“All that can be found anywhere can be found in Paris.” - Victor Hugo

Ah, Paris, city of lovers, bohemians, artists, designers and all things that is beautiful in this world. Legions of fans and devotees swear by the city designed for romance and the finer aspects of life, as the extraordinary amount of literature, design, art and music emanating from the city bears testament to. From Hemingway’s uncharacteristic “A Moveable Feast”, to Edith Piaf’s heartbreaking solos, to the abundance of artistic expression in every nook, cranny, sidewalk, wall and street, the city lives and breathes design and art in every conceivable incarnation possible.

The City of Lights

Surely most of us are familiar by now with the most famous of Paris’ landmarks: the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe, the Notre Dame Cathedral, the Seine, the myriad of cafes dotting the sidewalks; the perennial caricature of the French artist by the street always conjures up some form of feeble recognition, no matter in what incarnation, along with the food, wine and atmosphere of romance that permeates the city every step of its way.

Long feted for being a haven for creatives, Paris easily lives up to its illustrious history of being one of the capitals of the world by presenting an edgy design scene today which blends the best of both old world charm and new European sensitivities. While the streets are literally chockfull of beautiful things that millions of tourists flock to the city to gawk at every year, Parisians also find themselves in the middle of a throbbing, vibrant and slightly subversive creative culture which serves to further reinforce Paris’ firmly-established titles as arguable the creative center of the world.

The Young, the Hip and the Trendy

Cool creatives and design aficionados alike have been flocking by the droves away from the tourist-infested city center with its monuments and landmarks, into the surrounding areas like the buzzing, alternative Belleville at the junction of the 10th, 11th 19th and 20th, with its neighbourhoods of African and Eastern European immigrants and quirky, cool culture, with the scores of artists now living and working there with studios scattered all through the neighbourhood. Some abandoned factories have been transformed into art squats, where several alternatives artists and musicians, such as the band “Les Rita Mitsouko”, began their careers.

Much beloved by museum lovers and fashionistas is the very trendy and very gay Marais district., home to some of the best shops in Paris and the rue des Francs-Bourgeois, one of the rare streets in Paris that stays open on a Sunday. For fashion lovers, the stores in this district are intimate, chic and very “boutique”, manifesting as particularly “Parisian” style clothing areas. Situated nearby also is the impossibly, achingly-hip Hotel du Petit Moulin, designed by Christian Lacroix and a devilish temptation to well-heeled travellers attracted by its sumptuous chandeliers, heavy brocade curtains and rich, gorgeous wallpaper with designer furniture that matches seamlessly.

Another area to watch is also Bercy, where new apartments, bars and restaurants are drawing the nouveau bourgeois east to its tempting folds.

Fashion Capital

Everybody who’s familiar with “The Devil Wears Prada” would know that Paris Fashion Week is considered one of the stellar highlights of the fashion world, every year. Reigning at the top together with New York, London and Milan, Paris remains one of the most exciting fashion centers of the Western world, with its constantly evolving fashion scene. Internationally-renowned fashion houses such as Chanel, Pierre Cardin, Christian Lacroix, Christian Dior, Kenzo, Jean Paul Gaultier and Versace have called Paris home, mostly around the Champs-Elysees avenue, or the Saint-Germain des Pres district, rubbing shoulders with smaller private boutiques filed with exquisite handmade clothing. At the heart of Saint-Germain des Pres, one can also browse through the handsome Philipe Starck-designed Taschen bookstore, where gorgeous tomes kit out the shelves on full display.

Design Culture

While Paris used to have quite a reputation for being a design no-man's land, all these changed with the arrival of the Young Turks some 20 years ago with Francois Mitterrand creating a sensation by asking now-household names Starck, Wilmotte, and Putman to redo the presidential palace. This spurred on a new vitality in design and an acceleration in the growth of design and fashion stores (while rendering infamous the notion of the "concept store"), as well as a burgeoning in restaurants, cultural spaces, galleries and gardens designed and conceived by architects, designers and landscape architects.

Some of the best stores to view and purchase objects of desire from include the grande dame Neotu, Colette, Comme des Garcons, Mandarina Duck, Laguiole, L'Eclaireur, Asphalte, Correges, Muji, Purple Institut, as well as Teisso Antiquites for those in search of designer pieces of yore.

Sincer 1999, all the left bank design stores have carried on a tradition called the "Itineraire Rive Gauche du Design", aka "Designer's Day". During this period, many of the avant-garde galleries open their doors in order to best promote and showcase their collections, as well as revisit some of the classics.

Possible no other city in the world has been so celebrated in prose, poetry, pictures and song, and yet familiarity poses a daunting challenge in its own right. How to look at Paris with all its eternal clichés and view them for what they are: beautiful, but far less than the sum of the whole? Perhaps the key to this is to take a cue from the locals – Parisians live and breathe all that their magnificent city has to offer on a daily basis, yet manage to continuously be inspired enough to create new hubs, avenues and outlets that makes the city a continuously exciting spot to live in or visit. Trendy spots swap spaces within the blink of an eye, and like every truly chic city in the world the pace to stay fresh and exciting remains brutal. Yet the citizens of the world lap it up, because ultimately, Paris remains the place to see, and be seen.

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TRAVEL ALBUM: DESIGN CITY publishes the essential photography subjects of a city. As they say, architecture landmarks denote the progressing development of a city. Design in each and every city speaks in different languages and dances to different cultures. A lot of cities are growing in the design realm but no one would know about this development but the travelers and the locals themselves. Only. The exciting quirks and electrifying eccentricity of Everyday Product, Design Schools, Designers, Resources, Hotels/Buildings, Design Studios/Personalities, Local Galleries, Museums, etc, are found in both secret and obvious places of the city.

We miss out on these simple things during travel or simply during our busy lifestyle in our own city. So the next time you travel, think of TRAVEL ALBUM: DESIGN CITY.


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