Paris Fashion Week Part 2

Mario Schwab party at l'Eclaireur

Mario Schwab party at l'Eclaireur

DJs at the Paule Ka after party

Party girl at the Paule Ka after-party

... and we're back!

Sorry for not having been in touch for the past few days: we stayed at my mother's and we used to have broadband at home, but since my little sister moved out to start university, my mother disconnected everything because she is persuaded broadband waves give you cancer (and mobile phones brain tumors and depression). Seeing what a little computer genius I am, I was completely incapable of reconnecting it, so we have been stuck in no blogger's land until London.

Every time I come back to Paris I realize how much I miss it. With New York, it is the real city of my heart. I love how the day light on the white stones makes the city so clear even when it's cloudy, and how the sky looks a purply brown at night, I love sitting at a cafe-terrasse and watching people pass by, and meeting girlfriends in a trendy brasserie around (blessfully cheap a) dinner and a glass of wine, it all feels wonderful. And no hungover the next day like when you meet friends at a pub in London, that's a benefit!

This trip was quite eventful, beginning with the 7am meeting to catch the eurostar at King's Cross on Tuesday morning: 7:10 and Champagnista M is not here, she has the tickets, I start to worry, give her a call, and hear her sleepy voice 'hello?'... Then upon hearing me: 'OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD! I've slept through my alarm clock!' and click... She almost made it though, arrived two minutes after the check-in closed, I was amazed at her diligence.

In the end we did make it to Paris, after some delay also due to the the tunnel fire, and at 7pm we were on our way to rediscover the tout Paris in all its fashion grandeur. As Champagnista M told you, the first event we attended was the opening of Anne Fontaine's new spa on the rue Saint-Honore in the first district. The ground floor hosted an exhibition of her new shirt collection; they are not usually my thing as I feel they are addressed to mid-thirties working women with generous bosoms. Her new Spring 09 collection featured very interesting pieces though, with an accent on fitted shirts with oversize sleeves and frilly collars, modernized by the use of crispy gauze or (my favourite) this translucid fibrous cotton-plastic fabric used to wrap expensive buys. Her spa in the basement has the perfect lighting and Champagnista M and I spent an hour sipping Ruinart champagne in the jacuzzi room, where a square bath tube set in brut granite felt like an alcove of warm water between walls draped in running waterfalls. The idea of going to a spa and spending half a day doing nothing has always frightened me out of trying, but this night I felt right at home: I could have gone to sleep there.

The rue Saint-Honore was bristling with life this night, and after making a brief appearance at the Custo Barcelona party we crashed the Paule Ka after-party where models, designers, stylists and actors danced together at the music of two DJ girls in high heels and vamp dresses. Men were ... oh my... it had been a long time since I could rest my eyes like that, hmmm!... However, it was strange to notice the difference between Paris and London Fashion industries: maybe it is just an impression because I made a lot of friends since I started working in fashion in London, but the fashion scene in Paris is not as friendly: if you don't impress, you're nothing, so you feel under pressure to maintain a standard of high-browness that I felt a bit uncomfortable about. Everybody wears black as well: sleek black suits, fitted black jackets, big black belts, black heels and scruffy blond hair. We were very colourful in the middle of this crowd, and not unnoticed (in a good way as you can imagine: good colours and nice to be noticed by stylish French men).

The next day we went to the bar at Hotel Costes, rue Saint-Honore again (I feel like I spent the week there). The bar is the place where all 'it' fashion people go during fashion week: lots of slender and tall fashion girls in black, and squat old men with money. When you get the bill you know why, fortunately the bartender was sweet (against all Hotel Costes cliches) and sweet-looking enough to make us forget our financial sorrows. And I really cannot do the old man who pays your drink for conversation and more thing... urgh!

Fashion disappointment the next day with the Mario Schwab party at l'Eclaireur behind the Crillon (living in London where fashion is so East centered at the moment, you tend to forget how elitist fashion can be but its strong geographical situation in Paris reminds you all). Then new fashion highlights with very very incredible encounters at the London Fashion week showroom (I am still aghast and you shall soon know why), and fashion revelations at the New York Fashion week showroom in Bastille (how edgy).

I will have to update you on these and the shows later though because I promised myself to be good this week: no late-drinking, late fooling around or late sleeping, unfortunately I have too much work on. (You want to bet how long I stick to this good resolution?)

To be continued...

By Champagnista V