La Ceinture

If you go to Etsy and you type the word "Paris" into the search box, you will get a lot of dreck. A lot. Believe me, there is no shortage of cheap, brow-furrowing, WTH?-inspiring plastic & base metal trinketage out there for you to blow your hard-earned centimes on.

But. There are also some really, really nice things.

Comme ça:


La ceinture de Paris! How marvelous is that?? This is from an Etsy shop called Bare Tree Apparel, which has some very, very cool stuff in it. It's mostly hats, t-shirts, and belts. The designs are beautiful and clever, and the goods are extremely high quality.

I found this shop a while back while I was looking for a gift for a friend's birthday. When I saw this belt my jaw fell open and I knew it was the perfect thing for her. Also, it was the perfect thing for me! Alas, there was only one of them available, so after a brief struggle with my conscience I contented myself with this t-shirt,

(Charmant, non? Click photo for link).

ordered the belt for my friend, and then pestered Saul, the designer and artisan at Bare Tree, mercilessly until he made me another one. (This Paris-o-phile fashionista will not be denied!!) The great thing about belts like this is that they are infinitely adjustable -- I can wear it with all my jeans, no matter where the waist falls. Best of all? SO not expensive, this stuff.

My friend loved her belt, and I love mine, and so all's right with the world. Mind you, I'm no Thumbelina as far as working the belts goes, but I must say that I get a major thrill threading this one through my loops. So thanks, Saul! And the rest of you -- go check out Bare Tree!



Photos: Style Spy, Bare Tree Apparel

Am I French Yet?

They make it look so easy...

Reams and volumes have been written about the bred-in-the-bone, girl-can't-help-it, throwaway chic of French women, Parisiennes in particular. But dammit, it's just true!

The Alaia sure boots don't hurt...

I'm a little embarrassed by how much I want one of those YSL logo t's. And I'm not a very logo-y person, I generally eschew them completely. But I've just become a complete ho for all things YSL.

In the chick-flick version of my life, the one where my character is played by Kate Hudson, or if it's a low-budget arty/indie chick-flick, Maggie Gyllenhaal, I go to sleep one night and I wake up French.

How does this happen? Okay, I'll tell ya. Here's my movie: A rabid Francophile, Maggie has taught herself to speak French, watched every French-language movie -- modern or classic -- available, mastered the art of French cooking, and rides a bicycle with one of those fetching baskets on the handlebars to her job waiting tables in a sweet little faux-French café in her mid-sized mid-western city. Sadly, she has never been to Paris -- can you believe it? But one day, exploring a musty yet charming used bookstore, she stumbles across an old, slightly tattered copy of one of Colette's novels -- probably "Cheri" -- that has an inscription written in a spidery hand that reads, "Le rêve devient la vérité." Late that night, with a glass of French wine on the table beside her, Maggie snuggles into her couch and sets about reading the book. Hours pass. The candle flickers. The cat's tail twitches. Maggie falls asleep, the book slipping from her hand and dropping to the floor. A breeze ruffles the pages, the candle goes out & the picture fades to black and when the lights come up, Maggie shakes herself awake in an adorable Left Bank apartment with a geranium-laden balcony and a gorgeous view.

(Comme ça.)

Wackiness, romance, and self-discovery ensue.

Sadly, so far I have not woken up French. I haven't given up completely on some sort of French fairy godmother tapping me on ma tête bouclée with her magic wand, but until then I have to be content with trying to look the part. To paraphrase Kevin Costner, if I wear it, it will come.

Here's my latest effort:




Random white button-front blouse (Ann Taylor, I think), Lucky jeans, black sequined Golde vest, long ribbon-tied faux pearl necklace as belt, Gucci Flora black silk sandals.

(You need a closer look at these sandals, because these? Are magical. Oh, I love these shoes.)

And because I know I'm going to get chilly eventually, my long purple merino cardi from Banana Republic to go over it.


