Jean-Paul Gaultier - The World's Best Shopping Bag - Paris, 1992

 

So here it is--the most incredible shopping bag of all time. I got this during what I call my Acquisition Summer when I made it my business to scour the stores of Paris with the idea of amassing the world's best collection of shopping bags and business cards. This was a bag that I had seen all the chic young women of Paris carrying and the one I knew I couldn't leave town without. When I walked into the Jean-Paul Gaultier boutique to ask for it, I felt as nervous as I would have if I'd gone in there to steal something. Luckily, the teenager behind the counter sensed my desperation and gave me one in spite of the fact that I hadn't bought anything.

As you can see, it's a replica of a Parisian advertising kiosk and looks more like a piece of art than a shopping bag. I'm about 5'3" ish and it comes up to my hips. I've given up hope of ever finding a better one.

Repetto - Paris, 2009

So, when Mlle Bagatelle arrived in Paris last week and saw someone in the metro carrying this beautiful ribboned bag from legendary ballet shoe maker, Repetto, she knew she had to have it in the permanent collection. Upon her arrival at Repetto, she realized that with a mobbed store and an even more crowded caisse, the chances of just being able to request one without buying anything would be pretty slim. Finding a Repetto workout top on sale for 12 euro, she decided to make her life easy and just expense this one.  When given the cute little bag with the mouse, she asked the nervous sales girl for one of the others. When the salesgirl explained that the ribboned bags were for shoe purchases and the mouse bags were for all other purchases, our curator explained that she thought that was a great rule...

...for other people. 

I think you can see how this ended.

Chantal Thomass Redux - Paris, 2009

You can't imagine Mlle Bagatelle's horror when she arrived in Paris this summer to discover that the Chantal Thomass boutique would be closed until just days before she was set to depart. When the store did finally open, Mlle. B. ran in as if finishing off the end of a particularly grueling marathon. Had she known that the new bags looked like this, she probably would have broken a window to get one.

Ines de la Fressange - Paris, 1992

If Chanel Golden Boy Karl Lagerfeld were asked to do a remodel on the Keebler Elves' treehouse, (assuming they all still live together), the Ines de la Fressange boutique would have been it. This was one of the few places I broke down and bought something in an effort to get the bag as it was one of those places where, if you don't have your own salesgirl who helps you on a regular basis, you're not getting helped. (Seriously, even for Paris this place was packed; the boutique equivalent of a rowdy livestock auction.) In case you're wondering, my purchase was a small journal that matched the bag.

This is how they wrapped my little journal. 

Lederer de Paris - New York City, 1992

I got this lovely Lederer bag the year after I came back from Paris for the first time. I saw someone walking down the street with it, knew I had to have it (you can see why), and wrote to the store manager saying that I felt my life was but a farce without it. He graciously wrote back saying that he'd be happy to give me one and that there was no disgrace in asking for professional help.

Annick Goutal - Paris, 1992

Like most sane people with a solid grasp on reality, I hit the Annick Goutal boutique in Paris before I even had a place to stay (don't tell me I don't have my priorities in order). Lured by a pair of Goutal-designed earrings I'd seen in a magazine, I hit the gold-and-cream boutique off the rue de Rivoli (which should be re-named RUDE de Rivoli) to find a woman of un certain age, trying on the earrings and checking herself out in the mirror. I got this weeks later after the bag game started. 

Christian Louboutin - Paris, 2009

Mlle Bagatelle has to admit to having been a liiiittle let down at first by this overly simplistic card from shoe genius (does that make him a shenius?) Christian Louboutin. "Where's the whimsy?" she thought. "Where's the 'Oh, no he didn't?!?' Where's the 'Is that a shoe or a step ladder?'" And while we're at it...

"WHERE THE HELL IS THE RED?!?!?"

And then an emotionally drained MB turned the card over and saw this:

Just goes to show that good things come to those who wait.

Au Nom de la Rose - Paris, 2009

Even though the edible rose petals* I bought were for moi-même, I couldn't resist saying "yes" when the girl behind the counter asked if they were a gift. After tying a perfect white rose to the handle she then took what must have been a good ten euro worth of multi-colored rose petals and tossed them into the bag, so I stopped right there on the street to take a snap just in case I couldn't get home before the roses died. I bought this early on a gloriously sunny morning and had I been carrying around a giant bouquet of flowers all day, I could not have gotten more attention. It looked more like a prop than a purchase. One of the great regrets of my life is that I didn't buy the bright green hat box they sell but it can't be packed and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't fit in an overhead compartment. 

*At least, I think they were edible. What else would you do with crystalized rose petals?

UPDATE: In a previous post I declined to give the web address as I felt their site was not on the same level as their stores. I'm happy to say that someone at ANDLR has had an epiphany and the site is vastly improved, so you now have my permission to use it. 

