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November 28, 2012

Meredith Mullins: The Grand Prix de la Découverte

Last week in Paris, photography filled the air. Paris Photo. NoFound Photo. And, in my life, the culmination of The International Fine Art Photography Competition (Grand Prix de la Découverte). What made organizing the Grand Prix de la Découverte program so worthwhile? We saw exceptional fine art photography, provided recognition to deserving talent, heard inspiring stories of dedication and passion, and brought together an international community of artists. What more could you ask for?

The 2012 competition received more than 4000 entries from 72 countries, with an exceptionally high quality of work. What happens next? You rely on a distinguished panel of jurors to work through the inevitable diversity of artistic opinion and reach consensus on the winners. Thank you to Jane Evelyn Atwood, Julie Grahame, Michael Kenna, Jean-Claude Lemagny, Alexandre Percy, and David Travis. Their words of wisdom: Think about how you can stand out, submit something that is surprising or moving ... something that will not leave the viewer indifferent, and choose an image that will leave the deepest impression.

I am pleased to present the winners in the seven categories and to especially acknowledge the Grand Prix de la Découverte winners Jeremy Scott ("Woman Carrying Fish") from the U.S. and Javier Arcenillas ("Red Note") from Spain. Many thanks to The de Groot Foundation for sponsoring this program. And congratulations to all!

For those of you who missed the Grand Prix festivities in Paris last week, visit the website at www.internationalfineartphoto.org and become a Facebook fan at https://www.facebook.com/GrandPrixDeDecouverte, so you can see new work of the winners each day. And for all you photographers out there, we hope to see your work in the next competition!

Meredith Mullins is a fine art photographer, photography instructor, and Director of the International Fine Art Photography Competition. Her work can be seen at www.meredithmullins.artspan.com or in her award-winning book, In A Paris Moment. She is also available for private photography instruction/exploration in Paris. Contact her at [email protected].

Jeremy Scott ("Woman Carrying Fish")

Javier Arcenillas ("Red Note")

Jody Miller ("Radio")

John Chakeres ("Columbus Car Park 2010")

Jozef Mician ("Lost in Fairytale")

Akos Major ("Pedal Boats")

Christine Osinski ("Alice Projected")

In addition to my Eye Prefer Paris Tours, we now offer Eye Prefer New York Tours, 3-hour walking tours of New Yorkís best neighborhoods including Soho, Meatpacking/West Village & Tribeca. Tours cost $195 for up to 3 people and $65 for each additional person.Come take a bit of the Big Apple on an Eye Prefer New York Tour!

Come experience my blog ìliveî with my Eye Prefer Paris Tours, which are 3-hour walking tours I lead. The Eye Prefer Paris Tour includes many of the places I have written about such as small museums & galleries, restaurants, cafes & food markets, secret addresses, fashion & home boutiques, parks, and much more.Tours cost 195 euros for up to 3 people, and 65 euros for each additional person. I look forward to meeting you on my tours and it will be my pleasure and delight to show you my insiders Paris. www.eyepreferparistours.com

New! Eye Prefer Paris Cooking Classes
I am happy to announce the launch of Eye Prefer Paris Cooking Classes. Come take an ethnic culinary journey with me and chef and caterer Charlotte Puckette, co-author of the bestseller The Ethnic Paris Cookbook (with Olivia Kiang-Snaije). First we will shop at a Paris green-market for the freshest ingredients and then return to Charlotteís professional kitchen near the Eiffel Tower to cook a three-course lunch. After, we will indulge in the delicious feast we prepared along with hand-selected wines.

Cost: 185 euros per person (about $240)
Time: 9:30AM- 2PM (approximately 4 1/2 hours)
Location: We will meet by a metro station close to the market
Class days: Tuesday,Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday
Minimum of 2 students, maximum 6 students.

Click here to sign up for the next class or for more info.