It would be more Parisian if the cardi were black or gray, but I just can't do without a shot of color.

(A note on the jeans: I really love these. They're actually men's jeans from Lucky Brand -- I was wanting some so-called "boyfriend jeans" but I didn't want to spend a mint, which is what a lot of them cost. I also wanted something that was a mid-rise -- long-waisted me is tired of hoiking my waistband up over my hipbones. And then I thought, "Well, hey, if I want men's-style jeans, why don't I just try some men's jeans?" So I did. I'm pretty sure they're these, and if you're looking for this sort of thing but don't want to spend tons of money, Style Spy highly recs.)

I wore this out to dinner with a friend the other night. We were originally supposed to be hitting my favorite French place, but Jim was visiting from up north where it snows and they think Taco Bell is Mexican food and he had a tooth for mole, so we went & got the best to be had in Austin. So I didn't get to order my vin blanc en français, but I still worked my outfit. Whaddya think? Could I pass at Café Flore?

Perhaps it's silly. I dunno. But if I can't be there (and I just can't right now), it makes me feel a teeny bit better if I feel like I at least look like I'm there.

And by the way -- if you're my French fairy godmother and you're reading this, get a move on, ma petite chou. Redhead's not getting any plus jeune!



Photos: streetpeeper.com, parlerparisapartments.com, Style Spy

French In Action

Oh, mon dieu...




Would you LOOK at those? Seriously, I feel a little faint beholding these footwear wonders. Good googly-moogly, those are amazing. Givenchy? And please note the surface they're standing on. Trust me, Carrie Bradshaw's got nothing on ces dames, because I assure you that the sidewalks of New York are like a roller rink compared to Paris' cobblestones. Click on the photo to be taken over to the wonderful Style and the City -- Paris blog, where dear Kamel shoots amazing pictures of people on the Parisian street, including a whole raft of amazing shoes that were attending the fashion shows of Couture Week. Really swoony.


Oooooooh, I miss Paris...



Photo: StyleandtheCity.com

Biker Boy

The neighborhood where I most often stay in Paris is a wonderful little area near Les Halles called Montorgueil. My friend Dominique lives there, and I've really fallen in love with the whole area -- it's become my home base in the middle of Paris. It's primarily pedestrian, utterly convenient due to being smack in the middle of the city, and basically a tiny little city in microcosm itself, with great grocery stores and jewelry shops and markets.




(Here. Watch this.)

One of my favorite bars in Paris is there on the corner of rue Montorgueil and rue Marie Stuart. It's called Au Compas d'Or, and it's not one of my favorites because it's anything earth-shattering or unusual as bars go. Just the opposite, in fact. It's a classic Parisian neighborhood bar with some tables scattered around the outside of it and warm, friendly young people working there. It's a great hangout. A terrific place to kill some time, or meet up with someone before you go to dinner. The kind of place that by the time I've been there for a week, the waiter knows me and chats with me and brings me the wine I've been drinking without asking me what I'd like. I love it there.

(Not the Compas d'Or, but you get the idea.)

So my last trip to Paris, I went straight to the Compas d'Or from Gare du Nord, where I'd arrived on the Eurostar, to have a glass (ou deux) and relax and wait for Dominique to come home from work. It was shockingly cold in Paris (I believe I have mentioned that once or twice now), but they had little heaters over the outside tables and there were a lot of smokers inside, so I scooted my massive suitcase (a.k.a. The Beast) as close to the building as I could and settled in.

Not long after my verre du vin arrived, so did a motorcycle, roaring up rue Marie Stuart and coming to a stop about 10 feet from me. It was one of those shiny red & black Japanese motorcycles that my friends & I call a "crotch rocket," the kind where the rider is crouched on top of the thing like a jockey on a racehorse. And off the motorcycle got... a man.

