PARIS 2e

Labels: drunk politicians, Music, party, Talking Pictures

Dutch Hip Hop band "The Opposites" take over Paris culture

Labels: Music, Paris street stuff (NOT a TOILET), Talking Pictures

Labels: design, FASHION, fashion week paris

Labels: FASHION, Karl, photography, shopping

Less than a week left for Paris haute couture houses to get ready for the fashion circus again!
Monday 21 January 2008
ANNE VALERIE HASH 10h30 36 blvd Bonne Nouvelle - Paris 10e
FELIPE OLIVEIRA BAPTISTA* 12h00 Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts - Paris 6e
CHRISTIAN DIOR 14h30 Polo de Paris - Bois de Boulogne - Paris 16e
CHRISTOPHE JOSSE* 16h00 Palais de Tokyo - Paris 16e
ON AURA TOUT VU* 17h00 Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts - Paris 6e
GIORGIO ARMANI PRIVÉ** 18h30 Palais de Chaillot - Paris 16e
ADELINE ANDRÉ 20h00 Institut Hongrois de Paris - 92 rue Bonaparte - Paris 6e

Tuesday 22 January 2008
CHANEL 10h00 et 12h00 Grand Palais - Paris 8e
BOUDICCA* 13h30 Voir invitation
CATHY PILL* 14h30 Hôtel Ritz - Paris 1er
CHRISTIAN LACROIX 15h30 Centre Georges Pompidou - entrée Beaubourg - Paris 4e
GUSTAVO LINS* 16h30 Joyce - 168/173 Galerie de Valois - Paris 1er
MAURIZIO GALANTE 17h30 Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts - Paris 6e
GIVENCHY 19h00 Couvent des Cordeliers - Paris 6e
EYMERIC FRANCOIS* 20h00 Hôtel Westin - Salon Concorde - Paris 1er

Wednesday 23 January 2008
FRANCK SORBIER 11h00 Voir invitation
ELIE SAAB** 13h00 Hôtel Intercontinental - Paris 9e
JEAN PAUL GAULTIER 14h30 325 rue Saint-Martin - Paris 3e
DOMINIQUE SIROP 16h00 Salon des Miroirs - 13 passage Jouffroy - Paris 9e
VALENTINO 18h00 Musée Rodin – Paris 7e

Thursday 24 January 2008
ALEXIS MABILLE* 10h00 Salon Angelina - Paris 1er
LEFRANC.FERRANT* 11h00 Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts - Paris 6e
JEAN-PAUL KNOTT* 14h30 Salle Gaveau - Paris 8e
UDO EDLING* 15h30 Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts - Paris 6e
STÉPHANE ROLLAND* 16h30 Hôtel Westin -Paris 1er
JOSEP FONT* 17h30 149 rue Saint-Honoré - Paris 1er

(*= invited members / **=correspondant members)

Labels: FASHION, fashion week paris

The Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin is one of the biggest and oldest ones built here.


The French version of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor was produced there in 1839. Sarah Bernhardt also had major triumphs at this place.

Labels: Architecture shot, Paris street stuff (NOT a TOILET), Theater

This is the seat of the House of Jean-Paul Gaultier since 2004.
The building, situated in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris, was formerly known as the "Palais des Arts de l’Avenir du Prolétariat" (Palace of arts of the future of the proletariat) and was built in 1912 in a beaux-arts style by architect Bernard-Gabriel Belesta.
It was abandoned in the beginning of the 1990s and parts of it became a boxing school, a nightclub and even a children daycare center, before becoming the headquarters of the French Socialist Party.

Labels: Architecture shot, FASHION, Interiors

Labels: Magazines and books

I*ve been hanging out in the cold wintery-weathered streets of Paris this week, trying to find something fun to capture with the camera, and also trying to figure out the Paris wifi network, which is, as the city says, "excellent". Somehow it*s not that spectacular as you might think. I*ve been trying to capture the city*s free wifi in most of the city parks with my i-pod but I never get anything to work...

So far the best wifi access I had is at the Palais de Tokyo, where you just access directly without any problems or signing in stuff.
The wifi on the Pompidou piazza is a mess, I tried to register, but nothing worked, and so I gave up after 15 minutes of standing around a deserted place.
The city parks are a mess as well, since not everything is covered, and you have to find the wifi spot which should be "signaled" to you (but obviously it was not). So I kept running around les Halles gardens for half an hour, holding my device up in the air like some mad Russian scientist trying to find radiation in Chernobyl (he would at least find what he*s looking for).

Another stupid thing is the fact that in the Starbuckses, you have to pay if you want to use their wifi. That really gets me wondering on how they project on keeping their customers coming back with their laptops, since most of the cafés and bars in Paris give you FREE wifi...

Maybe it*s my momentous technological incompetence that gets me to detest this wifi madness, but at least I manage to put up a decent blog!
Take that, wifi de paris!


Ok and now for some joyous Paris impressions I took at the Tuileries:

Labels: and now for something completely different, gardens, Nonsensical rambling, Paris street stuff (NOT a TOILET), photography

Labels: and now for something completely different, drunk politicians, Music

In the Chinese province of Hangzhou, private promoters are building their own little Paris, in a middle-of-nowhere residential complex called "Tiandu Cheng" (City of Heavens), complete with a 1/3 replica of the Eiffel Tower and Haussmannian facades a gogo! As the project moves along, even French vines will be imported to create a nearby vineyard...
The construction works will go on till 2015, but a big part of the Chinese Paris is already standing.
The developers wish to attract about 100 000 residents to the region.
Apartments sell for 230 000 euros at a size of 500 square meters, which is ridiculously cheap compared to the prices you would pay in the real Paris.
So now you know what to do, dear Parisian blog reader! Wanna get that dream apartment you always wanted, with impeccable views onto the Eiffel Tower? Move your ass to China!

Labels: and now for something completely different, Architecture shot, travel

A freshly prepared ad campaign against HIV-AIDS got censored by the French Advertisement Verification Office, because it might disturb certain people in France.
The ad in question depicts two naked men on a bed kissing, and a sentence saying "every day in France, four homosexuals discover they're HIV-positive".
Act Up-Paris already has criticised this act of homophobia.

In a country where you see even more female nudity on any cheap perfume ad campaign, or posters of straight couples in morally questionable positions on street billboards, would it really come to a shocking popular uprise if this particular ad was shown publicly?

If there was a straight couple on that ad, no one would even give shit about it.

Ridiculous!

Labels: Ads, Nonsensical rambling, Politics, Sarkozyland

The borderline of the 10th arrondissement always fascinates me. Only a few steps away from my homey 2d arrondissement lies a whole new world of authenticity, multiculturalism and old city charm. And the obvious stuff you*d find in any Parisian street on an evening of garbage collecting.

But there is more to this world of weird Indian curiosity shops, Turkish late-night supermarkets and incredibly authentic Arab barber shops. It*s the feeling of a new beginning. Hope for immigrant communities to make a good start and become a part of Paris society.

Labels: Interiors, Paris street stuff (NOT a TOILET)

Labels: Ads, and now for something completely different, design, Talking Pictures

Check out the video snobby foreign correspondent Nirit Summer (bless her it*s winter now) did with me on this occasion at our first evening out at our regular meeting spot:

Labels: Nonsensical rambling, party, people, Sarkozyland, Snobby Foreign Correspondents, Talking Pictures, videos