One of the most iconic moments in Funny Face is when Jo, poured into a lustrous ruby sheath, glides down the Daru staircase of the Louvre, her train and shawl echoing the sculpted feathers of Winged Victory of Samothrace. It’s also just about the most impossible of all Funny Face scenes to recreate, as the stairs are crowded with breathless admirers at almost every time of the day. As an alternative, pop into the Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine (Museum of Architecture and Heritage), and have your photograph taken in the Gothic rooms, which are painted scarlet, illuminated by a stunning iron-and-glass vaulted roof, and decorated with life-size casts of ornate thirteenth-century spires, arches and sculptures. It feels so ready-made for a fashion shoot, it would be a shame not to Take the Picture! Take the Picture! (as Jo gleefully yells in Funny Face).
It’s lunchtime. Try Carette, across Place du Trocadéro, the adored salon de thé that has been operating since the 1920s. Make sure to leave room for dessert; the macarons are délicieux, and the hot chocolate sublime: more or less a molten cocoa, just the way Hepburn used to drink hers. Once your sweet tooth is satiated, sashay up Avenue Kléber. As the Arc de Triomphe at the avenue’s end sharpens into focus, you have the option to turn right at Rue de Belloy, which takes you down to the Place des Étas-Unis. Here you’ll find the Musée Baccarat in the refurbished private mansion that once belonged to Comtesse Marie-Laure de Noailles, who threw costume parties in her ballroom back in the 1950s. Now an ode to the exalted glassware brand, the museum showcases a range of products that Baccarat has created, from chandeliers to antique perfume bottles. Buy yourself a bauble or, better yet, make a mental note to splash out on a vintage perfume that conjures up the fizzy, feminine spirit of Paris in the 1950s. Such as Givenchy L’Interdit, a floral aldehyde (which is the sparkle-and flower-infused category the Chanel No.5 belongs to) that the designer commissioned in 1957, with Hepburn as his muse and the face.
Head back to Avenue Kléber and swing right. By 1957, the year of Funny Face and Love in the Afternoon, Hepburn was an international star, and style icon, and Paris her spiritual home. There’s a photograph of her on this street, snapped the previous year. She’s wearing one of her petites robes noires, featuring the high neckline now known the world over as the décolleté Sabrina, but for this LBD her skirt is slim and sleek. It contrasts markedly with the full-skirted silhouettes of the Parisiennes walking behind her, still in thrall to Dior’s New Look. Hepburn, in comparison, is not only modern and fresh, but also arguably more à la parisienne than the locals.
The actress was probably on her way back to Hôtel Raphaël, which is just up ahead of you. The luxury hotel was Hepburn’s home away from home, where she stayed every time she worked in town, including the filming of 1964’s Paris When it Sizzles. If your budget doesn’t stretch to a night here, there’s a fabulous roof terrace bar open to all, in the warmer months. Settle yourself in, among the potted plants, look across the chimerical rooftops to the Eiffel Tower, and order a glass (or bottle?) of champagne. Rosé, of course. Pretend that ‘La Vie en Rose’ is playing somewhere nearby and replay Sabrina’s words: ‘I have learned how to live, how to be in the world and of the world.’ That’s what Mademoiselle Hepburn’s Paris teaches you.
Itinerary
• Rue Saint-Honoré 75001
• Café Verlet: 256 Rue Saint-Honoré 75001; 09.30-19.00 (Monday-Sunday)
• Ladurée: 16-18 Rue Royale 75008; 08.00-20.00 (Monday-Saturday), 09.00-19.00 (Sunday)
• Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré 75008
• Hermès: 24 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré 75008; 10.30-18.30 (Monday-Saturday); closed Sunday
• Élysée Palace: 55 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré 75008
• Dalloyau: 101 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré 75008; 09.00-21.00
• Lachaume: 103 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré 75008; 08.30-19.30 (Monday-Friday), 08.30-17.00 (Saturday); closed Sunday
• Avenue Montaigne 75008
• Hôtel Plaza Athenée: 25 Avenue Montaigne 75008; afternoon tea 14.00-19.00
Rue Saint-Honoré is one of the world’s most vaunted style strips. But it’s not the usual flashy sort of fashion street. There are the big-ticket names, sure, Chloé and the like, but not conspicuously so. The mix of shops along this narrow inner-city thoroughfare is what you could call eclectic — there are high-end boutiques but also chain stores and even supermarkets, so you can buy everything from porcelain to perfume, handbags to haricot beans. This can surprise on a first foray here, that this world-renowned address is so real and relatable. It doesn’t intimidate or try too hard. It’s a little shabby and mottled in parts; well-worn, with a pleasantly lived-in feel. Perhaps the street, in fact, sells lifestyle more so than fashion. After all, sometimes you want to dress to the nines and douse yourself in fine fragrance; other times you just want to slip into some sweat pants, tie your hair into a topknot, and read a book.
