Category Archives: Art de vivre in Paris

We might only be a few weeks into the New Year—and the weather is certainly pretty wintry—but Paris has been buzzing over the past few days because it’s fashion week.

Fashion Weeks Explained

Or rather, fashion weeks, plural. For the uninitiated, the multiple fashion weeks here in gay Paris can prove a little complicated, so let us explain how it works. The first thing to remember is that like in New York, Milan and London, fashion week in Paris takes place twice a year: once in the spring, previewing clothes for the upcoming fall/winter season, and again in the autumn, with new styles for the following year’s spring/summer season.

In Paris, the official dates by the official trade body, the Fédération Française de la Couture du Prêt-à-Porter des Couturiers et Créateurs de Mode, with three different shows following a strict pattern every year. While Men’s Fashion Week obviously brings the biggest influx of gorgeous young men to the French capital, fashion being the industry that it is, all six annual events see a lively, creative buzz in the capital and around the Marais.

Men’s Fashion Week

First off the blocks is Men’s Fashion Week (our favourite!) which from Wednesday 18 January through to last Sunday. The city was quite literally teeming with gorgeous models, while those lucky enough to have an invite to one of the catwalk shows got a chance to visit some very exclusive venues both inside the Marais and beyond. Key trends this year included floating capes and new, higher waistlines for trousers, as illustrated here by Rick Owens.  The boys will be back on 27 June to show off designer looks for spring and summer 2013 and we can’t wait!

Haute Couture

Starting by tradition the very next day, the Haute Couture shows that follow Men’s Fashion Week are an altogether more exclusive affair, with only a select few houses exhibiting their collections. That’s hardly surprising given that some of the outfits cost tens of thousands of dollars, but the sector is doing surprisingly well in the current financial climate. There might not be many people willing to spend that much on clothes, but it’s safe to assume that the ones that are have got some pretty substantial savings behind them. The big news this year has been the return of collection by Donaatella Versace—it’s been more than eight years since Versace staged a haute couture show, so Monday’s event was big news.

PRÊT-À-PORTER

The third and final burst of fashion week comes later—February for the spring round of shows—and covers Prêt-à-porter (‘ready to wear’) womenswear. Most of the big houses represented in the Haute Couture shows have more accessible pieces, and they’re joined by a much wider range of designers.

What have Harry’s, the Hemingway and Buddha Bar got in common? They’re all great places to get a cocktail in Paris, of course, but they’re also the city’s entries in a recently-published list of the world’s fifty best bars. The top fifty has been compiled from a poll of readers of Drinks International magazine—and they should know a decent watering hole when they see one.

The number one spot went to PDT (aka Please Don’t Tell), a ‘secret’ speakeasy-style bar in New York’s West Village. Most of the top ten, in fact, is split between London and New York, with the first non-English-speaking entry from Paris itself, Harry’s, at number nine.

We can’t resist a chance to go for a nice cocktail, of course, which is just as well—as that’s what all three bars specialise in!

Harry’s New York Bar

5, rue Daunou — 2nd arrondissement

A good old-fashioned American-style cocktail bar, Harry’s has been something of an institution amongst ex-pats for a hundred years now. Traditional cocktails are complemented by a lunch menu that mixes all-American staples like hot dogs with French favourites like croques monsieurs.

Given the diverse mix of Americans that make it to Paris, the bar’s straw poll, held exactly one month before every presidential election, has been a remarkable predictor of success down the years, only getting it wrong twice in the course of two elections. The bar is well-known as one of the most exciting places outside of Washington, DC, to follow election night—worth remembering if you’re planning a visit to Paris in 2012!

Buddha Bar

8 bis, rue Boissy d’Anglas — 8th arrondissement

A million miles away from the cozy, intimate atmosphere of Harry’s, Buddha Bar is a bustling cross-cultural mix, with drinkers and diners mingling underneath the huge buddha that dominates the main room. Split across two floors, the venue has a restaurant upstairs, but it’s the bar downstairs that we prefer. With a great selection of cocktails, you can keep on dancing all night—especially as you’re likely to recognise much of the music from the dozen or so compilation CDs that the bar has taken to releasing over the years.

