Before Disneyland Paris, there was Human Roulette and Drag Balls at the Lost “Magic City”

Dragons curled up under the bridge. Toboggans splashed Parisians in to the Seine, benches twirled, and wine flowed freely. It was a Saturday afternoon like any other at the “Magic City” of Paris, the long lost fun fair that was the nation’s very first parc d’attractions. As such, it was quite literally the gateway to…

Miniature Paris on your Mantelpiece

You can probably guess from that crazy header at the top of my site that I have a thing for vintage photo collages, and you know I have a thing for miniatures because there’s an entire category dedicated to teeny tiny stuff. So when I stumbled across this little eShop on a French online marketplace, I went…

Lovely Ladies in Lace at the Paris Races

I‘m just a little bit mesmerised by these photographs of Parisian ladies showing off their best French lace at the races. The Hippodrome de Lonchamps was the place to be seen in the 19th and early 20th century, a pre-Paris Fashion Week catwalk of sorts in the spring. The very latest modes were on parade, as modelled by these…

How to Save the French Brasserie

I‘m gastronomically-challenged when it comes to the French brasserie. The truth is, I really have no idea if the food is any good because I’m too busy side-eyeing the floor tiles, the typefaces, ogling at the glass ceiling and imagining the entire scene exactly as it was 50 or 100 years ago. Walk into any…

The Not-So-Lost World of the Parisian Salon

Once upon a time, in a pre-smartphone world, people had to make their own entertainment. And so enters the salon, an Italian-influenced tradition of gathering of artists, writers, musicians, dancers, philosophers and intelligencia that flourished during a period known as the ‘age of conversation’. Dating back to the 17th century, guests would assemble in the…

Working in the Paris Fashion Industry 100 Years Ago

The industry’s most prestigious fashion houses are currently celebrating haute couture week, but for the fashion world a century ago, every week was haute couture week. During the Belle Epoque, there was no such thing as an off-the-rack dress and clothes shopping was a luxury reserved for the wealthy elite. Fashion was made by hand from start…

Escape to Sarah Bernhardt’s Seaside Fortress

This weekend, let’s escape to the seaside paradise of Morbihan, France, to peak inside the 19th century fortress that belonged to the eccentric, inimitable Sarah Bernhardt. As an actor, she was truly one of the first global superstars, and it was her flair for blurring the lines between performance and reality that made her an…

Adored by Many, but Loved by Chanel: A Forgotten Parisian It Girl

Proust, turned her into a fictional princess and Ravel turned her into music. Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec couldn’t stop painting her. Picasso was a confidante, Serge Diaghilev of the Ballets Russes, a best friend, and Coco Chanel – her “soul sister”; possibly her lover too. Belle Epoque Paris bloomed with opulence and a languid, if not…

I Found a Belle Epoque Theatre Hiding inside a Paris Shoe Store

I‘ve been spending some time lately getting to know the quartier of Barbès a little better. Had I ever listened to those funny people on the television who declared this neighbourhood a Paris “No Go Zone”, I would never have discovered one of the most surreal secrets in Paris. If you ever find yourself in the area, you must stop in at the…

Unrecognizable Paris: The Monuments that Vanished

What you are looking at is not Disneyland Paris. These are photographs colored by hand (a popular practice at the turn of the 20th century) of the Exposition Universelle in 1900 in Paris. It was the fifth one to take place in the city and centered mainly on the revolutionary achievements in electrical technology at…