Raf Simons F/W 2007

At least, I was pretty sure he was a man. He moved like a man, but I couldn't see him well enough to tell for sure, because he was bundled up like crazy. (Again, it was coooooooold in Paris.) He was wearing biker leathers -- not the "Easy Rider, " fringed-vest, Hell's Angels kind of leathers, but the high-tech, form-fitting motocross kind, with channel quilting on the knees & elbows. Black. All black, with a little red here & there. The windscreen was down on his helmet and so his face was unavailable, and every inch of him was covered in protective gear.

Raf Simons F/W 2007

The first thing he took off were his gloves. Or rather, one pair of gloves, because underneath the heavy padded gloves he had on some thinner glove liners. After he stowed the gloves away in some compartment that magically appeared on the back of the bike, he fished his cell phone out of a pocket somewhere (Mind you, I'm right there, so I couldn't exactly stare at him. I had to take furtive peeps over my copy of "No Country for Old Men.") and began texting and reading messages. This went on for a while, and I became impatient. Dangit, what was going on underneath that helmet?

Alexander McQueen F/W 2007

Finally, he removed the helmet and stowed it somewhere. Which didn't help any, because he was wearing a knitted black balaclava underneath it.

Suddenly, and for the first time in my life, burlesque made sense to me.

This guy was the Gypsy Rose Lee of motopunks. I was completely in a lather to see who he was & what he looked like, and he was taking his good sweet time about showing me.

Dior Homme F/W 2008

Eventually (because there was a lot more texting), the glove liners came off, revealing several silver rings on some decidedly masculine hands, and some tattoos creeping down onto the hand from underneath his sleeves. There was really about five more minutes of fussing & fidgeting with bits & pieces of his gear until finally the balaclava came off and revealed him. Probably mid-thirties, ashy dark blond hair cut very short and kind of spiky, narrow dark eyes, a pierced eyebrow, and the grin of a kid who was usually in trouble with the teacher. He had that classic French effortless punk thing, there was real style and absolutely no posing in the way he wore his jewelry (I think one of the rings was a wedding ring) and his ink. He wasn't gorgeous, but he was cool. Very, very cool.

Nothing much passed between us besides the sort of non-committal wow-it's-cold, really-glad-these heaters-are-on thing any strangers would exchange in the circumstances, but that was fine. I went back to my book, a little smile on my face, confident that once again Paris was going to take care of me and send me little treats and experiences and thrills I never seem to have anywhere else.

Roberto Cavalli F/W 2006

The Biker Boy look has never really been my thing, but something tells me I'm going to be a little more open to it from here on in...

Potos: about.com, ladauphine.com, men.style.com

First, Last, Unrelated

To see you off for the weekend, here are a couple of photos from my trip in November that I wanted to share with you. I'm sorry, they really have nothing whatsoever to do with fashion, but I thought you might enjoy them anyway. Here's the very first picture I took:


This is Poppy. She's a 6-week old Jack Russell terrier puppy. (Yes. Poppy the Puppy. How cute is that?) This photo was taken at the South Croydon train station, where Poppy and her person were waiting for a train to take them home from her first trip to the vet, where she got her vaccinations. Oh, my goodness, she was adorable. Little squirmy bundle of sweetness who seemed in no way traumatized by her medical treatment. She wanted to come home with me, I could tell.

And this is the last photo I took on my trip, from my hotel room at the Villa des Princes Hotel in Saint Germain. This is looking south down the rue Monsieur le Prince from the window of my very charming room.

It looks melancholy, doesn't it? It had rained a little that evening, which seemed appropriate to my mood. I'm always very sad when I'm about to leave Paris. That's it, nothing more. Just wanted to share!

Have a good weekend, everyone!

