All posts filed under: new

Love, Style and Bad Habits …

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Parisian women have always seemed mysterious. The subtle pout, the nonchalant way they carry themselves and their confident low-key look that oozes femininity. Think Brigitte Bardot, Audrey Tautou, Marion Cotillard or Vanessa Paradis – sexy, stylish, alluring and seemingly mysterious and untouchable… until now. How to be Parisian Wherever You Are : Love, Style and Bad Habits is an insightful tongue and cheek manual written by four friends and Paris natives, Anne Berest, Audrey Diwan, Caroline de Maigret and Sophie Mas. I’ve just finished the book in Thailand (great for the holiday attention span!) and it’s the perfect handbook on how the modern Parisian woman manages to stay so mysterious that can be practiced wherever you are in the world. It’s penned as if you’ve just made friends with a bossy, opinionated Parisian and she’s dishing her intimate secrets, obviously with immaculate red lips while sipping a glass of red wine with a cigarette in hand! She’ll share her fashion tips, teach you how to make your boyfriend jealous and enlighten you on the etiquette for beauty products and plastic surgery. She’s the Paris …

Lifting the curtain on LV’s renovated Avenue Montaigne store

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For months the Louis Vuitton store on Paris’s most famous luxury fashion street has been under construction. A gigantic white metal ‘curtain’ hid the magic that was happening behind it, and finally this week, that curtain has been lifted to unveiled the maison’s new-look store. As the doormen open the large glass doors, you enter the open plan space designed with all the trademark LV colours of beige, brown and gold. The design of the store, created by architect Peter Marino, is created in the spirit of a Parisian apartment (although way more modern the mine!). There are break-away areas with tables and coral hued loungers where you can try on and enjoy the merchandise at your leisure. It does feels as if you are in someone’s super posh home where you’re treated as a VIP guest and nothing is too much trouble. My girlfriend and I browsed for over an hour and a half, we tried on the beautifully curated selection of bags and shoes, sat on the comfortable sofas, sipped champagne and used the time to catch up on each other’s …

Inside Mademoiselle Coco Chanel’s private home

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Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel’s apartment on Rue Cambon is like walking through Alice’s looking glass… and I’m still pinching myself! On first entering, the apartment it is nothing like I expected. The clean lines and black and white aesthetic that is so synonymous with Chanel doesn’t appear at all and instead, everywhere you look is filled with keepsakes and memories. Highly lacquered Chinese screens, adorned Italian mirrors, antique vases and sculptures. It’s a real scrapbook of her imagination, a dark-red, east-meets-west-inspired memory box. It has been left as if she could walk in at any moment in her iconic white bouclé jacket and sit on the sofa; I’ve since wondered what we’d talk about. There is no bedroom, she used to sleep at the Ritz Hotel a few meters away on Place Vendôme, and only used the apartment to entertain guests, the likes of Dali, Picasso and Elizabeth Taylor. The space is deliciously decadent and opulent and would be a superb playground for my one year old who would probably be attracted to the dozens of animals …

Au clair de la lune

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As if Paris isn’t romantic enough without a full moon, but lucky for me a saturday night stroll to see the Christmas lights and the market on the Champs Elysees surprisingly brought with it a beautiful full moon over the famous city of lights. One of my favourite walks in the french capital starts from nearby our apartment. We cross over Pont d’Alma gazing at the Louvre in the distance and the Bateaux Mouches as they hug camera flashing tourists on their decks, we walk up Avenue Montaigne while window browsing the most famous luxury stores and meet the Champs Elysees. Turning right we walk along the busy avenue watching the crazy drivers while admiring the symmetry of the Arc de Triomphe as it mirrors the Place de la Concorde. The Grand Palais greets you on the right, it’s contemporary-looking glass roof juxtaposing it’s early Beaux-Arts columns. As you get closer to the Alexandre III bridge it’s hard not to feel as if you’re in a movie – the river beneath, and the glowing lamp posts make even the …

Oui! Colette, J’arrive!

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Colette in Paris isn’t a new store – however it is still one of my fave concept cult stores to visit. I popped in there on a saturday afternoon and it was full of young, trendy locals and visitors to the city. Their book collection is one of the best I’ve seen, they have a great selection of fashion biographies that will make any fashion lover tingle. I spotted a very chic tourist glancing through How to be Parisian wherever you are, written by four french women who have been friends forever and decided to put together a very funny manual on how to be parisian chic (I grabbed a copy, will let you know how my transformation goes!). The upstairs section of the store is my favourite, you’ll always find interesting pieces that have been perfectly curated for the girl looking for the extraordinary and it’s impossible to walk out of the store without buying something – this time I got myself a pair of gorgeous Ancient Greek Sandals, the fantastic cult-ish shoe brand, gaining a major celeb following. …