November 28, 2012 in Meredith Mullins | Permalink | Comments (1)

November 27, 2012

Parisian of the Month: Nana Aganovich and Brooke Taylor

This month’s interview is a double header. Ever since I first met Nana Aganovich and Brooke Taylor, the dynamic duo behind the clothing label Aganovich after writing about their first collection on my blog a few years ago, I have been smitten by their innovative, architectural clothes and their terrific personal style. They recently moved to Paris after living in London.

Where were you born and where did you grow up?
Nana: I was born in Belgrade and I grew up in former Yugoslavia and in Denmark.

Brooke: Born in Monte-Carlo, Monaco. I grew up all over; Monaco, Florida, England, New Hampshire.

When and why did you move to Paris?
Brooke: We moved to Paris in June of this year to further develop our business here.

How and when did you meet each other and how did you make the decision to start your fashion line?
Brooke: We met on the 14th of February 2002 in a great West London pub called The Cow (owned by Tom Conran). The fashion line conclusion was essentially a process of elimination. We knew fairly early on that we wanted to work together for the rest of our lives and we needed to find a project that could provide that. I had experience in DJ-ing and party promotion so we did a few nights but realized, though a great deal of fun, there was no real long term future in it for obvious (late-night) reasons. Nana had extensive experience in stencil-graffiti and we gave that a bash but, again, no real long term future unless you plan to spend most nights in the street. Lastly, despite having developed a strong aversion to the fashion industry, Nana had in fact recently issued from the Saint Martins MA fashion course and clothing had played a huge part in our courtship. We thought, it’s something you can do until you are old, you don’t have to maintain your appearance (like an actor for example) and potentially (since we had become obsessed with the recent revamp of the Bentley motor cars) you can make lots of money. For the record we still can’t afford a Fiat Cinquecento much less a Bentley.

You were living in London before you moved here. What are some of the differences working and living, in London versus Paris?
Nana: Since we really started developing the label in Paris and since I work all the time, Paris for me fits perfectly because it’s more cosy and more beautiful.

Brooke: To be honest I could go on about this one for years since it is all that expats ever really talk about…but right here right now as a city London definitely has the upper hand. The recent ‘rediscovery’ of the East End which was decimated first by the Blitz, then by the closure of the docks and finally by the collapse of the Truman Brewery in the 80’s has resulted in massive investment, first creative then financial (and Olympian) and now both making for a very heady and exciting environment. By contrast Paris feels quite stifled by it’s museum status. It’s becoming a kind of holodeck. And don’t get me wrong I enjoy going to the holodeck as much as anyone else on the Starship Enterprise (I mean we live in Montmartre which is such a karaoke version of history it’s a couple notches away from ending up in Disneyworld and we could not love it more) but it often makes me wonder where Paris will or can go from here…?

As far as work goes it couldn’t be better. Paris is still the great fashion power and it wields that power with considerable poise and elegance and a great deal less hysteria than other cities (bearing in mind we’re still taking fashion so a periodic dose of hysteria is an enviable and fortifying tonic for the solitary drudge that is much of the fashion process.)

Can you tell us about your past careers before you started your company together?
Nana: After Saint Martins since my background was more in art and I was lacking the technical side of making clothes instead of going and working for a house I decided to got to China and start a production facility that later on became a small factory. Where besides ideas I was able to learn the base of clothing manufacture. I have since sold my stake in the facility to my former partner.

Brooke: Most of mine is relatively off the grid. The death of my father in my late teens killed my ambitions to be a professional tennis player and left me looking forward to what I thought might be a rewarding decade as a trustafarian. Little did I know I didn’t have enough money in my trust to fulfill even a fraction of this admirable ambition. So rather than bouncing from Marbella to Malibu and back to Ladbroke Grove on my bio-fuelled Lear jet with my heroine-chic pals I got stuck on the Circle line for a year with a bag of crap weed and a couple of Withnail and I rejects before falling into a decade of raves and ‘alternative’ lifestyling punctuated by brief periods of promising but short-lived literary activity.