Photos: Style Spy

Sniffer Heaven

One of the places I'm sure to hit every time I go to Paris is Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle. If you're a Frag Hag like me (or perfumista, if you prefer), the name Frederic Malle is one of the most important in the business. M. Malle opened his house in 2000 with a slightly unusual approach. Instead of hiring one "nose," or creator of fragrances, to make all the perfumes for the company according to a brief which was presented to them, M. Malle has contracted with a roster of different master perfumeurs at different times, allowing them to create any fragrance they felt inspired to make. As a result, the perfumes from this house (there are sixteen of them) don't share a recognizable accord or style in the way that many great houses, like Guerlain or Caron, do. What they have in common is that they are all uncommon -- they have been created by the best in this business with complete freedom of expression, and so each of them is a masterpiece. I can't wear all of them, but I love many of them and a few are among my very favorite, indispensable loves.

(And considering that this

is my perfume collection, that's saying something.)

The first Malle boutique I visited a few years ago was the shop on avenue Victor Hugo in the 16th. I went there with my London posse on Le Grand Sniff -- four English-speaking hard-core perfumistas tearing it up all over the city of Paris. One day, many sniffs. God only knows how many things we smelled that day. But our last stop was the Malle boutique where the lovely and wonderful Tiphaine closed the shop a bit early for us and led us through the wonderful world of Editions de Parfums, explaining each and every one of them, letting us (most importantly) smell them all. This is the interior of the boutique. It's a tiny little gem of a space.



See the whatsits along the left-side wall, with the funnel-shaped bits at the top? Those are these:



This is the "smelling machine," an extremely nifty gizmo created by M. Malle that allows a person to sniff the sillage (the trail of scent it leaves behind) of a perfume without having to spray it on herself or into the air. There's a bottle of perfume somewhere inside the gizmo, Tiphaine flips some switches and turns some dials, then you put your beak up to that funnel and inhale. Voila! Perfume-y deliciousness! It's kinda brilliant.

A word: no matter how wonderful the smelling doohickey, you should never, NEVER buy perfume without trying it on your skin. Smelling machines & feuilles (the little paper strips you spray 'fumes on) are all well and good, but individual chemistry is a very funny thing and when we're talking about 50 mls (1.7 ounces) of juice that cost well over $100, you want to make sure that glorious floral creation in the bottle doesn't turn to swamp funk on your skin.

But back to my most recent visit. Tiphaine and I stay in touch, and we'd made plans to meet here:



the original EdP boutique on rue de Grenelle in the 7th. We were going to pick up Corinne, who manages this store, and then head off to the Marais to do some sniffing at another new boutique whose fragrances Tiphaine & Corinne (& yours truly) hadn't had a chance to explore yet.

There is a stereotype in this country that the French are chilly and superior and stuck-up. I'll grant you -- it is a much more formal culture than ours, and I suppose if she weren't paying close attention an American could mistake the French devotion to manners and courtesy as snobbishness. But anyone who thinks that has obviously never hung out with these two women:

Tiphaine and Corinne

(And while I'm on the subject may I just add that almost every single person I've ever interacted with in Paris has been an absolutely charming to me -- warm and friendly and gracious. Sure, there have been a few -- a very few -- that were... well, asshats, but that had nothing to do with them being French. They were just... asshats. Every country's got some.)


Packaging in the rue de Grenelle boutique. Oh, we love those orange boxes, don't we, fellow juice junkies?


Products are kept in a temperature-regulated storage space to maintain their freshness. (Heat and light are the enemies of perfume.) Editions de Parfums makes perfumes, lotions, shower gels, soap, oils, and super-rich body butters of their fragrances. This thingie here?


Is not a transporter or teleporter, it is a smelling column. (So, actually, it is a kind of transporter, but it's a different kind of transporting.) Fragrance is being released into the air inside the column and if you want to smell it, you swing open the little door, stick your noggin in there, and sniff to your heart's content. Which I did, believe me, because two of them were chock full of what happen to be my favorite Malles -- Carnal Flower and Musc Ravageur. (Carnal Flower is a huge, gorgeous, bright, intoxicating, devastating tuberose. It's the most realistic rendition of the way actual tuberoses actually smell of any tubey perfume I've ever sniffed, and believe me I've sniffed some -- tuberoses are probably my favorite flowers. The first time I smelled it I thought the top of my head would come off -- in a good way. It is an explosion of giddy white floral. Musc Rav is on the other end of the spectrum. It's a warm, woody, musky spice perfume without a single floral note in it. On me it's oodles of cinnamon and amber, warm and fuzzy and comforting and sneakily sexy. Like wearing your favorite, softest, slouchiest cashmere sweater with your sexiest bra underneath it. It's a perfume that makes a person want to curl up with you and bury his face in your neck.)

