Chanel, YSL, & Mademoiselle Claire

Le dimanche 10 juin

Today would be my last Sunday in Paris. It wasn’t the first Sunday of the month, unfortunately, when all national museums in Paris are free.  Still, I was going to make the most of the morning and early afternoon before Claire’s arrival. I decided to visit the marché aux puces of Saint Ouen, as this is the most famous flea market in Paris.

Even though I had researched this flea market and knew it was extremely large compared to Vanves, I was still shocked by the vastness of it upon arrival.

Once again, I saw rows of the vendors’ boxy white vans lined up along the street parking.  I walked through crowds who were checking out the discounted sneakers and designer clothing in white pop-up tents that lined the outskirts of the market.  A crowd had gathered at one tent to grab the remaining 1 euro t-shirts out of a bin.  They seemed to be Lacoste knockoffs, folded and covered in plastic.  I was more interested in getting to the older antique stalls that were found somewhere in the middle.  A major difference in the Vanves and Saint Ouen markets is that Saint Ouen has actual storage stalls that vendors close and reopen each weekend, whereas the Vanves vendors lay their wares out on tables on the sidewalk.  I preferred the intimacy of Vanves, but still enjoyed perusing the art, furniture, and vintage clothing at Saint Ouen. 

On my way out, I bought a bouquet of orange roses to brighten up our dining table in the Airbnb for Claire’s arrival.  Walking in the direction of the metro station, I passed a sidewalk farmers’ market that was just being cleaned up for the day.  The sellers swept up their vegetable refuse from the sidewalks into piles and folded up their stand awnings at lightning speed.  The smell of fish emanated from the water that had leaked from the poissonier’s ice onto the sidewalks.  A man with a hose sprayed at the pungent leakage and strong men and women hauled cardboard boxes of their unsold produce into the backs of trucks, slamming the doors shut.  

Finally on metro, I began receiving communications through Viber messaging that Claire had landed at Orly and would be arriving at our Airbnb within the next two hours.  I decided to hurriedly visit two places I was dying to see and would be closed on Monday:  31 Rue Cambon, the location of Chanel’s Paris apartment and boutique, and the new Musée Yves Saint Laurent. 

Mademoiselle Chanel’s apartment on 31 Rue Cambon is located on a tiny street and sits just above one of the two or three Chanel boutiques in Paris.  I consider Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel one of my all-time greatest life influences for many reasons.  She was self-made in a time period when very few women had financial independence.  She revolutionized women’s fashion by creating comfortable, wearable pieces for women, getting rid of corsettes in dresses that many thought mandatory but which actually were painful and physically restrictive for women.  She experimented with comfortable jersey fabric and took on a pants-wearing androgynous look herself.  At the turn-of-the-century, wearing dresses without corsettes and pants as a woman was avant-garde.  Gabrielle Chanel never married.  She went on to bear the name of the most famous French fashion label in the world. There is a movie titled Coco Avant Chanel by Anne Fontaine, and each time I show it, my students love it.  I have had not one, but two students write to me or visit me after graduating to tell me that they are pursuing fashion as careers. One studied at FIDM in New York, and one at Parsons.  They both told me that learning French and our time spent studying French fashion inspired them and impacted their choice to pursue design school.  The potential for inspiring a student’s dream or path...this is why I teach. This is why I teach French.

I didn’t spend much time in the Chanel boutique, but I hope to return one day when I or my future husband has accumulated enough savings to purchase one of Chanel’s timeless pieces.  When I arrived at the boutique, I was greeted by suited doormen.  All of the salespeople wore black and white Chanel garments and bustled about.  I saw mostly couples in the boutique - mostly boyfriends, fiancés, or husbands buying something special for their lady.  When ready to make a purchase, the salesperson took the clients into a separate office for the transaction, as most of the pieces are usually several thousand dollars. (I know this, because I peeked at the price tag tucked inside the smallest double flap bag I could find, embarrassed when I saw a security guard glancing over in my direction.)  I am glad I went inside the boutique, even if not to purchase anything. I saw some young women with film cameras thanking the doormen for access to the boutique. I hope they are pursuing their dreams. 

Did I have time to see Musée YSL?  I was going to make time.  Yves Saint Laurent is another French designer I have studied continuously and whose documentaries I have shown to my students.  This museum is probably the best one I visited during my stay in Paris this time around.  It is fairly new, less than a year old.  I appreciated that I received le tarif réduit for teachers, even as an American teacher.  Most of the other museums offer reductions only for teachers who teach in France. 

The museum took place in Saint Laurent’s apartment in Paris.  I gasped at all of the beautiful childhood artifacts I saw and read about parts of his life that I may or may not have already known:  YSL grew up in Oran, Algeria.  He took over Maison Dior after Christian Dior’s death in his early twenties, and then eventually created his own label.  He is known for being the first to create “ready-to-wear” lines and for making tailored womens’ suits popular.  He had many “muses” who inspired his work, one of them being Catherine Deneuve. He passed away only just in 2008.  I was so grateful to see his beautiful work, his studio, and pay my respects to what he has contributed to fashion.

After leaving Musée YSL with a gift shop bag and many museum pamphlets for my students, I hurried back to the metro. I knew Claire was arriving at the Airbnb and would be waiting outside with her luggage on the sidewalk until I came with the key.  Finally at the Olympiade stop, I rushed up the escalators and jogged up the street waving my arms to show her I was there.  She was sitting behind her suitcase on the curb.  “Bonjour!”  We embraced and made it inside just to see the rain start to fall on the terrace from the view of our balcony.  It is always so comforting to be with family, especially when you have been separated by continents.

That evening, we would eat escargot and salade niçoise, learn what un cendrier is, and go dancing at a discothèque in Saint Germain before finishing a crêpe along the edge of the Seine. 

La vie est belle.

Alana