I know every season you have an inspiration for your collection not necessarily based on fashion. Please tell us what the inspiration was behind the Spring 2013 collection.
Brooke: In short; gypsies. In long; we are ever exploring the non-place, what we generally call the ‘middle-of-nowhere’ (like the first presentation you came to that was based on a recent visit to Greenland by Nana’s brother Vlada) and the idea, rather than the reality, which is obviously something else altogether, of the gypsy struck us as rich source material for this theme.

What has been the most surprising reaction to your collections?
Nana: Rei Kawakubo visiting our showroom and telling me “you are on the right path”.

Brooke: Anger.

If you were able to design a garment for one person living or dead, who would it be?
Nana: Romy Schneider.

Brooke: My grandmother. She was the product of a minor but influential Chicago dynasty. Very beautiful (but then again isn’t everyone’s grandmother..?). We still have a huge portrait of her in her debutante dress by our bed in London that was painted by her uncle, society portraitist Abram Poole in the late 20’s.

Who are some of your style icons?
Nana: Giullietta Masina in La Strada. Joan Burstein aka Mrs.B of the London boutique Browns. Amanda Harlech muse/consultant at Chanel.

B: Leigh Bowery for sure. Ernie K-Doe, the New Orleans blues musician who I was lucky enough to meet at the reopening of his Mother-in-Law lounge in the 90’s (but more as a Southern archetype than just him), Robert LaSardo, the heavily tattooed American actor though specifically when he wears suits and the tattoos creep out the sleeves; that combination of menace and reserve to me is about as stylish as it gets. And more day to day, the hat designer Justin Smith who we work with periodically; he has that perfect balance of raggedness, elegance and conviction that I find so seductive.

If money and other obstacles were no object, what would be your fantasy venue to show your collection?
Nana: La Musee des Arts et Metiers in Paris.

Brooke: I’d rather say if imagination were no obstacle I would love to be able to stage a show in the middle of one of Luis Borges’ short stories like the ‘Library of Babel’ or stage a show with the now dead artist Juan Munoz. But in reality I think Venice is definitely a runner up.

What do you prefer about Paris?
Nana: That we can smoke outside and they have heaters on the terraces of the cafes! London is quite less kind to its smokers.

Brooke: The way they clean the streets by opening the valves on the hills and letting the water run down through the gutters towards the Seine guided by the rolled up carpet swatches. The poetry of that simple process has never ceased to fill me with an incredible sense of well-being.

http://www.aganovich.com

November 27, 2012 in Parisian of the Month | Permalink | Comments (3)

November 26, 2012

Lunch with Lynn/Under 20 Eats: Le Temps de Cerises

Lynn has been unavailable for lunch the past few months but has resurfaced in November. We had a nice, long lunch and caught up and I am happy she is writing the review today.

Le Temps des Cerises – that’s where Richard and I had lunch the other day – a small medieval house turned bistro in 1830 on the corner of rue de la Cerisaie and the long quiet street, le Petit Musc, where, it’s rumored, Victor Hugo could be seen scrurrying along after secretly leaving his house (and wife) in Place des Vosges to visit his incredibly faithful actress mistress Juliette Drouet on the Left Bank.

But enough gossip.

Lunch was superb. For 13 euros we had a most filling and delicious formule: an entrée and plat. The entrée was a light green vegetable velouté that afterwards had me scouring every Mona Lisait book store for a little jewel devoted to these thick, rich French soups. Someday, I will find that little book; in the meantime, I know that once you have the ingredients just right you mix them with a long electric tool called a “pied,” which I do own and which whirls everything to just the right velvety consistency. What a delight the taste is.

Following the velouté, Richard and I both chose the cabillaud, a marvelous cod in pesto sauce, served over roasted zucchini and green beans. Ahhhh!! And the serving was so generous I couldn’t finish it all.

