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Shopping? Seek out what only Paris can offer

Example: Palais-Royal and the "covered passages"

 

 

 

  • Mysterious, confidential "covered passages" harbor boutiques that one cannot see from the street...

 

whose clients are connoisseurs. The most elegant of them is our first discovery.

 

It is one of the 250 glass-covered lanes that toward 1820 linked the most fashionable parts of the city. Elegant, edgy and legendary for luxuries one could obtain there only, these became the places to see and be seen. The rise of the great department stores, the appearance of sidewalks and a crackdown on gambling and prostitution caused their eclipse. A few of them are left.

 

They include plebian shortcuts between métro stops or simply sites that destruction overlooked. Between the shoe-stores and lunch counters, nestle an intimate hotel and a few stores to discover.

 

 

 

  • Near the entrance are scarves, perhaps the most refined in Paris

 

 
Covered-passage entry
Globalised production balks at financing the complexity colors of scarves like these.

 

We adapt our walk to your interests: fashion, decoration, unusual books and postcards, gifts for children, works of art...  

 

The proprietors of these boutiques, which can be highly personalized, are often the vendors as well. We will feel their willingness to share what they love. 

 

The hospitable owner pictured above may say...

 

"This boutique, which comes to me through my family, is like my home. I will receive you as I would in my living room. 

 

I am happy to tell how my ancestors, who were peddlers in Alsace, became cloth manufacturers. I can explain too how I renovated the establishment with these collections. Of course purchases are welcome, but for me the reason for our meeting is a story that helps to understand that of France."

 

 

  • A spectacular and equally confidential site, with wares to match, is a minute's walk away

 

 

The boutiques under the arches were the first shops to sell luxuries to anyone, regardless of social status.

 

At the end of the 18th century the Palais-Royal gardens became the entire Continent's epicenter of fashion. 

 

They remain a world of their own. 

 

 
  • A boutique that nestles beneath the arcades

 

•More

In a boutique under Colette's apartment. gloves...
and costume jewelry for which each piece is unique.

 

 

 

 

 

World-known luxury first concentrated in Palais-Royal and the passages (in the 1780's). When the new Opéra was opened (in the 1870's), it spread to the "Grand Boulevards", north of the passages. Workshops specialized in luxury production grew up in the area. A few remain.  

 

On weekdays, we may visit one of them. It produces flowers from silks and other textiles for most of the great couturiers. The family-run establishment has been on the same site since the 1880's – not coincidentally, it is a few minutes from both the passage, on the way to the Opéra.

 

 

  • And if you wish, another passage – for contrast and for an apéritif in an artist's studio.   

 

 

     

     

     

    Here only can individual flowers be purchased.
    Now
    Toward 1830

     

    Her studio lies just beyond the greenery.

     

     
      •  Nearby 

       

      Since the passages are in the heart of the Right Bank, this visit can also connect with such suggestions as:  Couture in an unexpected neighborhood,   Opéra,  Workshop for haute couture,  Silks of kings...  and of course,  Walking into history  – and neighborhoods.

       

       

      • Costs: please CLICK

       

       

      Credits: Swirled scarf / photo supplied by the establishment; Store owner / Carolyn Ristau; rose / Sara White Wilson; passage toward 1930 / illustration found at a flea market ; other photos / Claude Abron