Aug 20
I love Paris when the sun comes up. I love Paris in the morning as the clouds burn off. I love Paris on a drizzly afternoon. And I even love Paris in the bitter cold dusk. But there is something so dreamy and thrilling about la nuit à Paris.
Yes. If pressed, I suppose I would have to say la nuit à Paris will be missed most of all.
Vocabulaire:
la nuit à Paris: Paris at night
Jul 7
Kitcat was in town last weekend and since she is my “expo-kid”, we decided to make a leisurely visit to le Petit Palais and the wonderful exhibition ‘Paris 1900, The City of Entertainment’. I know I am a cliché, but I adore this period of French history, la belle époque, and turn-of-the-century Paris. I suspect there are many American Francophiles who do. If I had a time machine, I would slap on my button boots, slip on my pouter-pigeon blouse and trumpet-skirt, grab my feathered chapeau and set the dial for Paris, June 1900 and la Exposition Universelle…
Mais malheureusement, time machines are still a vision of the future, so an afternoon at le Petit Palais will have to suffice. Amazingly there are over 600 works on display in the gorgeous ‘small palace’ that was designed by Charles Girault for the exposition. I cannot imagine a more perfect venue than these halls where the hatted and coiffed western world came to discover what the new century held. It must have been a real lollapalooza!
The exhibition is organized into six ‘pavilions’ beginning with ‘Paris, window on the world’ featuring Gare de Lyon, Gare d’Orsay and Gare des Invalides, as well as Hector Guimard’s fabulous métro entrances. The expo ends with two pavilions focusing on the posh and wild world of entertainment on offer in Paris at the turn of the century—from opera to café singing, to Sarah Bernhardt and Debussy to brothels and circus acts, to everything else Baz Luhrmann would have us imagine in his fanciful film Moulin Rouge.
Filling the space in the middle are art nouveau posters and paintings, costumes, gowns, jewelry, everyday objects, objets d’art, sculptures, furniture, fine-arts, stained-glass windows, photographs and corridors filled with life-sized footage of revelers and curious fair-goers. A whole ‘pavillion’ is devoted to the myth of la Parisienne—the elegant Parisian women whose mystique still captures the imagination of women (and men) around the world.
Cézanne, Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, and Vuillard, are featured alongside Gérôme, Bouguereau, Gervex, Béraud, Degas, Besnard and, of course, Rodin and Toulouse-Lautrec…le Chat Noir, anyone?
In lieu of a vrai time machine, this marvelous time capsule housed at le Petit Palais until August 17 will provide you with your Belle Époque fix and dazzle you with the promise and creativity from a storybook era long gone.
Vocabulaire
Mais malheureusement: But unfortunately
vrai: real
Mar 27
This morning I was thrilled to visit an atelier of another talented artisan, Fabienne Debastiani, at her purple digs in Paris.
source: http://www.bijoux-stravaganza.fr
Fabienne is a passionate creator of jewelry, costumes and haute couture. She began her career as a dancer and choreographer and her handcrafted designs are heavily influenced by the world of cabaret and Cancan. Her specialty is fine embroidery and her work is breathtaking. Like the flower artists at La Maison Légeron, Fabienne, seems to magically spin gilded thread, tiny beads and sparkling sequence into exquisite, wearable art.
She is another one of Frances treasured artists who is taking care of the details.
source:www.bijoux-stravaganza.fr
All her pieces are one-of-a-kind, and each one reflects her enthusiasm for her craft and for life. Somehow she has managed to continue to combine her love of this unique handcraft with her passion for dance. She choreographs and dances throughout Paris and Versailles and even found the time to choreograph and perform in the Cancan scenes in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris. On top of that she has begun to hold embroidery workshops for the public sharing her joy of creating while helping to keep her craft alive. She is versatile and kind, and she moves through many different worlds, some days creating wedding gowns for real princesses, while on other days offering to repair this American’s treasured Siamese beaded clutch.
The unique artisans of this country continue to astound me and never let me forget how important art is to a culture…just one more thing I love about France.
365+ Things I Love About France 