Champagne, Lille, Lyon, Provence, Nice and Paris in an article naturally entitled A Christmas Tour of France. The tour starts here.

A Winter’s Woodcock Tale
The approach of winter, in addition to bringing phone scammers invariably called Anne-Sophie promising to send burly men with accents to check out the electrical installations in the dangerously wired apartments of little old ladies (and writers working from home), has inspired a wonderful little essay about woodcocks (recipe included) by British journalist Janet Duignan, who lives in Dordogne. Read ” Winter’s Woodcock Tale here and learn about 250 years of fine-feathered cuisine and the ideal woodcock wine.

Paris Restaurant News: Eggs-istentialism and Dining à la car(te)
Meanwhile, back in Paris, contributor extraordinaire Corinne LaBalme presents two worthy restaurants and a side order of less worthy puns. First, on the Champs-Elysées, Corinne goes dining à la car(te) in order to test drive the menu at Renault’s newly re-conditioned showroom/restaurant. Then, in the Odeon Quarter, where philosophers, revolutionaries and writers once roamed, she visits a chic new bistro that offers diners tasty lessons in eggs-istentialism and the pleasures of carpaccio-diem.

On the radio with Peter Greenberg
Someone also forgot to tell me that I was on American radio a few weeks ago. That someone is the producer of Peter Greenberg’s show The Travel Detective. But no harm done. An astute and most thoughtful reader, to whom I’ve now promised coffee and a kiss on each cheek, eventually tipped me off with a message asking “Was that you on the radio on Nov. 1?” as though there might be a parallel universe where another Gary Lee Kraut operates a web magazine called France Revisited. Luckily the Nov. 1 show is available in podcast for those curious to know how I answered Peter Greenberg’s questions about how travelers should best to approach Paris and where to find the best macaroons and chocolates in the city. You can find the podcast by starting here.

The gift of travel
Finally, I’d like to tell you how you can contact me and my little elves to order a most fantabulous tour de Paris as a holiday present for your friends or family or self. But after the French Black Friday fiasco I don’t want to do anything to encourage Le Cyber Monday. So I’ll get back to you on that next week.

Happy travels always,

Gary

Read the next post on the Editor’s Blog here.
Read the previous post on the Editor’s Blog here.

The post The November Newsletter: From Le Black Friday to Le Cyber Monday appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

As the daylight dims and the cool air blows, travelers in France from late November to early January—and beyond in some areas—will find a bright and warm mix of regional, national, commercial and religious traditions throughout the holiday season.

Christmas Eve, rather than Christmas Day, is the privileged family time in France for presents and an abundant dinner, followed for some (relatively few) by midnight mass in some of the country’s magnificent medieval churches and cathedrals. There are then generally leftovers of fine food and drink and, hopefully, family spirit, too, to enjoy on December 25th.

Let’s take a tour of the Christmas season in France through Alsace, Champagne, Lille, Lyon, Provence, Nice and Paris.

(The dates in this article are for the holiday markets and events of 2014 however these are all annual happenings that take place about the same time, give or take a day or two.)

Alsace

One of the most recognizable features of the Christmas season is the Christmas market, rows of chalets (wooden or make-shift shopping huts) set up as early as mid-November in public squares and along major streets to sell folklore, craftsmanship, much food and drink, and Christmas or gift knick-knacks of all kinds.

The tradition of Christmas markets likely originated along the Rhine, leading Strasbourg, which dates the origin of its market to 1570, to call itself “Capital of Christmas.” While otherwise known as capital of Alsace and seat of the European Parliament, Strasbourg pulls out all the stops when it comes to the holiday season.

The most animated of Strasbourg’s Christmas markets surrounds its Notre-Dame Cathedral, whose tremendous steeple dominates the cityscape.

Head due south from Strasbourg and you enter Alsace’s wine route whose bare vines contrast in December with the cheery main streets of picturesque villages, such as Riquewihr and Kaysersberg, that ward off the frost with the warmth of Christmas decorations, mulled wine, gingerbread, small biscuits called bredele and a Bundt-type cake called kouglhof (spelling varies).

Eventually one reaches Colmar, another hotspot for Christmas markets, and beyond that Mulhouse. Mulhouse, a major player in the European textile industry from the mid-18th to the early 20th centuries, produces each year a new Christmas fabric (this year an adaptation of a late-19th-century motif) that decorates the city and is translated into various derivative products.

For more specifics visit the official tourist information sites of Alsace, Strasbourg, Colmar and Mulhouse.