Corinne periodically changes the fragrances in the columns, and there is an empty column in the store that can be filled with smell on demand and then a vacuum sucks out the perfumed air when you're finished sniffing. This allows customers to get an idea of the sillage of a perfume without filling the air of the rather small boutique with spritzes of several different competing fragrances. Clever, isn't it?


The photos one the wall are all the different perfumers who have created scents for Editions de Parfums.


Mmmmmmmm, juice. That's what it's all about, after all. Pretty packaging, beautiful bottles, nifty sniffing gizmos -- none of it means anything if the juice isn't good. Not a worry with this house.

After some chatting and sniffing, Tiphaine and Corinne and I walked up the rue de Grenelle and pressed out noses against the windows of the many, many wonderful shoe stores on that street. (Shoes and perfume -- seriously, why don't I live there????) Then we took the metro (which was packed -- it was the second day of the transit strike and there were only a fraction of the usual number of trains running) to the Marais where we struck off for the Etat Libre d'Orange boutique. At Etat Libre we were treated to a full and thorough run-through of all their perfumes by the SA there. (I'm afraid reviews of those quirky, sometimes-difficult scents are going to have to wait for another time -- they deserve a post to themselves.)

From there we went for wine, bien sûr. As usual, Paris was good to me, giving me a delightful evening in the company of two really wonderful women whom I seriously considered drugging and stuffing into my suitcase because I didn't want to leave them behind.

A few nights later the three of us, plus my friend Jane, in on a flying visit from London, had dinner at the most wonderful little place in the Les Halles/Sentier neighborhood in the 1st called Le Cochon à l'Oreille (The Pig by the Ear). If you are ever in Paris, you must check this place out:


Here's Tiphaine with the proprietor and his wife, who is the chef. They. Were. So. Fabulous. I am horribly embarrassed to admit that I don't remember their names (which might be down to the several glasses of wine with which he provided me), but he was the most charming of hosts. The restaurant itself is quite tiny, with probably fewer than ten tables, and that long gorgeous bar you see in the photo. (You should click on it so you can get a better view of the amazing painted tile work on the wall above the bar, which covered the whole space. Just gorgeous.)

This tiny photo is the only other one I can find of the place on the internet, but it gives you an idea of how pretty it is inside. The restaurant is at 15 rue Montmartre, which is not in Montmartre, but just off of rue Etienne Marcel in the 1st. And just in case you're wondering if the food is any good -- we ate there because Tiphaine said she had been there a few years ago and Alain Ducasse was there eating dinner. Good enough for Alain Ducasse, good enough for Style Spy.

I appear to have wandered off the perfume path a bit, so I'll wrap this up with a bit of shopping information. Editions de Parfums fragrances are available in the U.S. only at Barney's. Try to resist avoid the Carnal Flower or the Musc Rav (or the Lys Mediteranée or the Angeliques Sous la Pluie), I'm trying to keep them all to myself they really only smell good on me.

Photos: EditionsdeParfums.com, Style Spy, cityvox.fr

My Favorite Mistake

Well, since Plumcake already outed me, I guess I'd better spill. Here's what I brought home from Paris:


I went on this trip determined to bring back two souvenirs, one each from London and Paris. My London item was another bottle of one of my Top Three perfumes, Tolu by Ormonde Jayne, about which I have spoken here before.

The other one was an Hermes scarf.