Perhaps then it’s no coincidence that one of the world’s first ever ‘lifestyle stores’, Colette, opened here, selling everything from cocktail gowns to high-tech gadgets. When this phenomenon of a boutique closed in 2017, after twenty years in the business, there was talk of newer, cooler districts (like the 3rd arrondissement, with its breezier take on a lifestyle emporium in the shape of Merci). But that ignores the fact that fashion names have come and gone along Rue Saint-Honoré for centuries. The street has a life and energy of its own, and while there is the air of the ephemeral about it, it also has the gravitas and timelessness of stone.
Café Verlet is one of those time capsules that Paris does so well — and a perfect place for fuelling today’s tour. Order a little black Arabica. The wood-panelled nook, its air perfumed with the aroma of freshly roasted beans, has been caffeinating the Rue Saint-Honoré trade since 1880, when the street was still one of the city’s main arterials, much of the traffic consisting of farmers carting their leeks or chickens to Les Halles, the main city market at the time. Since 1971, when the sheds of Les Halles were demolished and the market relocated to the southern suburbs of Paris, Rue Saint-Honoré has been infused with a sense of calm, but try to imagine the hustle and bustle of Old Paris, the colour and cacophony.
After your coffee hit, saunter westwards against the traffic. Notice how the buildings are mostly rather modest. Some are old townhouses originally occupied by a single well-to-do family, but many are apartment buildings dating to a time when all layers of Parisian society dwelled under the one roof. The shopkeepers who worked at ground level lived on the mezzanine floors, some of which have charming little entresol windows, like those you spotted at Verlet. The next level was usually the étage noble, the ‘noble floor’ with its high ceilings and perhaps a jazzy balcony, too. From here Parisians of the middle and lower classes lived in inverse correlation to their social standing, until you reached the poorest families huddled in the attic (in the pre-lift era, the top floor was not prime property, view or no). Each building was, in fact, a cross-section of Parisian society.
With the intermingling of classes, it was only natural that many less prosperous Parisians yearned for a better life. And a more fashionable one at that. In the eighteenth century, this street was the go-to for off-the-rack dresses and boutiques devoted to selling every accessory imaginable, from frilly parasols to silk stockings. Fashion has always promised to change not only your looks but, in turn, your life. And it’s no surprise that the Parisienne who proved the life-altering powers of the single-minded pursuit of style, one of the poster girls for the upwardly mobile, made this street her own.
A certain Jeanne-Antoinette, with the unpromising surname of Poisson (Fish), was born in 1721. It was a time when Paris was thriving, a hub of new restaurants and boutiques, and it was, tellingly, the year in which the term nouveau riche came into use. Jeanne-Antoinette’s family was decidedly bourgeois, but with strategic connections in the finance world, a middle class growing more powerful by the year, and increasingly discerning about the kind of life they wanted for themselves. The threat to th
e old social order was enough to make aristocrats reach for the smelling salts. Jeanne-Antoinette had more stars in her eyes than most: a fortune-teller had predicted she would one day be the mistress of King Louis XV. Known forevermore by her family as Reinette (Little Queen), she made it her life mission to become the king’s right-hand woman, the future Marquise de Pompadour. But I wonder if she knew just how glittering her adult life would be, so much so that the king would have a diamond cut and named to honour the shape of her lips.
