Ecole des Arts Joailliers created by Van Cleef and Arpels, is discreetly housed behind place Vendôme in a posh building where security is high and the staff extremely graceful. It includes a school which anyone interested in gems can attend and a gallery for exhibitions. While entrance to the shows is free you have to register first before going. This … Read More
Kimsooja breathes in sunshine at Galeries Lafayette
If you feel like going to Galeries Lafayette to discover Korean artist Kimsooja’s installation “To Breathe“, pick a sunny day. Otherwise her light installation will not glitter as it should on the dome of the department store built in 1912. The great bonus of the visit is that for three months the public is allowed to penetrate the space between … Read More
1997 at Palais Galliera, with two funerals and Castelbajac dressing the Pope
I had no idea that 1997 was such an important date in recent fashion, until I visited “Fashion Big Bang” at Palais Galliera and discovered that it is the year when Alexander McQueen presented his first show at Givenchy and John Galliano at Christian Dior. It also marks the unique moment of Jean Charles de Castelbajac designing all the clothes for … Read More
Karl Lagerfeld again! but by a master biographer…
There is something magical about a biography written in a firm style and meticulously researched. There are so many bad books published at the moment, like the completely superficial text on Carlos de Beistegui, that William Middleton’s “Paradise Now, the extraordinary life of Karl Lagerfeld” is a miraculous treasure. The author, whom I discovered with “Double Vision“, an extensive study of … Read More
The Faubourg Saint Honoré is the hip street to visit…
Faubourg Saint Honoré has definitely become more hip these days with contemporary art galleries joining Talabardon et Gautier and Galerie de la Présidence, Sotheby’s and the Canadian Cultural center. The flower shop Lachaume which moved from rue Royale some years ago has even become good again and Nathalie Obadia opened a new show of Collin Sekajugo, an artist from Uganda … Read More
At Yves Saint Laurent, “Gold” is slim
When Pierre Bergé was still alive, he always had fabulous ideas for the Yves Saint Laurent Museum and we saw, a few years ago, extraordinary exhibitions of Moroccan jewelry and David Hockney’s first iPad drawings in 2010. Now it gets harder to be fascinating with just the collections of couture even though they are fabulous. “Gold, Les Ors d’Yves Saint … Read More
Kimonos and Mardi gras costumes at Musée du Quai Branly
At Musée du quai Branly Jacques Chirac, an exhibition of 19 th and 20 th century kimonos is illustrated with great prints in teh small first floor galleries (until May 28) while Mardi Gras costumes from New Orleans, decorate the ground floor galleries (until January15). Both shows are a fireworks of color which warmed me up on a recent freezing … Read More
Scotland remains unequalled as far as humor, sceneries and now food
I thought that it would rain all week end so I had practiced to play golf in the rain the previous week so as not to be too disappointed. And the weather was so sunny in Dornoch, the town forty miles north of Inverness, that we could not believe it. A four day week end in Edinburgh and Skibo castle … Read More