Richard knows I am not a fan of fruit (yes, that does mean fruit in general – one of only three people perhaps in the entire universe who rejects raspberries and kiwi and bananas, etc., outright) and since Richard didn’t want to eat the pear crumble all alone, he abstained, but oh, it did look scrumptious, even to “fruit rejecter” me.

As we were having our coffee, in came two California friends, Jerry and Daniel, who visit Paris three months every year and who eat at least once a week at Le Temps des Cerises. Jerry said he is amazed that in all the time they have been eating there they have almost never seen the same special twice, and what they have had has always invariably been good. Furthermore, Sylvie the waitress is always as nice as possible. High praise.

And you may even fall in love there, but beware of a broken heart, as the song foretells:

Quand vous en serez au temps des cerises 

Si vous avez peur des chagrins d'amour 

Évitez les belles ! 

Moi qui ne crains pas les peines cruelles 

Je ne vivrai pas sans souffrir un jour... 

Quand vous en serez au temps des cerises 

Vous aurez aussi des chagrins (peines) d'amour !

    When it’s cherry season time
    If you’re afraid of a broken heart
    Avoid attractive people!
    Since I’m not afraid of cruel hurt
    I will inevitably suffer one day…
    And when it’s cherry season time for you
    You too will have a broken heart!

(“Le Temps des Cerises” written in 1866 by Jean-Baptiste Clément and often associated with the 1870 Paris Commune. Hugo would have heard the song when he returned from exile on the Isle of Guernsey in 1870).

31 rue de Cerisaie,75004
Metro: Bastille or Sully Morland
Open everyday for lunch and dinner
01 42 72 08 63

Daniel (left), Jerry (right)

November 26, 2012 in Lunch with Lynn/Under 20 Eats | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 22, 2012

Happy Thanksgiving 2012

image courtesy of http://www.iclipart.com/index.php?adv=

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays and for the last five years I have published this French Thanksgiving vocabulary list, courtesy of my former New York French teacher, Luc Georges.

Since Thanksgiving is not an official holiday in France, many ex-pats postpone their Thanksgiving dinner for Friday or Saturday, but some are tradtionalists and make it on Thursday. The advantage is that if you play your cards right, you can get invited to Thanksgiving dinner all three nights like I was last year.

Happy Thanksgiving and be thankful for what you have and for your family and friends. What are you thankful for this year?

French Thanksgiving Vocabulary

Thanksgiving    le jour de l'action de grâce
autumn, fall    l'automne
colony    une colonie
feast    un festin, un banquet
football    le football américain
grateful    (adj)    reconnaissant
harvest    la récolte
horn of plenty    la corne d'abondance
native    (adj)    natif
(Native American) Indians    les Indiens (d'Amérique)
November    novembre
parade    un défilé
Pilgrims    les pèlerins
settlers    les colons
to share    partager
Thursday    jeudi
tradition    une tradition
traditional    (adj)    traditionnel
treaty    un traité
tribe    une tribu

The food served for the Thanksgiving feast varies from home to home, but here are some traditional dishes.
food    la nourriture
corn    le maïs
cranberries    les canneberges
gravy    la sauce au jus de viande
mashed potatoes    la purée
pumpkin pie    la tarte à la citrouille
stuffing    la farce
sweet potatoes    les patates douces
turkey    la dinde
yam    un igname

November 22, 2012 in Holidays | Permalink | Comments (1)

November 21, 2012

Dessert of Month: Poire Belle Helene from Lenotre

A big trend in French desserts in the last few years has been the verrine, which is hybrid of a glass and a terrine. Desserts are layered in a clear glass to give a terrine type of effect, making it look irresistibly pretty.

Transparence de poire facon Belle Helene (see through poire Belle Helene style) at Lenotre gourmet shop, is an updated version of the classic dessert of poached pears with syrup, slivered almonds and vanilla ice cream. In this version, the bottom layer is chocolate mousse, above it Madagascar vanilla cream, topped with poached pears and two chocolate wafers.