The scarf design is called "Jeu des Omnibuses et Dames Blanches." It was the very first design ever made into an Hermes scarf in 1928, and has been reissued several times in different colorways. (I'd love to see what the original looked like, if anyone knows how to get that info.) I'd seen the scarf in a magazine advertisement in the black and white colorway and was very taken with its graphic quality, but when I got to the boutique the scarf (carré, as they're sometimes known) revealed itself to have a background of mostly light gray, which is a color I try to never, ever wear next to my face. So the nice SA smiled and brought out this one. This is a vintage carré, which means it's a little smaller than the regular ones -- 70 x 70 cm instead of 90 x 90.


The detail on these things are really phenomenal -- these scarves are works of art, and if you do a little research on the interwebs (which I did), you'll discover that if kept in good condition they never depreciate. They're like buying jewelry. They get mentioned in peoples' wills. They never go out of style. It doesn't matter what size you are, they will always fit. These are just a few of the justifications I came up with for dropping a wad of cash on what is basically a big square of fabric.

I've been really doing more of the scarf thing in the last year or so, brought about mainly by four trips to Paris in the last three years. I have some great ones that I got from my mom & grandma, some nice vintage finds, and I've treated myself to a couple of Ferragamos from the outlet near here. I have friends who say they never wear scarves because it makes them feel sort of mumsy and frumpy, but when you see the way Parisian women pull it off it puts a whole new spin on things. Watch enough of these creatures walk past with various knots and bows across necks and collarbones and shoulders, and suddenly a big printed square of silk fabric tied about your person in some manner seems an absolute requirement for style and a signifier of chic.

It's also a great way to disguise your tourist status. Tie an Hermes scarf around your neck and put away your plan de Paris and it's almost a guarantee that before you know it people will be speaking blazing fast French to you whether you want them to or not. (Of course, if you still insist on wearing bright white tennis shoes and a sweatshirt embroidered with the name of your alma mater, you can be wrapped head toe to in Hermes scarves and it's not going to help. Make an effort, people.) That's what happened to me, anyway. It was flattering but disconcerting at times. "Je suis desolée, madame, votre francais est trop vite pour moi," is now a phrase that rolls off my tongue pretty easily.

Like I said, these are expensive little shmattes. And you can get them in the duty-free sections of the airport, but I believe that the money you don't save buying it at the boutique is paying for the absolutely delightful experience of walking into one of the most historic and exclusive fashion houses in Paris and knowing you're about to make a purchase.

And the scarf counter is particularly lovely -- it runs a long distance down one side of the main room, and there is an army of black-clad SAs waiting to unfurl these beauties and spread them on the counter for you, to knot them around your neck, to hold them up to your face and cock their heads as they consider the color against your skin. One of the things I love about Paris is that customer service jobs (especially in high-end establishments) are not taken quite so lightly as they are here; they're not merely placeholder jobs that you do while you're finishing up college, they're careers. And so behind the scarf counter you see all sorts of people, from young men who couldn't be more than 23 to older women who've obviously been doing this a good long time and have now forgotten more about scarves and chic than I will ever even know. All dressed in black, bien sûr. And beautifully accessorized.

So I wore my scarf around Paris and I was very happy and then it came time to leave Paris and that's when some sort of madness struck me. It's a familiar madness, mind you, but no less dangerous for that.

I didn't have trouble getting to the airport the morning I left, despite the transit strike that was going on. From Saint Germain in a taxi it only took me about 40 minutes. Going the other direction, however, as all the folks who live in the Parisian suburbs and work in the city (and there are lots; like Manhattan, Paris is physically a very small city with lots of commuters) tried to get to work without the benefit of commuter trains, it was a complete nightmare. My cab driver, who spoke an interesting and entertaining combination of English, French, and Chinese (Franglese?) told me that according to reports from the other cabbies, he was looking at a three-hour drive to get back into town. And because of whatever rules & regulations are imposed on cabbies, he was not permitted to pick up a fare at the airport. So fully half his day was spent on one fare -- moi. I felt pretty crummy about this and made sure I tipped him.