Hemingway Bar

in the Ritz-Carlton, 15, place Vendôme — 1st arrondissement

One of the most exclusive places to stay in Paris is now complemented by one of the most exclusive places to drink. Named after one of the city’s most famous US residents (who would actually probably have been more at home in Harry’s), the Hemingway is a classic hotel bar, with immaculate bartenders mixing delicious cocktails for both residents and guests.

It’s hardly surprising that a city whose residents are as crazy about culture as the Parisians boasts not one, but two, world-class opera houses. France’s national company, the Opéra National de Paris, divides its time between the sumptuous Opéra Garnier—first opened in 1875 on the orders of Napoleon III—and the sleek, modern chic of the Opéra Bastille—opened in 1989 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the French revolution.

This week, we’re going for a night at the opera in the sumptuous nineteenth-century interior of the Opéra Garnier in the chic 9th arrondissement, but we’ll be taking going for a night out at the Opéra Bastille some time soon too.

Thirteen Years in the Making

The Palais Garnier’s sumptuous design was chosen in 1862 after a competition—which drew over 150 entries—launched by Napoleon III. Outraged after an attempted assassination by Italian anarchists in 1861 at the original Paris Opera, the Emperor decided it was time to build an entirely new opera. The new building was to be in keeping with the other projects he had set under way, including a radical redesign of the Paris street plan orchestrated on his behalf by Baron Haussmann.

The winning design, finally complete in 1875, is incredibly opulent, and makes liberal use of expensive materials like gold and marble. Indeed, the whole project was bedevilled by money worries and Napoleon III didn’t even live to see it finished.

Much of the building is open to visitors, even without a ticket. You can wander up the grand staircase, one of the largest ever built at the time, which soon became the place to see and be seen in Paris. The auditorium itself—where almost two thousand spectators sit under a crystal chandelier weighing almost six tonnes—is as opulent as the other spaces and is upholstered with deep red velvet and plenty of gold. The stage, a remarkable technical achievement for the period, has room for up to 450 performers at once, with musicians below.

Nowadays, the Palais Garnier rarely holds opera performances, most of which have been transferred to the Opéra Bastille which has more advanced audio and lighting equipment. Instead, it focuses on ballet, presenting around a dozen pieces a year, with a mixture of classics and new work. Most are performed by the national company, but visits from other companies are also common.

If you’d just like to see the elegant interior and not attend a performance—and getting tickets can be very difficult if you don’t plan ahead—then there are guided tours every day.

WHAT: Palais Garnier Opéra Opera House
WHERE: place de l’Opéra, métro Opéra (lines 3, 7)
WHEN: open for visitors everyday; check for performance details

A couple of weeks ago, we looked at the classic left-bank brasseries that line the boulevard Montparnasse. Well, they’re not the only reason you should cross the river from the Marais next time you’re here to stay if you’re looking to experience some traditional Parisian café-culture.

Slightly further north is the decidedly chic Saint Germain des Prés neighbourhood. For years, it’s been the stomping ground of France’s intellectual élite and home to many of its most famous publishing houses. A number of the city’s leading universities are also nearby in the Latin
Quarter, so-named for the lingua franca amongst students centuries ago.  Nowadays, it’s also an upscale shopping district.

The area is still centred on the place Saint-Germain, which is in turn dominated by the Saint-Germain-des-Prés church. When the abbey was founded on farmland on what was then outside the city walls back in the ninth century, it gained the name ‘des Prés’, French for ‘in the fields’.

Les Deux Magots

Fast forward a few centuries and the area was at the heart of a bustling part of central Paris. In particular, two cafés shaped the lively intellectual scene that began in the 1930s and continued after the war. Artists and writers like Sartre, Hemingway and Picasso were all regulars on the sunny terrace at Les Deux Magots during this period. The café is still serving its trademark hot chocolates, as well as coffees, wine, lunch and dinner—and doing a roaring trade.

Café de Flore

Further east along boulevard Saint-Germain is the Café de Flore, which is most well-known as the home to writers and philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir during the 1940s and 1950s.

Both cafés are bastions of tradition, so you can expect to be served by waiters wearing black tie and crisp white aprons, and both offer plenty of opportunity for people-watching from the terrace. Devotees claim, however, that Les Deux Magots sneaks an edge on the Café de Flore in summer months because it catches the very first rays of sunlight in the morning.

WHAT: Café des Deux Magots and Café de Flore
WHERE: 6, place Saint-Germain-des-Prés and  172, boulevard Saint-German