Beth Arnold

Letter From Paris presents...Paris Fashion Report

By Contributing Editor Philippe Perisse de Montchenu, Fashion Reporter and Consultant

 

IN PREP WE TRUST

If you spent the last two months in Paris, you may have noticed the recent PREP TIDE. 

It started with the April 28th opening of Ralph Lauren’s car collection show at the MUSEE DES ARTS DECORATIFS.

 

 

The Art of The Automobile by Ralph Lauren

 

Letter From Paris: The Sperm Keep Swimming By

Catching up on the latest street art I found in the 20th Arrondissement. I'm talking about my hood...

Coats of many colors--and people, too.

The bold tones and clean, simple shapes grab my attention and hold my eye.  The featureless faces allow my imagination to fill them in. To me, children and adults are innocence revealed.

Jours of Our Lives: 25) THE VIEW FROM ON HIGH

 

An ongoing series about uprooting our lives in America and moving to France. For what's happened before, see previous Jours of Our Lives entries here.

 

ONCE MATISSE MADE enough money, he gave up Collioure for glitzier Nice. Although it took me several days to appreciate and understand the textures of this big Mediterranean city, with all its Italian flavors, I eventually liked it so much that I hated to leave. The Hotel Le Grimaldi was our home while we explored M. Matisse’s haunts in and around this part of the Cote d’Azur. Such a lovely hotel—it was a great comfort as well as a pleasure to be their guest.

I could fill an entire book with the hedonistic pleasures of Nice. One night we promenaded to the famous Hotel Negresco for a drink. The Negresco is pink and fabulous from the outside, and the bar is classic clubby with handsome polished wood and tailored, rich fabrics, beautiful people sitting around, all the women dripping in jewels. We sat down, and I slung my jacket over my chair like this was nothing for me. When the very proper waiter leaned over to quietly greet us, Jim ordered us Gin Fizzes. The cool refreshments were perfectly made and elegantly delivered with petite bowls of crunchy snacks. The problem was, we were bored. If one can afford a luxurious five-star hotel, does this mean that he or she is dull? Or is the level of pretension such that life has ebbed away? Or was it just the evening?

Letter From Paris: The Face of Dominique Strauss-Kahn

When the bomb dropped about the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, all Paris was abuzz.

Letter from Paris presents...The Sound Hunter

Image via Wikipedia

 

 

by Contributing Editor Des Coulam. Recording the street sounds of Paris attempting to capture that gratuitous, never-ending show for which no ticket is needed.

 

 

 

Musée Carnavalet – Extraordinary Sounds

 

I RECENTLY WENT on a sound hunting expedition to the Musée Carnavalet in the rue de Sévigné. It is a museum I know well and visit often … but what on earth is there to record in a museum that could possibly be of interest?

 

The Musée Carnavalet is an absolute gem. It is a museum dedicated to the city of Paris and entry is free. It occupies both the former Hôtel Carnavalet and the former Hôtel Le Peletier de Saint Fargeau. The notorious socialite, Madame de Sévigné lived there from 1677 until her death in 1696 and so it was in her shadow that I entered the museum to embark upon my task.

Jours of Our Lives: 24) SHEDDING MY SKIN

An ongoing series about uprooting our lives in America and moving to France. For what's happened before, see previous Jours of Our Lives entries here.

WE ARRIVED IN Marseille not knowing where we would spend the night. The Hotel de Cacharel—where we’d left all the belongings we’d been hauling all over France—was full. I called our next stop along the way—the Mahogany Hotel de la Plage in Cassis. I have never been more delighted than when the helpful clerk told me they had a garden room. Jim, being a dear and a trouper, would drive back to the Cacharel the next day to retrieve our stuff.  The lovely Cassis—where Matisse basked in the light and Winston Churchill learned how to paint—was only 30 minutes from Marseille, smack dab on the Mediterranean.  We would take a day of much-needed R & R.
 
When we arrived, we were shown to a large and lovely room in deep Provencal red and gold, with brick floors, lovely products, and a bath. Oooh la la! The Mahogany was directly across the street from a wonderful beach, and the view was magnificent. That night we had an elegant dinner at the Jardin d’Emile restaurant next door. I savored a delicious vegetable flan and fish, while Jim relished hot chevre and lamb with artichoke hearts.