Deyrolle - Paris, 2009

The smell of the dreadful 2008 fire that almost extinguished this over 180-year-old taxidermy company still lingers in the air, but don't let that stop you from a visit. Part natural history museum, part zoo, and part science lab, the rooms of Deyrolle overflow with mounted butterflies, ostrich eggs, giant bears, seashells, and just about every other natural curiosity you can find, and even as someone who has less than no interest in nature (I grew up in New York--my idea of nature is a hot dog cart), I still enjoyed myself here. At least, I enjoyed myself a lot more than the kid who kept screaming about how he wanted to leave because he was afraid the animals would come back to life. (I hope my standing behind a mounted deer head and whispering "Help me, little boy! Get me down from here! Help me! Please!" didn't have anything to do with that.*)

To be honest, I thought this bag was a little dull considering how legendary the store is, but I have to give them points for the Thin Mint color scheme as it's always been a favorite of mine. 

At the moment, you can still see the smoke patterns on the windows outside, but considering that virtually all of France has contributed to its restoration, I'm sure it'll be only a matter of time before the building is spic and span. I did my part by purchasing two overpriced shells that I could have easily found at Pier One, Pottery Barn, any random store in any random Chinatown, or even, say, the beach, but I'm just too darn altruistic for that.  

*Of course I'm kidding! What kind of person do you think I am? It was an elk, not a deer. 

Can à Suc - Paris, 2009

One of my favorite things about the French is that to them, everything is essentially Play-Doh. No matter what you give a French person, they'll find a way to turn it into something prettier and more interesting. Take sugar for example. Give the French some sugar and before you know it, they've turned it into a big green frog or Eiffel Tower replica or Neil Sedaka statue that's so beautiful, you won't know whether to drop it in your coffee or get a memory box for it. From stackable sugar tablets to whimsical little hearts that literally sit on the rim of a coffee cup, Can à Suc really does some fantastic things with sugar and just about everything they make makes a great gift for the party giver in your life.

On another, much less healthy sucratorial note, some part of me desperately wants to go to one of these meetings.

La Pompadour - Paris, 2009

So help me, I was going to make a joke about how La Pompadour was the place to go for the latest in Parisian Bar-Mitzvah wear, when what do I see on their website, but this:

"DES CONSEILLERES VENDEUSES QUI VOUS AIDERONT DANS VOS CHOIX POUR VOS MARIAGES, BAR-MITZVAH, CEREMONIES DE TOUTES SORTES."

No, I'm not kidding, no, I really didn't see that before I (almost) wrote it, and yes, I can make a joke like that because I'm half Jewish. 

Rite-of-passage joke aside, this is a place I NEVER EVER miss going to when I'm in town because it's truly the last of a dying breed. If you had an idea in your head about what an old-school Paris boutique was, this is it. While the fashions may leave something to be desired by anyone under the age of 210, the store itself looks like whatever store would have been next to the umbrella store in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. 

By the way, do NOT miss the "Ceremonies" page. If you've ever wondered where Imelda Marcos got her clothes, wonder no more. (I'm still trying to figure out where she got her furniture. When I do, I'll let you know.)

COS - Paris, 2009

It's probably only a matter of time before European-based COS shows up in American malls, ready to give predecessors like Zara and H&M a run for their collective money, but for now, it remains only on The Other Continent, thus making this ribboned bag a lot more exotic and exciting. There are actually several different versions of the COS bags with several different grosgrain ribbon/bag color combos, but alas, I never bought anything big enough to get anything but this one. I did try to convince myself that I really, really needed a dress they had on sale for 39 euro, but that became somewhat hard to do when I tried it on and found I couldn't move my arms. 

Ladurée Tissue Paper - Paris, 2009

At the end of every excursion Mlle Bagatelle takes abroad, she makes a point of taking all the remaining currency not used on the trip and splurging on something she would otherwise never have purchased--usually in a rushed panic at the duty-free airport shops. Well, this time, after much soul-searching about the morality of shopping at a Ladurée outpost and whether or not that could be interpreted by the retail Gods as a silent endorsement of the seemingly exponential swelling (and therefore cheapening) of the brand's name, she decided that these particular Gods would most likely always judge on the side of making, rather than not-making a purchase (that and it was either spend the money, or walk around Charles de Gaulle airport for another three hours weighed down by 14 euro worth of remarkably heavy coins.) It wasn't until she was in her airplane seat* that she peeked into the Ladurée bag holding her newly purchased plastic tote, and saw it wrapped in this lovely, whimsical tissue. Had she known this in advance, she would have dropped the morality schtick like a hot macaroon.

Incidentally, Mlle Bagatelle took KLM this time (against the advice of her boss at the travel website she works for who called it "The Greyhound of the Skies") and had a great experience. You should try it if for no other reason than to witness all the passengers wrapped in their blue blankets. The color blue they use is identical to the color of blue of these and it looks like an entire airplane full of people wearing them.

