PARISIAN FLATS OF STAR FASHION DESIGNERS

Explore the Parisian flats of Coco Chanel, Christian Louboutin, Kenzo, Yves Saint Laurent, Christian Lacroix, Azzedine Alaia, Vanessa Bruno, Isabel Marant and Marc Jacobs.

YVES SAINT LAURENT’S COMIC BOOK : ‘La Vilaine Lulu’

The Yves Saint Laurent Foundation scanned many works of the late French designer Yves Saint Laurent, including original boards of his comic book, La Vilaine Lulu.

La Vilaine Lulu is a “tale for sadistic ou prodigy children” according to Saint Laurent. Its main protagonist is an awful and mischievous little girl, a true mean girl! Look at the Easter board, she even is a murderer!

Lulu Hairdresser

17 AMAZING PARISIAN LIVING ROOMS – French up your home

A selection of 10 stunning Parisian living rooms!

{I do not claim the rights of the pictures ; click on them and you’ll be redirected to their website of origin.}

THE FORGOTTEN FLAT OF A PARISIAN DEMIMONDAINE

In June 2010 was discovered a pure testimony of the Paris of the early 20th century : the door of a Parisian flat of the 9th arrondissement was unlocked for the first time in 70 years.

Covered in dust, old carpets and tableware, antics were found, and among the art pieces, an original painting by Giovani Boldini (1842-1931), portraitist quite in vogue in Paris at the time.

The painting represents Marthe de Florian aged 24 in 1898, actress and demimondaine, obviously beautiful and more obviously very popular among our male friends judging by the amount of love letter she kept and classified (according to which order, the story doesn´t say). Many business cards of politiciens of the time were found, like that of Clemenceau, Waldeck-Rousseau, Doumergue oder Deschanel – no comment. The owner of the appartment, who died at the age of 91, was the grand daugter of this lady. She had moved to Southern France before WW2 and never came back.

YVES SAINT LAURENT: QUOTES ABOUT WOMEN, LOVE AND FASHION

I found a book about Yves Saint Lauren in my cousin’s library a while ago and took pictures of some pages I thought were particularly valuable. Unfortunately I don’t recall which book it was, i’ll tell you when I find it again.

Thanks a lot Melia for helping me translate these quotes!!

“Nothing is more beautiful than a naked body.

The most beautiful garment that can dress a woman are the arms of the man she loves.

But for the ones who have not been lucky enough to discover this happiness, I am here.”

READ FASHION MAGAZINE JALOUSE ONLINE

Fashion magazines lovers, this post is for you! There is this French fashion magazine that I really like, called Jalouse. Guess what, I discovered by chance a few weeks ago that you can check out their past issues on the archive website of the editing house. They don’t seem to be so efficient in uploading their latest issues but still, you have all their archives online since their beginning in 1997… Is that cool or is that cool?? Got for you some great shots of this year’s already published issues. Jalouse online HERE!

France in Japan: PAUL JACOULET, A FRENCH ARTIST IN ASIA IN THE EARLY 20th CENTURY

Last spring, an exhibition about Paul Jacoulet’s art took place at the Quai Branly Museum of indigenous culture and arts of Asia, Oceania, Africa and America. Listen, Paul Jacoulet’s art, although not very famous, is astonishing. The brightness of the colors and their combinations are so great that I was mesmerized! His art is so vibrand and modern!

He also had a one of a kind life: born in 1896, his family moves to Tokyo where his dad is a French teacher when he is 3. So basically, the guy is a Japanese at heart, he was brought up there, learning Japanese from an early age along with French and English, and at the age of 13 was taught art by renown Japanese painters, thus learning Japanese wood engraving, ukiyo-e. At 25 his dad dies and his mom remaries with a Japanese who lives in Seoul. In his thirties Paul Jacoulet decides to devote his life to painting, settles in Japan, and travels in Micronesia (region composed by the numerous islands of the Pacific Ocean, more HERE).

When I think of the situation of this family, I am fascinated.

PARIS, CITY OF CULTURE

They distributed a summer free magazine in the streets of Paris where I found this interesting chart about the cultural offers of 22 cities. The data come from the World Cities Report 2012, which is an initiative from the city of London. The website is really interesting and with a lot of detailed data, of which this chart makes a good visual summary. 

“Ile de France” is the administrative region that includes Paris and its suburbs. The reason why they are taking the Ile de France and not Paris as such to compare with other cities is that while other cities like London or Berlin have expanded their boundaries to more than their historic city center, including not as denses areas, Paris is just Paris, and the boundary between the capital and its suburbs is clearly materialized by the Peripherique, like the express “ring” way. So Berlin covers an area of 891 km2, which is 8 times Paris, but it includes what used to be independent suburban cities. There is an urban plan that aims at including the suburbs in a grand Paris, to make the city more competitive against those big capitals of Europe and the world, but I think it stopped, for money reasons or something (might be saying craps right there, not sure).