Harbor at Cassis

Letter From Paris: Air France Flight 447

Image via Wikipedia

A couple of days ago, the Lone Wolf and I were taking one of our strolls through the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, which is an endlessly fascinating park to us.  For those who don't know:  Père-Lachaise is the largest cemetery in Paris at 118.6 acres and is said to be the world's most visited home to the dead.  I can see why.  It is beautiful and grand, full of mysterious, elegant monuments and stories of lost souls who have been laid to rest.  The park evokes curiosity and wonder of its residents' lives in the many visitors who trek through it looking up the dead celebrities.

L.W. and I haven't discovered every famous grave, but we have found many.  We know parts of the cemetery quite well.  And so it was with some surprise that we came across this memorial to the victims of Air France Flight 447, the jet that fell out of the sky on its fated trip from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. 

We hadn't noticed the monument before, or we hadn't walked down that cobblestone rue since it had been unveiled, which turns out to have been June 1, 2010.  Upon seeing it, we thought it perfectly done.

Jours of Our Lives: 23) ABANDONMENT

An ongoing series about uprooting our lives in America and moving to France. For what's happened before, see previous Jours of Our Lives entries here.

 

I CALLED MY older daughter, Blair, and gave her the terrible news. I couldn’t reach her sister, Bret. Then I phoned a couple of old and good friends who’d known Mother well, and with whom I could voice my disbelief, horror, and pain.

We spent the rest of the morning trying to get a flight home on Delta Airlines. We already had return tickets for May (which we actually hadn’t planned to use). Now they were our way home for my mother’s funeral. Marseille was the closest airport, so we would drive there, leave the car, and fly to Paris. But we couldn’t get there in time to get out of Paris that day, so we would spend the night at our wonderful Hotel Saint Germain (the staff there immediately offered help) and leave Paris the next. The staff of the Hotel de Cacheral outside of Stes-Maries-de-la-Mer also were great. They immediately said we could leave all of our things there, and helped us move them to the owner’s house in a guest room, so they would be safe until we returned to claim them.

Letter from Paris presents...Paris Art Market Buzz

Image via Wikipedia

 

 

By contributing editor Paul Paradis, Art Historian, Specialist Consultant in French Furniture and Decorative Arts

 

 

 

COLLECTION OVERLOAD IN PARIS

 

IN THE DAYS during and following the Château de Gourdon auction at Christie’s (See Paris Art Market Buzz 11 April) I found myself running back and forth from Drouot to Sotheby’s, back to Drouot, on to Artcurial in order not to miss a pre-auction exhibition.  Collection this and collection that, I could not keep up.  The auctioneer Aguttes dispersed the Thierry and Christine de Chirée Collection (contents of their historic home, the Monastère de la Visitation d’Avignon) at Drouot on March 29th and 30th.  Then Gros & Delettrez auctioned the long-awaited Paul-Louis Weiller collection from April 5th to the 8th.  The five-day sale was the talk of the town and the day of the public viewing everyone, and I mean everyone, in the art world was at the door for the 11:00 am opening. 

The LVMH magnate Bernard Arnault (who actually owns Christie’s through his Artemis investment fund and is picture on left...image via Wikipedia) strolled by as did every major antique dealer and expert in Paris.  A mysterious dealer (visits by appointment only) from the Parc Monçeau area said something to the affect of the items being uneven in quality.  “But where did they keep all of this stuff!” a friend exclaimed to me as we strolled from room to room packed with precious objects and furniture.  An imposingly tall and friendly dealer from the Place Beauveau mentioned that although the collection occupied the entire first floor of Drouot (six sale rooms) this was just “du ménage” (a clean up), or a tiny portion of the contents of Weiller’s rumored 90 residences.  Apparently he collected homes as well as furniture and objets d’art.  How quaint. 

Letter from Paris presents...The Sound Hunter

by Contributing Editor Des Coulam. Recording the street sounds of Paris attempting to capture that gratuitous, never-ending show for which no ticket is needed.

 

A TALE OF TWO WEDDINGS

A WEDDING TOOK PLACE in London a week ago Friday.  In Westminster Abbey, nineteen hundred invited guests and an estimated television audience of two billion watched as the bride entered the Abbey as a commoner and left as a Princess.

A wedding took place in Paris last Saturday.  In the Eglise Saint-Sulpice around one hundred invited guests and no television audience watched as the bride entered the Church as a commoner and left feeling like a Princess.