Charles de Gaulle was the usual madness and crush of tourists, many of whose luggage situations made me feel like my enormous Samsonite (the Beast) was traveling light. (Seriously -- some of these people could have attached engines to their suitcases and driven them to wherever they were going.) Alas, my flight was delayed. And yet -- even though my plane was not boarding until two hours later than its originally scheduled time, they were closing the check-in line an hour before the original flight time. So I stood in line for 45 minutes and checked the Beast and was told that they couldn't re-book my connecting flight in Houston from this counter (I decided not to press the matter by saying something like, "Um, why not? Is your computer an underachiever?") (I was re-booked very quickly & efficiently a short time later by a very helpful clerk at the gate who was very nice to me while muttering under her breath the whole time -- in English and French -- about the stupidity of the people in the front of the airport. Makes me wonder if there's some sort of front-of-house/back-of-house rivalry that goes on and results in rumbles on the jetways late at night. Probably not.)

Long story short (oh, like that ever happens around here...), it was now about 10:30 in the morning and my plane was not due to board until three hours later and I was loose in Charles de Gaulle airport with too much time, a head slightly fuzzy from lack of sleep, and a credit card in my wallet.

I don't know if you've ever been in CDG airport. I've only been in the part of the terminal where American airlines fly people in & out of the US and it is actually a pretty unpleasant place. It's old & rundown and just generally not very inviting. The way they make up for that is to plop a panorama of delicious duty-free shopping smack in the middle of this florescent-and-linoleum hinterland. Lots of duty-free, from places like Galeries Lafayette and Longchamp... and Hermes.

As I walked past the Hermes boutique I beheld a classic scene: a well-suited French man carrying a briefcase, choosing a scarf for someone. He was very particular. It was taking a while to find just the right color in just the right design. There was a dune of silk piled up on the top of the display case. Like a child walking past a candy counter, I couldn't resist. All those beautiful colors were just beckoning to me...

Not too much later, there was this:



This one is called Jardin d'Hiver (Winter Garden) and the detail in this design is spectacular. Click on theses photos to get the larger version so that you can really see what's going on in this scarf.






And so. Here ends my tale of overspending. Actually, it doesn't end here, or I should say I fear it won't. Because I've discovered a wonderful site that is only going to feed my newest obsession, and look what I found there:

I must have it. I MUST! It's my Shine on a scarf!!! Look!


The pattern is called Cave Felem, and if anyone knows where I can get one...

See? See? Oh, I'm in trouble...

Photos: Style Spy, FashionWireDaily.com, Luxury-Scarves.com

I Don't Think We're in Dillard's Anymore, Toto

So here's something you don't see at the mall...

These are photos from the interior of the Galeries Lafayette, perhaps the most magnificent department store (grand magasin, en francais) on the planet. It consists of three buildings (Lafayette Coupole, which houses women's fashions, accessories, cosmetics, childrens' clothes, and more), Lafayette Homme (menswear) and Lafayette Maison, which has some of the very coolest & most beautiful housewares you're ever likely to find. The buildings are on the corners of Boulevard Haussmann at the Place Diaghilev across from the Opera Garnier in the 9th Arrondissement, and the stores have been there since 1905 (although the original store was in a different location and opened in 1896).

Here's some of the cosmetics section:

and this doesn't even hint at the handbags, scarves, hats, gloves, jewelry, and other delectable delights that make up the ground floor.

I didn't take the photos above. My great weakness as a tourist is a morbid fear of appearing to be a tourist, so I'm very hesitant to whip out my camera in places like department stores. However, I absolutely had to take the following photos, which are of the Christmas window displays that were already up. (As my friend Dominique pointed out, there is no Thanksgiving in between Halloween & Christmas in France to slow down the holiday retail locomotive, and it's gotten just as bad there as it is here.)