All the contrasting tastes worked really well: the chocolate mousse was rich but not heavy, the vanilla cream had the deep flavor of the bean, and the poached pears were light as air. The only disappointment were the chocolate wafers which were a little on the soggy side with not much flavor to them. Even though it seemed like a major dessert, I didn’t feel a sugar rush or overly stuffed afterwards. The added bonus is I get to keep the Lenotre glass.

Transparence de poire facon Belle Helene
Lenotre
10 rue Saint Antoine, 75004
Metro: Bastille
6.90 euros

November 21, 2012 | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 20, 2012

David Burke's Writers in Paris: Balzac's Hideaway

After seven bombs published under fanciful pseudonyms, Honoré de Balzac finally hit it big with his novel Les Chouans in 1829. He was thirty years old. It was first time he signed his name to one of his works. But by this time he was already deeply in debt, due to the collapse of his printing company a year earlier. A race between two driven Balzacs was on. One was the brilliant, dynamic, prolific, phenomenally imaginative best-selling author, the other the quixotic business man. He plunged into such off-the-wall schemes as a pineapple plantation in the Paris suburb of Sèvres and an abandoned Roman Empire silver mine in Sardinia and poured his royalties into two newspapers he created, all total flops. Ironically, of all the novelists of his day Balzac was the one who wrote the most perceptively about the role of money in the lives of his characters, while his own finances were an unending disaster. By the end of the 1830s the demands of his creditors were insufferable. So he went into hiding.

In November 1840 Balzac rented what he called a “provisional shelter,” a discreet little house with a garden he enjoyed in the then-rural village of Passy outside Paris. He ended up staying for more than six years. He rented it under name of his housekeeper Mme Brugiol, deliberately misspelled as “M de Breugnol.” To get in, a caller had to provide two passwords: “I am bringing lace from Bruges” and “the plum season has arrived.” One feature of the house Balzac especially appreciated was that it opened onto on two different streets. It fronts on the Rue Raynouard and backs onto an alleyway, two levels down. He had an escape hatch cut into the floor of the parlor (unfortunately now covered over) so he could quickly escape creditors who came to the front door. He’d then be able to slip down to the basement, out the back door to the Rue Berton alley, and make his getaway.

Now a museum, the Maison de Balzac, is rich in evidence of his life and his work, most importantly his meticulously restored study, where he spent the better part of his nights and days. From his remarkably tiny writing table came staggering amounts of manuscript. Writing for a minimum of twelve hours a day, as was his habit, he corrected the whole of the Comédie Humaine for its collected edition and wrote more than twenty other books. The pace turned all the more feverish in 1842 when he opened a letter from his mistress the Countess Eveline Hanska in Russia and learned that her husband had died. Hoping all the more to pay down his debts to have a reasonably clean slate should they be able to marry, he went into overdrive, working up to sixteen hours a day. “My arm has almost worn itself out from moving it around as I write,” he wrote to her. Among Balzac’s most popular novels written here were the last volume of Lost Illusions, Cousin Bette, and the last one he would write, Cousin Pons.

On display is Balzac’s famous coffee pot, the source of the twenty or so cups he drank every day to keep up his furious pace of work -- undoubtedly a factor for his early death, at fifty-one, three years after leaving this house.

In the parlor we see oil portraits of Balzac’s father and mother and other key people in his life, most notably the Countess Hanska, his lover and eventual wife. And there are images galore of Balzac himself, from satiric cartoons of the day to all sorts of respectful sculptures, from David d’Angers’s marble bust, done from life in 1844, and Allesandro Puttini’s 1837 marble portrait of him in the famous monk’s cowl he wore when he wrote, to a number of later clay sculptures by such artists as Auguste Rodin, a huge fan of Balzac’s work.