Jeanne-Antoinette moved into no.370 when she was twenty, newly married to a tax collector, and now Madame d’Etioles. She was already talked of as one of the prettiest Parisiennes around — and accomplished, too, in music, singing and conversation. This Rue Saint-Honoré block was particularly fashionable then (as it is now, with such names as Giorgio Armani and Marc Jacobs), the grand buildings occupied by women with their finger on the pulse of Paris. Next door, at no.372, one of the moment’s leading salonnières Madame de Tencin hosted a legendary Tuesday soirée, one of the most intellectually inspiring places to be in the 1730s and 1740s, the air full of chatter from the city’s leading philosophers, writers and artists. It was the dawning of the Enlightenment, when new science was questioning the status quo, and the debate du jour was how to fashion a better life. Madame d’Etioles was a particularly avid guest. On Madame de Tencin’s passing, her striking and clever friend Madame Geoffrin continued to foster the Enlightenment spirit, by taking on salon hosting duties in her own abode at no.374. By this time, Jeanne-Antoinette, also a friend, had worked out how to live her better life; her main address was now the Palace of Versailles, where she reigned as the king’s maîtresse-en-titre, fêted as France’s most fashionable woman.
Paris invented fashion as we know it. In the late seventeenth century, the Sun King, Louis XIV, along with his Minister of Finances Jean-Baptiste Colbert, hit upon the concept as a way to fill France’s coffers. They established a variety of local style industries and — savvy in the powers of good product placement — ensured that the most beautiful women at court were seen in the latest fabrics and accessories. Fashion magazines duly appeared and, in an early example of street-style reportage, wrote breathlessly about how these stylish women dressed. Meanwhile, shops proliferated throughout Paris, catering to Parisiennes desperate to be on trend. Women no longer had to find a tailor to whip up something according to vague whims and descriptions; they could now pop into a boutique on Rue Saint-Honoré and pick out a ready-to-wear gown like one illustrated in their favourite gazette, and they could then personalise it with various trimmings and accessories from neighbouring stores.
By the eighteenth century, fashion was no longer something even a king could control, it had taken on the mysterious force it has to this day. Perhaps that’s because French fashion was from the start both lofty in aspiration but democratic in accessibility — a paradoxical message that still holds true. But in a pre-revolutionary Paris, with an ever-mighty middle class, fashion was transformative in more ways than one. In a world where all walks of life were already crossing paths, it was becoming more difficult than ever to tell a maid from a marquise.
When King Louis XV fell for Madame d’Etioles, and waved his royal wand to transform her into the Marquise de Pompadour (and make her husband slink silently away), the court was horrified; it was the first time an official mistress was not to le manoir born. Pompadour, though, was to the manner born, with an innate knowledge of how to look and talk like an aristocrat. She was a particularly strong and fragrant distillation of the bourgeois social-climbing spirit. Someone who didn’t so much start trends, but savvily knew how to tailor them to her best advantage, to enhance her own beauty. Perhaps that’s why à la Pompadour — a style that is feminine, light, intimate, intricate and ornamental — pervades France to this day; it has an eternal prettiness to it. Think tiny tables perched on finely turned-out legs; porcelain vases and plates sweetened with bonbon hues and bouquets of blooms; ceilings alight with airy frescoes and walls awash in pale tones; glossy wood cut into exquisite marquetry patterns; divine little seats and sofas upholstered in floral silk and edged in gilt; pastel teacups and etched-crystal champagne glasses ... Take a look at any of Pompadour’s portraits, extend your gaze past the powdered-pink cheeks or the dress bedecked with roses and ribbons, and you’ll see a lovely writing desk or armoire or sofa in frame. In her commitment to living beautifully, the marquise was, arguably, the original lifestyle guru.
To immerse yourself in the Pompadour spirit and style, head to Ladurée — just north of the Rue Royale corner — for lunch. The salon de thé is another one of those places that could have only been concocted in Paris. Famous for its pastel macarons in feminine flavours, Ladurée tearooms have franchised around the globe, but the Rue Royale address is the original, and remains the most emblematic showcase of the Ladurée philosophy of bon goût. Louis-Ernest Ladurée was a flour miller from the south-west of France who opened a boulangerie on chic Rue Royale in 1862. The Paris Commune of 1871 destroyed the business, but for Ladurée and his wife Jeanne Souchard rebuilding was a chance for a rethink. Rococo, the frilly, feminine interior style promoted by Pompadour, had been back in fashion for some time, and the savvy duo sensed that the demand for womanly luxury was only intensifying. And so they decided to combine a classic boulangerie with a pâtisserie — a much more feminine affair, with its bijou gâteaux — and turn the hybrid into a tearoom for ladies.
