But Did You Hear about France’s Most Infamous Madam?

With the Jeffrey Epstein scandal creeping its way into every late night dinner table conversation and the sordid secrets of his mysterious Madam, Ghislaine Maxwell, slowly unfolding in the press, it wasn’t long before we would be talking about “Madame Claude”. France’s own high society brothel queen, aka. Fernande Grudet, reigned for decades as one…

Was Inflatable Furniture Really All that Bad?

As we dream of sipping an ice cold margarita on a floaty pool mattress, far from the stuffiness of our cubicles, a certain nostalgia comes to mind: the age of 1960s, blow up “living.” Through furniture, rooms, even a car, the inflatable life brought a welcome touch of relaxation and sheer goofiness to a design…

Loving Monsieur Butterfly: A Tale of Espionage, Romance and the Transgender Soprano

It began with a glance, as so many love stories do. Bernard Boursicot was your average, unremarkable accountant at the French Embassy of 1960s Beijing. Shi Pei Pu was anything but forgettable, a rising opera star in the city who enraptured her soon-to-be lover, and eventual father of her child after a chance meeting at…

Where to find Provence in Paris

Meet me on the Place Dauphine for a slice of Provence in the heart of Paris, one of the most, if not the most beautiful hidden gems this city has to offer on a warm summer’s eve. Tucked away on an island in the middle of the river Seine, this peaceful enclave with its picture perfect…

HOW TO DO PARIS LIKE A LOCAL

… and pretending like you really give a – okay okay fine, some people do, I get it. But instead of browsing dead people’s art (hope I’m not coming across as insensitive to the art world or anything), why not take advantage of the fact that hey, you’re alive, and probably capable of being creative…

French Art Deco Dream Girls

Pochoir was a damn delicate practice, and it was inextricably bound to the star of Paris’ Golden Age of Illustration, André E. Marty. The Frenchman and his stencil-centric drawing or pochoir method defined the aesthetics of a generation, especially for the high fashion set. There was “an outpouring of luxury fashion publications that used pochoir” at the…

She Played the World’s Most Unappreciated Music, but looked Fabulous Doing it

First things first: it’s not like we hate the accordion. We like it on the occasional metro platform, and we love to hear it in a distant summer breeze by the Seine. Few things are as effective at stirring up good ‘ole Parisian nostalgia, even after all these years. It’s just, well, a lot. It…

Paris is Removing its Iconic Kiosks. So What Will Become of Them?

I woke up one morning in Paris, headed to the boulangerie, when I noticed a strange new structure had been installed on the sidewalk overnight. It took me a moment to figure out what it was. One of those self-cleaning public toilets? A construction crew’s cabin for yet another roadwork about to begin? And then…

Stalin’s Fashion House: Style Spying behind the Iron Curtain

For many, “Soviet fashion” reads like an oxymoron. One simply can’t imagine that funding fashion ateliers was high up on Joseph Stalin’s to-do list, and it wasn’t, but still — it was there, and apparently it was utterly extravagant. “Eclectic mannequins were turning slowly as they displayed rather bewildering clothes,” wrote Elsa Schiaparelli of the…

The Vault

Missing Paris in New York

If you happen to be a Parisian, like our new US editor Francky (hey, it’s me), who suddenly found herself plopped down in the Big Apple with a case of culture shock, you might be yearning for a cheat sheet of sorts — a means to finding a little bit of Paris in New York.…

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