*Of course she kept it with her during the flight! These bags are art! You wouldn't shove the Mona Lisa in an overhead compartment, would you?

Maison de la Truffe - Paris, 2009

You know how when you have some kind of important meeting coming up (say, a job interview, or tax audit, or parole violation hearing), and you spend a few minutes the night before rehearsing a few stock reactions so that you can go to the meeting feeling like you know what you're going to do in advance? Well, you might want to do that before you go to Maison de la Truffe because the prices are so high, that it's almost impossible not to yell, "WHAT?!?!?!" when you see them. Now, I realize that expecting a store that sells truffles not to have high prices is a little ridiculous, but that said, by the time I left I was thinking that I might get out there with the pigs next year and try to find some truffles myself. 

It's a good thing that in addition to the truffles they also sell things like olive oil and blinis, otherwise this post might have looked like this:

Ladurée - Paris, 2009

Mlle Bagatelle has such mixed feelings about Ladurée these days. On the one hand, she's sad that between all the Ladurée kiosks and product lines, one of her favorite places in the world is becoming, dare I say, McKnown, but on the other hand, that sea green and gold still delights her eye and the framboise macaroons still delight her palette. For the moment, she's decided to go with the commercialism and stay loyal until they come out with a happy meal.

Since we're on the subject, let's pay homage to Sofia Coppola's fabulous (yes, I said it--fabulous) use of Ladurée in her fabulous (yes, I said it again), movie, Marie Antoinette. I don't care that the French booed it; the eye candy factor here is off the charts. 

Hermés - New York City, New York, 2005

If Mlle Bagatelle seem a little off, it might be because she just lost an ebay auction for five little hard-to-fine Hermés twilly boxes. They went for about $12 and she considers the loss to be sheer negligence on her part. All she can say is: it will never happen again. At this point, she just has to be grateful for what she does have and accept that there are some things in life that cannot be changed. She's going to log off now--she has to go read this book and try to make some kind of order out of the chaos that is now her life. 

Diptyque - Paris, 2003

Just think--if only you had paid more attention when they broke out the candle-making kits at camp, you, too, could charge the equivalent of a car payment for a 3 oz. candle meant to evoke the feeling of being at the shores of Santorini. Yes, at only $60-plus or so, it's easy to see why Diptyque candles are such a big hit. If only I could figure out a way to charge as much for lanyards and unicorn string art.

Snarky comments aside, Diptyque is well-worth visiting and they do make the best scented candles on the planet. John Galliano "designed" one for them last year that smelled so incredible for a moment I thought I might actually have to buy it.

By the way, always ask for samples of their creams--they're very big on that and they make great little travel sizes.

Postcard Bags - Avignon, France, 2003

These little postcard/souvenir bags are further proof that for the French, even the most modest objects can be made pretty. My favorite is the top one with the Jacques Prevert poem, Paris at Night. Here's an interesting little video someone made of it. 

Pluss - Paris, 1992

This is the card that started it all. I had been in Paris about three weeks at that point and was still hopelessly lost 90% of the time. I was walking around one day after school, trying to find my way back to my dorm, when pounding, toxic rain started coming down. (OK, it wasn't toxic--I was just trying to give the feeling of confusion and desperation I felt and that seemed like a good way to do it.) 

I ducked into the nearest store (which, as you can see from the card, was a maternity shop), and asked for a business card, thinking that at least that would give me an address and some kind of clue about where I was (I was still so mixed up half the time I didn't know whether I was on the Right Bank or the Left). When I saw how incredible the card was (it's about three inches high and wide in real life), I decided to make it my business to collect all the great business cards (and eventually shopping bags) I could find. 

Sentiment aside, I've never really understood the cabbage reference here. Is the point that the cabbage is like the mommy's tummy? Do cabbages get pregnant a lot? Don't know and don't really care. If it weren't for this cabbage, who knows what direction my life would have taken. 

Le Meditérranée - Paris, 1992

The dorm I stayed in when I first came to Paris was just a few blocks away from this restaurant and sometimes when I passed by in the late afternoon or early evening, I would see them setting the tables with brilliant blue paper table cloths. One night as they were doing this, it started to pour out of absolutely nowhere and the rain made the ink from the tablecloths run all over the place. Beautiful deep blue ink, just like the color of the Mediterranean. It looked like the tables were crying.

I didn't know it then, but this is quite a famous restaurant, started by a friend of Jean Cocteau and frequented by the likes of Elizabeth Taylor and Charlie Chaplin. Its walls are covered with murals by Berard and Vertes, the latter being one of my all-time favorite French artists (he did all the Schiaparelli ads). There's more art to be found in its guest book so be sure not to miss it.