To step past the celadon-green, gingerbread-house shopfront is to pass into the world of the Marquise de Pompadour, and the dream worlds of so many Parisiennes who followed her. The walls are lined with detailed boiserie and set off with glowing lamps, while the angel-adorned ceiling (spot the chef-hatted cherub) is the artwork of late nineteenth-century poster artist, Jules Chéret, who was inspired by the Rococo frivolity of Jean-Honoré Fragonard and Antoine Watteau. Sit at one of the marble-topped tables dotted around the floral-wreath carpet, and whatever you order make sure to save room for dessert. For that, you can’t go past one of Ladurée’s ‘classics’, gorgeous confections that are served with a sense of whimsical theatricality. Like the Ispahan, a giant rose macaron sandwiching a ring of raspberries on a bed of rose water and lychee crème. Or Ladurée’s take on the Saint-Honoré: pistachio-iced choux à la crème swirled in Chantilly cream. It’s La Pompadour on a pastel-trimmed plate.
Rue Royale is the official demarcation between Rue Saint-Honoré and Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. Faubourg means suburb, and the land here was once a bucolic expanse beyond the wall that encircled urban Paris. In the early 1700s, the area particularly appealed to many of the wealthiest Parisians. No longer content with the étage noble, they wanted their own land on which to build posh mansions. The marquise might have been officially living out at Versailles, but she still needed a town residence — and for this there was only one place that would do: the Faubourg Saint-Honoré.
Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré was once a residential enclave, at a time when Parisians protected their homes behind high stone walls and large carriage doors, in buildings since repurposed for government business. The cool air has a metallic edge to it, too, a markedly minted smell, and perhaps that’s because of all the multi-million-Euro deals being done behind closed doors, but it’s also because the high-fashion names around here are that much loftier. This is where people come to spend serious coin. Hermès set the chichi tone when it set up shop here — originally as a luxury saddle maker — in 1880 (if you want to buy the most quintessentially stylish Parisian souvenir, head straight to its scarves counter, where the prices are less eye-watering than those in the handbag department), while Jeanne Lanvin took over the dear little corner building opposite, at no.22, in 1890.
Chanel is here too, of course, and Coco herself lived on the street for most of the 1920s and ’30s, in a grandiosely styled apartment at no.29 — one of the street’s original private mansions, dating from 1719. It was here that she launched her stunning fine jewellery collection of 1932, he
r first time working with diamonds. Until then, she had championed costume jewellery for a modern high-low take on chic — but the upscale spirit of this street evidently got to her.
Shop — or window-shop, as the case might be — your way along the street. You’ll come to an awestruck stop opposite a pair of lacy-iron gates, at no.55. This is the Élysée Palace, home to the French president, a fact that is impressive enough — but the luxe residence has an even more formidable former life: this was where Pompadour herself lived. In a street of palaces, it was always the crème de la crème, more like a country château, with parterre-embroidered gardens rippling down to the Elysian Fields, which were a rambling rural wonderland in the eighteenth century. The way Pompadour styled the rooms of her palatial abode has long influenced French interior decoration: walls painted in soft hues and illuminated by glitzy detailing as much as by ornate chandeliers; plump sofas and folding screens upholstered in silk Chinoiserie; peaches-and-cream paintings of nymphs and cherubs; bookshelves heaving with colourful leather-bound books (hers were embossed with her coat of arms, naturellement); porcelain in all guises, from the dinner services in daffodil yellow, apple green and sky blue, to the floral bibelots on the marble mantelpieces, to the dainty flowers hanging from candelabras; dressing tables laden with perfume bottles and pots of rouge and powder; marquetry-inset wardrobes brimming with glistening dresses in shades like silver and rose that lit up her complexion …
‘Few people since the world began can have owned so many beautiful things,’ wrote Nancy Mitford in her beguiling biography, Madame de Pompadour. Mitford might well have been right; after the marquise’s death in 1764 it took a team of notaries an entire year to take an inventory of her belongings. She also left behind a king bereft at having lost a best friend, a soul mate who had become so much more than a pretty face to him, someone whose sparkling mind matched her complexion, who was friends with, and patron of, some of the leading artists and philosophers of the time, including Voltaire. But Louis moved on, as kings do. His next official mistress would be Comtesse du Barry, a former courtesan and Rue Saint-Honoré shopgirl (she worked in a hat boutique back near Café Verlet), the real-life Pretty Woman of eighteenth century Paris, and another sure sign of the social ambitions of the bourgeoisie.
Paris for Dreamers Page 6