Champagne

Champagne may call to mind the celebration of New Year’s Eve more than Christmas, but Reims, the largest city in the region and home to some of the world’s most elegant champagne houses (i.e. producers) also unfurls an extensive Christmas market along Place Douet d’Erlon, center-city’s main pedestrian drag, and neighboring streets.

The official tourist information site of the city of Reims is found here.

Lille

Lille isn’t quite the North Pole but it’s about as close as one gets while still in France. Never one to miss out on a good party (accompanied by beer rather than wine), Lille gets into the seasonal spirit at its two central square: Place Rihour, which is transformed into an 80-chalet village from Nov. 19 to Dec. 30, and Grand’Place , where a 59-foot pine stands along with a Ferris wheel offering a view over the city. The market fills the square from Nov. 19 to Dec. 30. See Lille’s official Christmas market site here.

Lyon

Lyon’s dazzling Festival of Lights (Fête des Lumières) isn’t directly related to Christmas but nothing announces the winter holiday season better than long nights brightly lit. From December 5 to 8, France’s third largest city is lit by more than 70 different major creative light installations, a brilliant event that draws the oohs and ahhs of 4 million visitors.

For more about Lyon’s Festival of Lights see here.

Provence

North Americans sometimes have trouble associating Christmas with warmer climes since our own Christmas decorative and culinary traditions are rather Alsatian-Germanic in nature. But the nativity story takes place in a bald Mediterranean landscape whose white stone hills have more in common with Provence. In fact, some of world’s must ancient Christian traditions developed in Provence.

While Americans fully enter the Christmas season the day after Thanksgiving, Provence tradition would have it last from the Feast Day of Saint Barbara (Sainte Barb) on Dec. 4 to Candlemas (Chandeleur) on Feb. 2. According to legend, if one plants a plate of wheat at home on Dec. 4 and if by Dec: 25 it grows to a healthy green tuft then abundance will follow in the next harvest. As to Feb. 2, a date Americans are more likely to think of this as Groundhog Day, that’s Candlemas on the Catholic calendar, commemorating the purification of Mary after childbirth and the presentation of Jesus in the Temple. That’s the date when crèches are taken down.

Where better to consider Christmas in Provence than in Avignon, the town that the Catholic Popes called home during through most of the 14th century, when they temporarily abandoned squabble-ridden Rome. One of southern France’s most expansive Christmas markets takes place (this year Nov. 30-Jan. 4) on Avignon’s main square, Place de l’Horloge, around the corner from the Popes’ Palace, the town’s major tourist attraction. Among the many manger scenes set up around town, one of the most outstanding typically occupies a portion of the lobby in City Hill, which is also on Place de l’Horloge.

Beginning about the third week in November, crèches begin to be set up in villages and cities throughout the region. And in those crèches you’ll find dozens of figurines called santons. Santon comes from the Provencal word santou, meaning little saint, though few of these figures are now sainted. Santons of the holy family are naturally central to the crèche, but the vast majority of them represent characters of folklore and everyday life in the ideal, traditional Provencal village. While traditionally made of clay and hand painted, other materials such cardboard, cork, or even paper are used by some santonniers, as their creators are known. These cute, naïve and/or humorous figures are typically thumb-size, so taking a dozen home in your suitcase is no problem. Doll-size and baby-thumb-size santons also exist.

Santons are so anchored in Provence that shops sell them year-round, but to buy them in the Christmas spirit the best place may well be Marseille, where they’re said to have originated. Since 1803 Marseille has its Foire aux Santons, an annual traditional nativity fair where santons and other crèche features can be bought. This year’s fair will be held Nov. 15 to Dec. 31. Aix-en-Provence has had its own santon fair since 1934 (this season Nov. 20-Dec. 31), Arles has been celebrating all things crèche since 1958 (this season Nov. 15 to Jan. 12) and the small town of Carpentras also has a nice market for these precious figurines.

In Avignon as well as in other crèche-proud towns of France, one can follow a special route (le Chemin des crèches) to discover different animated and illuminated nativity scenes. Other regions also have crèche-routes outlined though villages, so don’t hesitate to inquire about crèche routes wherever you may travel during the holiday season. Whether travelers partake in it or not, they’re certain to hear along the way about the Provencal tradition of the 13 desserts of Christmas, which ends the Christmas Eve meal known the big supper (le gros souper). The desserts, numbering 13 in honor of Jesus and the 12 Apostles, consist of dried fruit and nuts, fresh fruit and sweets.

For further details about the above-mentioned towns and cities see the official tourist information sites of Avignon, Marseille, Aix-en-Provence, Arles and Carpentras.