To me, the most original display is of the marvelous woodblock printing plates illustrating characters and scenes from the Comédie Humaine, etched during Balzac’s lifetime and shortly after his death. They offer vivid portraits of a few hundred or so of the more than six thousand characters the dynamo of French fiction brought to life.

As Baudelaire put it:
“From the summit of the aristocracy to the lower depths of the plebian, all the actors of his Comédie are more greedy for life, more active and cunning in the struggle, more patient in misfortune, more gluttonous in pleasure, more angelic in devotion, than the comedy of the real word shows them. In short, in Balzac, even the door-keepers have genius. All his souls are loaded to the muzzle with will. Just like Balzac himself. "

Maison de Balzac
47 Rue Raynouard, 75016 Paris.
Metro: Passy or La Muette.
Open every day except Monday from 10am to 6pm.
www.balzac.paris.fr

David Burke is the author of Writers in Paris, Literary Lives in the City of Light, and the personal tour guide of David Burke’s Writers in Paris Walks. To learn about the book and the walks and the writer go to www.writersinparis.com. David is also a documentary filmmaker and former 60 MINUTES writer/producer who came to Paris for what he thought would be a year, but turned into more twenty. He now divides his time between Paris and New York.

November 20, 2012 in David Burke's Writers in Paris , Guest Posts | Permalink | Comments (1)

November 19, 2012

Door of the Month: 28 bis Rue Richelieu

This enamel fire engine door is s standout on the dingy and heavily trafficked rue Richelieu. Not only does it have intricate grillwork on the door itself, but also the plaster cornice above the door is richly detailed. The apartment building was constructed in 1830 and nearby by is the lovely Moliere fountain.

28 bis Rue Richelieu, 75001
Metro: Palais Royal-Musee de Louvre

In addition to my Eye Prefer Paris Tours, we now offer Eye Prefer New York Tours, 3-hour walking tours of New York's best neighborhoods including Soho, Meatpacking/West Village & Tribeca. Tours cost $195 for up to 3 people and $65 for each additional person.Come take a bite of the Big Apple on an Eye Prefer New York Tour!

November 19, 2012 in Door of the Month | Permalink | Comments (6)

November 15, 2012

Vertige Flower Shop

One of my favorite flower shops in the Marais is Vertige. Owner Agathe Braconnier has a certain jen se quoi with flowers and arrangements that transform them to a whole other level of beauty. From a singular flower in a little tin pot to a massive bouquet fit for a queen, there is a simplicity and style that truly elevate the art of flower arrangements.

Vertige has many fans from the fashion, design and business worlds including Chanel, Cotelac, Acquaverde, John Galliano ( who lives in the area and stops by for his weekly flowers), BNP Paribas, and French film director Andre Techine.

Vertige has also graced the pages of Architectural Digest, Madame Figaro, Maison Francais, and Mode et Travaux.

An extra-added bonus behind the shop is a most wonderful courtyard with a private home and garden.

Vertige 11 rue de Sevigne, 75004
Metro: St. Paul
www.vertigemarais.com

November 15, 2012 in Parks, Gardens,Outdoors | Permalink | Comments (5)

November 14, 2012

Chapon Chocolates

Did you ever walk into a shop and instantly fall in love with every square inch of it? That’s the way I felt about the Chapon chocolate shop on rue du Bac when I first discovered it. It’s the kind of place where almost all of your senses are overwhelmed- sight, smell, and of course, taste. I just want to move in and stay.

The first thing your eye immediately goes to is the counter filled with enormous white ceramic bowls piled high with a riotous variety of chocolates including truffles, chocolate covered oranges and orange peel, and chocolate covered almonds. Above them is the display of the cleverest items in the shop, chocolate wristwatches, which were my Dessert of the Month last year.

Perpendicular is the main display counter with over 40 varieties of chocolate including ganaches, pralines, and marzipan.

Another display has a new series of chocolates that resemble colored marbles in Indian-inspired colored printed packaging (the collection is called Cachemire) and in the corner are cans of cocoa with adorable vintage illustrations of little boys in hats and suits.