Now, I'm not a big one for the cutesy stuff in general, but I'll have you know that every. Single. One. Of these bears was animated. I've never seen anything so adorable in my life. They were waving and bobbing and climbing in & out of backpacks and the flashes on their cameras were going off -- I became a 6 year-old standing in front of this window and actually laughed with delight. Notice the snapshots lying on the floor at the bottom of the picture? There were photos of the bears at all of the tourist spots of Paris -- the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, the Moulin Rouge. Absolutely delightful.




All of the windows were wonderful, but this one was my favorite, and happily was one of the only ones whose angle didn't cause terrible, photo-ruining reflections in the sunlight.

This brings me to some other photos that I took, of a display that so took my breath away I actually got over myself enough to pull out the camera and record it so that I could share it with you.

(Although I did take the photos without a flash, in the dim hope of avoiding all of the terminally chic SAs wondering, "Qui est cette freak americaine?")

This is in the shoe department (which in and of itself qualifies as the Elysian Fields for folks like me). Behold if you will every shoe care product imaginable, and a few I'd never even conceived of.


Shoe forms, arch supports, suede brushes, shoehorns, waterproofing sprays, cleaning creams, specially shaped stickies to ward off blisters, pads, polishes, buffers, buckles, laces... it was like a respectful shrine to the Shoeniverse.


If you don't think I stood in front of this display and had a little internal argument with myself over whether or not it was ridiculous to tote jars of shoe polish in my suitcase from Paris to Texas, you don't know me very well. It was torture to walk away from this display empty-handed, and now that I'm looking at the photo again I am swamped with regret.

To top it all off, it wasn't just products that were available, it was services. You can also drop off your shoes at this counter for repairs. How marvelous is that?

I was trying to imagine this counter in an American department store and I just couldn't. I think it has to do with the Quality Not Quantity ethos that the French embrace so wholeheartedly -- they have one good thing rather than four mediocre ones (civil servants excepted, of course). They don't do disposable quite to the extent that we do in this country, and since they have fewer things and the things they have are more expensive, they take care of their things. Which is a beautiful thing.

You know what else is a beautiful thing? On the first floor (which would be the second floor here -- it's very confusing until you get used to it), the floor with the Lanvin boutique and the Galliano boutique and the Lacroix and the Max Mara and and the Vivian Westwood and the Prada and the Comme des Garcons and -- well, you get the picture... on the first floor there is a lovely little wine & champagne bar where poised, polished Parisiennes wrapped in fur and Hermes scarves perch elegantly and sip to refresh themselves after the effort of spending beaucoup d'euros on gorgeousnesses like this

which I assure you is even more breathtaking in person. I resisted the siren call of the champagne bar, however, for fear of leaving even more of my personal fortune in les caisses of Galeries Lafayette than I already had. Actually, I was very good in there. The only thing I took home for myself was a lipstick. I felt I would not be a truly well-rounded person until I'd been ordered around -- excuse me, advised by an experienced Parisian cosmetics SA. (She was gentle but firm: the color I chose first was trop rose; it was Raspberry Truffle for me and I'd better get used to it. Even I am not foolish enough to argue with a Frenchwoman in a lab coat.)

There was one thing I left behind that I have serious regret over. I've been longing for a little jeweled minaudiere for evening, and have yet to find one at a reasonable (-ish) price that really spoke to me. But there was one in Galeries Lafayette that I fondled quite lovingly and actually made a repeat visit to. But I did not buy it. Oh, sometimes I despise myself for being so responsible. (Hey!! I heard that snort of derision!)

It was shaped like this:

but instead of pearls (I already have a little pearly evening bag -- it was my mom's) it was covered in rhinestones. It wasn't even terribly expensive, but I was trying so hard to be responsible and good. And the dollar is soooooo abysmal right now... ::sigh::

Oh, see, now I'm sad. I think an application of Raspberry Truffle is called for.

Photos: virtualTourist.com, gisparis.com, Style Spy, Style.com, Zappos.com