Nice

Though the Riviera holds back on its winter exuberance until the February Carnival/Mardi Gras season, Nice hosts the largest Christmas village of the coast west of Marseille. From Dec. 6 to Jan. 4, Place Massena is given over to 60 chalets, a skating rink and lights galore, while concerts and other events are held on Place Garibaldi on weekend and school holidays. See here for official tourist information about Nice.

Paris

There’s no sweeter place to hunt for Christmas pastries than Paris, where you’ll find some of the best traditional and creative yule logs or buches de Noël, feasts for the eyes as well as for the mouth. The yule log is a log-shaped cake traditionally made of sponge-type cake and chocolate buttercream and then more cream. They can be found throughout France, but their greatest expression graces the fine pastry shops and tea rooms of Paris, where now anything goes as long as it’s got the general shape of a log and a gazillion calories. Though most come in family-size versions, the solitary or coupled traveler will find single or double portions as well.

As a whole, Paris doesn’t display the same seasonal fervor as, say, New York, but its major department stores take to the holiday spirit as eagerly as anywhere. This is particularly the case at the department stores Printemps and Galeries Lafayette, behind the Garnier Opera on Boulevard Haussmann, where families and shoppers (or gawkers) of all ages come to admire the year’s display of lights and window dressings.

The City of Light itself has Christmas markets at the bottom of the Champs-Elysées near Place de la Corcorde (Nov. 15-Jan. 5), at the Montparnasse Train Station (Dec. 4-31), Trocadéro, outside Saint-Sulpice Church (Dec. 1-24) and Saint-Germain-des-Prés Church (Dec. 6-Jan. 2) and in Montmartre (Dec. 5-Jan. 4), as well as the town of Versailles (Dec. 5-26) and other near suburbs. The English version of the official Paris information site is found here.

Bonnes fêtes de fin d’année!

© 2014, Gary Lee Kraut

A slightly different version of this article also appears in the Nov.-Dec. 2014 issue of Travelworld International magazine

The post A Christmas Tour of France appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Not just any Black Friday, but LE Black Friday, so evocative and so directly imported from the New World that no one even bothered to translate the words, let alone explain the concept.

One major retailer promised “jusqu’à“ (up to) 15% off… for those armed with a membership card discounted to 10€. If they plan on inciting a stampede and some shopper-on-shopper violence in Paris they’ll have to do better than that!

As it was the so-called discount and the promise of limited quantities didn’t signal anything more than the usual salesperson-on-shopper abuse.

But now that France has gotten a whiff of Le Black Friday, can Le Thanksgiving be far behind?

The post Black Friday à la Française 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.

“I’m just a result,” she says while outlining the family history in gemstones since the 17th century. The family long lived in the last valley of Jura before the Swiss border. Her grandfather left the valley for Paris, where in 1929 he created a workshop for cutting colored gemstones.

“As a little girl I was surrounded by things that glimmer,” she says.

She recalls the excitement in the family workshop and at home with the approach of the imperial coronation in 1967 of Shabanu (Empress) Farah Palavi, wife of the last Shah of Iran. Langlois was 12 at the time and some of the gemstones intended to decorate the empress during the ceremony came from their workshop.

Langlois has remained true to the family niche of colored gemstones and claims to work with the widest variety of stones on rue de la Paix. Rue de la Paix and Place Vendôme do indeed form a rather diamond- and crystal-studded runway. “What I know how to do best is work with an assortment of colors,” she says.

She has a particular affection for floral themes—flowers and bouquets that don’t fade—with a good deal of butterflies and angel also present in recent collections. She says that she especially enjoys working with sapphire, with the padparadscha, a rare orange-to-pink variety, being her “ultra.”

She purchases many of her stones from a brother who operates a gemstone cutting workshop in Thailand. Another brother operates a workshop n Paris.

After working as a jewelry designer for a variety of other houses she began selling her creations under her own name in 1998. Her collections are now available in 24 countries, including the US, Canada and the UK. Asia has become her largest market. Langlois’s ambition is global yet she thinks of her own creative spirit as remaining very French, and particularly Parisian in its search for balance and elegance. “We,” meaning Parisians, “have plenty of flaws,” she says, “but at least we have that,” meaning balance and eleganc.

Langlois’s haute-couture approach doesn’t launch prices into the stratosphere, particularly since she doesn’t focus on work with diamonds. Her windows in the courtyard off rue de la Paix show pieces mostly in the 500 to 5000€ range (about $700-7000), along with some high-priced creations. Or as she says, “I make jewelry at the price of a very nice dress.”

