observations of a wannabe parisienne

1 CommentThursday • December 9, 2010 • by admin

I know she probably didn’t actually say it and all that historically-accurate jazz, but Marie Antoinette’s mantra ‘let them eat cake’ inspired my most recent visit to Paris. Cos eat cake I most certainly did, and, inspired by anna-marie’s Belfast-based cake-ologue, I shall now share with you my sugary highlights from the city of light.

My first trip to Paris, ten years ago, was very different to this one. Back then I was travelling with 5 ‘budget-conscious’ Yanks (ie. they were saving all their money to buy weed in Amsterdam), so we stayed in a youth hostel, walked everywhere and ate baguettes for dinner on our bunkbeds.

The Paris of my dreams and fantasies is populated by chic Garance-alikes who skip about town in wildly improbable heels, drinking black coffee, smoking Gauloises and nibbled on macarons. The reality, of course, is rather different – especially when you’re battling the heaviest snowfall in nearly 30 years. Slush and snow-blindness do not a perfectly-posed
Sartorialist photo make.
We were staying at the Hotel du Louvre which is a proper gold-and-red-lacquer ocean liner of an establishment on the Rue de Rivoli, right opposite the Louvre. In the cosy bar, they serve the most beautiful cocktails in funny little stemless glasses, balanced in spheres filled with crushed ice. In the name of research, I sampled the espresso martini… at lunchtime, with a burger & rings l’onion – tres chic, non?

Our Rive Droit base meant we were perfectly placed for a spot of pretentious promenading up and down Rue St Honore (although I still managed to walk past Hotel Costes three times without noticing it – durr…) Similarly struggled to find Colette (yeah thanks for that crapgooglemap) but eventually located the temple to pretentiousness that is my spiritual home. I wanted to say hello to the new issue of Twin magazine (cos my article about les garconnes is in it – woo! buy it now!) but got distracted by beautiful YSL heels, Christopher Kane cosmos-scattered frocks and other dreamy things.
Avoiding the boring old Louvre, we ducked out of the blizzard into the Musee les Arts Decorative, which is the most amazing fashion-focused museum. On at the moment is a fantastic exhibition dedicated to the designers who defined the years 1990 – 2000. There were cabinets devoted to Rei Kawakubo and Comme des Garcons, Maison Martin Margiela, Issey Miyake, Viktor & Rolf, Helmut Lang, Azzedine Alaia, all accompanied by audio and show footage. It was fascinating to get up close to these era-defining clothes and see that, in many cases, they’re looking a little tatty and frayed, dated and not-very-well-made! Of course that doesn’t undermine how vastly influential these designers were – and still are – but a little healthy criticism’s always necessary to prevent us from straying into emperor’s new clothes territory.



Upstairs and there was more to delight and enthrall – dresses by Gaultier, Galliano, Lagerfeld and Prada. And then one single, beautiful gown on its own by Alexander McQueen, with the video from his S/S04
collection playing behind it. I watched transfixed at the flickering images of models tottering around a ballroom, evoking the tragic dance marathons of the Depression as portrayed in They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? Seeing this incredible footage brought home again what a visionary McQueen was – I bet those models who trained for weeks to take part in that show still remember it as one of the highlights of their careers.

Apres musee and it was time for cake, so we crept gingerly along the icy pavements and into Angelina. A Parisian institution, it was frequented by Mademoiselle Chanel and Proust (how d’you like those madeleines, Marcel?) And we guzzled these little babies, pictured below. Vanilla cream, caramel stuff, pastry, macaroons, berries, some more whipped cream. Oh did I mention we had croque moinseurs first?

Dinners involved: oysters, steak tartare, champagne, and mystical things done with truffle dust (this was at Chateaubriand, where I had an actual emotional response to the food – something I’ve never experienced before as I’m usually too busy stuffing).

The thing I love most about the people of Paris is they don’t ever seem to feel guilty about: shopping, scoffing, smoking, shagging, posing and pouting. They do it all with an insouciant shrug, as if to say “Quoi?” Nigella has the same approach to life – see her in a taxi with a bag full of cake ingredients and you know it’s only a matter of moments before she’ll be unwrapping the cooking chocolate and guzzling it on the way home. She has the right attitude – if you’re going to treat yourself, don’t waste time or energy feeling guilty about it – what’s the point? Obviously I’m not going to implement my Parisian boa-constrictor-based gastro-strategy in real life, but I am going to try to enjoy treats with a little less guilt from now on. Non, je ne regrette rien.