If you like pure dark chocolate bars, there is a large selection from exotic locales around the world including the Amazon, India, Tanzania, Peru, Madagascar, Ghana, and Venezuela.

Patrice Chapon, owner and creator of Chapon, started his sweet career as the ice-cream maker to the Royal Court of Buckingham Palace – That’s starting your career with a bang! After returning to live in France, Patrice at age 24 starts to concoct his first chocolates in the basement of his parents home. He opens his first tiny storefront in Chelles in 1993 and now has two additional shops in Paris. He has won the Grand Prix of the City of Paris and awards from Salon du Chocolate.

Chapon
69 rue du Bac, 75007
Metro: Rue du Bac
Open Tuesday to Saturday 10:30AM to 7:30PM
http://www.chocolat-chapon.com/site.html

Chocolate wristwatches. What time is it? Time for chocolate, bien sur!

November 14, 2012 in Food & Gourmet Shops, Pastry & Chocolate, Shopping | Permalink | Comments (2)

November 13, 2012

L’Ibis Rouge

They say the teacher learns from their students. In my case, it’s the tour guide who learns from their clients. Over the years, clients have shared many things I haven’t had prior knowledge of, including restaurants, historic facts, shopping, hotels, and other insider tips. Many have been great finds and very useful.

A lovely client from Louisiana and I hit it off like a house on fire last year when we did a Marais tour and we have kept closely in touch by email since then. She emailed me in late summer and highly recommended that I visit her friend’s clothing and jewelry shop near Le Bon Marché department store on the Left Bank. I looked at the address and realized I had probably walked by the shop many times, never paying attention to it.

I briefly stopped by the shop during a tour in September and quickly perused. I could tell right away the merchandise was very special. In October I had three New York ladies who wanted to do a high-end depot vente/re-sale shop tour. Judging by what I had seen in the shop before, I thought this was the perfect place to take my clients. My hunch was right and my New York ladies loved the shop and spent almost two hours picking out jewelry and accessories. I received a very nice email from them saying how much they not only liked the shop but also how nice and accommodating the owner Vivianne was.

L’Ibis Rouge specializes in vintage luxury clothing and accessories including high-end costume jewelry but also carries new merchandise from small, exclusive Italian and French fashion and jewelry designers, much of it made by hand. Vivianne has had her shop for over thirty years and at one time also designed and sold custom bridal gowns. She has extensive knowledge about the history of fashion and accessories and if you select any item in the shop she will tell you the history about it in full detail. As I was asking about certain pieces in the shop, she would sometimes pull out a book and show me a photo of the pieces and/or the designer’s work. Vivianne searches high and wide for things to buy for her client’s specific tastes and had just returned with a bounty of Chanel jewelry from an estate sale in England. Every piece in the shop is of impeccable taste and quality and is displayed in the same way. Even if the pieces aren’t your taste, you can well appreciate the craftsmanship. Also, Vivianne is very patient with customers and will let them endlessly try on things until they find what’s right for them. Her vast collection includes Chanel, Yves St. Laurent, Christian Dior, Hermés, Schiaparelli, Balenciaga, Givenchy, Paco Rabanne, Christian Lacroix, Lanvin, Pierre Cardin, Karl Lagerfeld, and Goossens who also worked for a long period with Gabriele Chanel. L’Ibis Rouge also carries American costume jewelry designers such as Trifari, Myriam Haskell, Schreiner, Boucher, and Monet.

If you are looking for that singular WOW! accessory or have a serious interest in incredible vintage costume jewelry and handbags then move L’Ibis Rouge to the top of your list of must-visit shops in Paris.

L’Ibis Rouge
35 Blvd. Raspail, 75007
Metro: Sevres-Babylone
Open 12PM to 7PM Tuesday to Saturday
Tel. +33 (0) 1 45 48 98 21
[email protected]