The small shop and showroom are open to the public during normal business hours. Because of the international scope of her business Langlois isn’t always present though, so to have the pleasure of meeting in person this amiable creator of fine jewelry it’s best to make an appointment.

Isabelle Langlois, 12 rue de la Paix, 2nd arrondissement. Metro Opéra. Tel. 01 42 46 75 00. For locations worldwide where Isabelle Langlois jewelry is available and to contact by e-mail see www.isabellelanglois.com.

© 2014, Gary Lee Kraut

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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.

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By the time the Hotel Lutetia opened its doors in 1910, well-to-do visitors to Paris were familiar with the extravagance of hotel luxury in the City of Light but they hadn’t yet experienced it on the Left Bank. Palatial lodging had until then been a Right Bank affair: Hotel du Louvre, the Meurice, the Ritz, Hotel Normandy and others flourished in the triangle between Place de la Concorde, the Opera and the Louvre, Paris’s primary luxury zone of the Belle Epoque.

Wealthy visitors, including British aristocrats and the like, flocked to that Right Bank zone where, without traveling far, they could call on fellow French aristocrats (who’d had the good sense to marry the wealthy heirs of banking and industry), visit the Louvre by day, attend the Garnier Opera by night, luxuriate in tea rooms, hotel bars, high-class prostitution, see the sights, check out the latest art, fashion and jewelry and shop. There was little reason to stay elsewhere.

The Left Bank also had its shopping attraction in the name of Au Bon Marché, a temple of modern commerce created by Aristide Boucicaut. In the 1860s Boucicaut had launched the concept of the department store—all you could want in a single place—in France and well beyond. The square between Le Bon Marché and the Lutetia would eventually be renamed Square Boucicaut.

The owners of Au Bon Marché (its name was eventually changed to Le Bon Marché by the LVMH group, which has owned the stores since 1984) therefore devised a plan to further cater to the needs and whims of the crème de la crème of shoppers while also attracting members of government (the houses of parliament and most government ministries are nearby) and notables associated with the universities in the Latin Quarter: they would built a hotel unrivaled on the Left Bank.

The hotel was given the grand name Lutetia, after the town developed along the Seine by the Romans after their conquest of the local tribe of Celtic Gauls known as the Parissi. The Lutetia’s architects were Louis Hippolyte Boileau and Henri Tauzin, who designed a building that was a precursor to the Art Deco style. Boileau’s grandfather was the initial architect of Au Bon Marché beginning in 1867, a project to build Paris’s first specifically designed department store that was taken over by Boileau’s father. Boileau himself worked on an expansion of the store in the 1920s.

Though the initial exuberance at the new hotel was stopped in its tracks by the First World War, the Lutetia took off with a bang during the Roaring ‘20s and assumed its role as a purveyor of the spirit of luxury on the Left Bank.

Lutetia’s construction, however, didn’t create a major wave of top-tier hotel construction on the dense central Left Bank. Instead, luxury pursued its evolution on the Right Bank as it extended its reach to the area surrounding the Champs-Elysées. The Hotel Plaza-Athenée which opened on avenue Montaigne in 1913, served as a cornerstone for the development of high-pampering hotels to either side of the Champs-Elysées, then well on its way to becoming a new sector for Paris extravagance.

One hundred years on, the Right Bank, specifically the first, eighth and sixteenth arrondissements, remains the natural herding ground for high luxury lodging and shopping and the preferred bank for department store shopping in Paris.

With 231 rooms, including 60 suites and junior suites, plus a large plush lounge-bar, a magnificent banquet room, meeting rooms, a brasserie and a gastronomic restaurant, the Lutetia’s size makes it an oddity on the central Left Bank. Perhaps because of that the Lutetia seemed to lose its way in the 1990s and early 2000s as boutique 4-stars claimed control of the hotelscape of the 6th arrondissement and edging into the 7th (Relais Christine, Aubusson, Pont Royal, Montalembert, Bel Ami, Villa d’Estrée, Relais Saint Germain, etc.), even if some of those boutiques are quite the store.

I remember going to the Lutetia to meet friends who were staying there in the late ’90s and finding its atmosphere slightly reminiscent of 1945, when the hotel served as a repatriation center for displaced persons and concentration camp survivors. Its dark days from 1940 to 1944 when the occupying German took it over as headquarters for their military intelligence services (Abwehr), however, were long gone. It was a decent place to stay, alright, but I had come to see the Lutetia as yet another Concorde hotel: fine but soulless, on the Left Bank but no longer imbued with the exuberant intellectual spirit of the Left Bank of the 20th century, a 4-star chain mentality in a pretty body. Le Bon Marché still offered fine department store shopping but entering the Lutetia was like going to the mall.

