city trip: paris (nov ’12)

city trip: versailles

We visited Versailles on our drive back home from Paris, on a cloudy August day. It was a Sunday and the lines were too long. We decided we would return to visit the gardens another time.

See photographs from the 2012 trip to Paris and previous Paris visits.

city trip: paris (aug ’12)

A few from an August weekend in Paris…

See photographs from previous visits to Paris.

city trip: paris (april ’11)

To round up my Paris posts, I want to leave you with a few of my favorite photographs…

Till next time, Paris! Other city favorites include Antwerp, Berlin, Florence, Ghent, Istanbul, London, Montreal and Portland.

Photoessay: Merci.

I finally visited the concept store Merci in Paris! I had read so much about it on blogs like decor8 and HiP Paris, and couldn’t wait to visit myself. We encountered the iconic car parked out front, this time in the theme of ‘Just Married’…

Loving the garden set-up out front…

Featured in the store was a small exhibition by French artist Aurelie Mathigot (featured previously on blogs like Bloesem, Pia Jane Bijkerk and apartment therapy). As she writes on her website, her work is “largely inspired by the notion of recovery and the necessity of talking about everyday life in another -new- way,” and this can be seen by the use of ordinary spoons, below…

This wall is also part of the exhibition. I loved the lace/crochet wrapped around the wooden trees, see below…

And of course I had to snap a shot of the stack of books they had, by the name “Merci” by Daniel Pennac – a wise and witty story about a writer who uses the occasion of an award ceremony to thank all those who have helped and hindered him in his career (purchase the book in French here).

Merci is located at 111 Boulevard Beaumarchais 75003 Paris, and open Monday through Sunday from 10am to 7pm.

Photoessay: Madame Grès.

As I mentioned in last weekends weekend post, I visited the Musee Bourdelle for the exhibition, “Madame Grès, La Couture a L’Oeuvre.” This was my favorite piece by Germaine Émilie Krebs, or “Madame Grès” herself, a cotton evening gown created in 1980 (I love how you can still see the needles that hold the dress together)…

And this is a photograph taken by Willy Maywald in 1954 featuring a similar work by Grès (a dress that was shown at an international exposition in New York in 1939)…

Visit the Musée Bourdelle for the Madame Grès exhibition (until July 24th) at 16 rue Antoine Bourdelle, 75015 Paris. Read more about the exhibition here, here and here.

Update: Famous Fashion critic/New York Times writer Suzy Menkes has written a review of the Madame Gres exhibition, click here for the article.

Photoessay: Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris.

I loved how Paris was full in bloom – everything was so incredibly green and the flowers were blooming, it really felt like spring.

Photoessay: A Night Out…

On one of our evenings in Paris, my mom and I went to the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées for the ballet, “Les Saisons Russes du XXIeme Siecle.” The Ballet Russes was a ballet company from Russia that performed between 1909 and 1929 in many countries, directed by Sergei Diaghilev. Today, it is regarded as one of the greatest ballet companies of the 20th century. Diaghilev, “worked with avant-garde composers and artists, putting composers like Ravel, Debussy and Stravinsky together with designers such as Bakst and Goncharova or the emerging artists like Picasso and Matisse.  Diaghilev made a major contribution to the introduction of Modernism and though his initiatives were succeeded by new trends and styles, no one single person has changed the course of art so radically since his time” (Eno Productions).

As part of this production at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the ballet company performed short pieces from three original Diaghilev ballets, Petrouchka(created in 1911 with music by Igor Stravinksi and choreography by Michel Fokin), Les Sylphides (created in 1909 with music by Frederic Chopin and choreography by Michel Fokin) and Les Danses Polovtsiennes, an extract from the popular opera, Le Prince Igor (created in 1890 with music by Alexander Borodin and choreography by Michel Fokin). My favorite was Les Sylphides, and I found a video of this ballet performed by Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev on Youtube (see parts 1, 2 and 3).

And how about ending your night with a glimpse of the glittering Tour Eiffel?

It was a wonderfully cultural Parisian-French evening 🙂

Photoessay: View from the top.

Photoessay: Le Centre Pompidou.

I wanted to share with you a few of my favorites from the permanent collection of the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Even though I had been to the museum in the past, I had never explored the permanent collection, and was surprised to see so many famous works in one collection. Here are a few of my favorites…

And here’s a close-up of this one. I love the dancing couples…

And how about these photographs by the famous photographer Richard Avedon?

And last but not least, my all time favorite photograph of Paris, by Henri Cartier-Bresson…