It’s time now to reconsider that point of view.

Since 2010 the Lutetia has been the property of the Israeli Alrov Group. Though still under Concorde management, the Lutetia is in the process of reclaiming its discreet yet showy side, a duality that a hotel must master in order to garner attention in the absence of a glowing article in The New York Times, a few glossy magazine spreads, a juicy sex scandal or Starwood points.

The Lutetia has a ways to go if its owners fantasize about joining the ranks of the “palaces,” as they top-tier hotels are known in France, yet the building was designed with as much luxury in mind as the famous names of the Right Bank, so the physical potential remains. Meanwhile, 5-star status mostly requires the will do so at this point. In any case, this is a property worth keeping an eye on.

As a business destination this been a sure bet all along at the right price. It has now been successful of late in enhancing its design, art, and literary cred, which has helped shake off its chain reputation, making it more appealing for free-spirited leisure travelers.

The Lutetia is a 4-star hotel, among the city’s finest in that category, especially for such a large hotel by Paris standards. But stars alone do not make a hotel; travelers should be wary of the star inflation over the past two years as France has harmonized its categories in line with other European countries. Five-stars are not always more prestigious than four.

The Lutetia has more upgrading to do in terms of service and in some of the rooms in order to restore its wow power through and through. Nevertheless, many of the rooms are on fine footing and nearly all have have size in their favor, even the 7th floor rooms, originally reserved for chauffeurs and other personnel accompanying the fortuned clientele. And certain aspects of the Lutetia are clearly intended for a 5-star or even palace clientele. In particular, there are several drole or chic and in some cases spectacular designer suites that, along with works of art in the public spaces and the Art Deco spirit of the building, earns the Lutetia its designer cred.

The more eye-popping of those designer suites—signature suites, they’re called—are clearly intended for high-end travelers, e.g. the 1300-square-foot fifth-floor suite decorated by the sculptor Arman on the themes of music and African art; the Littéraire Suite with its own library; the shoe-themed suite with works by the artist Thierry Bisch; the filmmaker David Lynch has decorated a suite that is an ode to his adoration of Paris. The 7th-floor Hiquily Suite can only be thought of as the female nude suite since they appear everywhere: lamps, table bases, mirrors, etc.

Museum-quality photography adorns the walls of several suites that have been decorated in collaboration with Paris’s Maison Européene de la Photographie. Some of the signature suites have stunning views out to the Eiffel Tower or over the center of the capital. These suites are generally beyond the budget of 4-star travelers and even many 5-star travelers. Yet the more self-assured 5-star travelers who generally look toward the Right Bank for luxury hotel options will not feel like their slumming by considering this Left Bank 4-star option.

Space limitations on the central Left Bank ensure that smaller 3- to 5-star hotels are bound to dominate the hotelscape in the area. Nevertheless, it’s nice to see that the Lutetia is fighting for its reputation and doing a good job of ensuring a place where visitors can live large on the Left Bank.

For those staying in a 4- or 5-star hotel where boutique may be a code word for a lobby you don’t want to sit in and a receptionist who serves as bartender, it’s worth keeping the Lutetia in mind when in search for a somewhat sophisticated place for:

– a meal: Paris, a gastronomic restaurant (one Michelin star) cheffed by Philippe Renard and decorated by Sonia Rykiel, open Mon.-Fri.; Le Lutetia, a brasserie, open daily; a “jazzy brunch” served Sundays noon-2:30pm Sept-May;

– a literary event: among them, events held by the association Les Mots Parleurs, which organizes readings and literary encounters at the hotel one Saturday evening per month;

– a musical evening: in particular jazz in the lounge-bar Wednesday to Saturday evenings, 10pm to 1am, under the programming of in-house pianist Daniel Roca, and

– a drink at Le Bar du Lutetia. Did I mention that I have a cocktail named after me here? No? Well, continue to “Gary’s Cocktail at the Bar of the Hotel Lutetia” for a singular account of how that came about.

© 2013, Gary Lee Kraut

Hotel Lutetia. 45 boulevard Raspail, 6th arrondissement. Tel. 01 49 54 46 46. Metro Sèvres-Babylone. Small spa area. Stylish cigarette and cigar room by the bar. A monthly schedule of literary and jazz events and exhibitions at the Lutetia can be found here.

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