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Hidden shops, sheltered lanes & shopping that only Paris can offer

Wares that mass production cannot match, at Palais-Royal & in a "Covered passage"
"Palais-Royal", the palace a few steps from the Louvre that the Sun King gave away (start of a story...)

 

At the end of the 18th century gardens that a palace surrounded became Europe's epicenter of fashion. Today exceptional boutiques, which are known mainly to connaisseurs, still nestle behind the arcades.

 

We check out a celebrated flagship store, to absorb Parisian glamor, examine the wares and note their prices. We compare the whole with the boutiques that come next, two métro stations away,

 

 

  • Among the shops that snuggle behind the arcades...

 

•More

In a boutique under Colette's apartment. gloves...
and costume jewelry

 

 

  • Palais-Royal is the point from which the Covered passages begin

 

In the early 19th century, 250 glass-covered lanes linked the most fashionable parts of the city. Famed for luxuries, they were a living theater as well – places to see and be seen. The rise of the great department stores, the buidling of sidewalks and a crackdown on gambling and prostitution caused their eclipse.

 

We explore some of these passages and evoke a past that was both elegant and edgy. 

 

They include superb sites that connoisseurs seek out and plebian shortcuts between métro stops. There too, between the shoe-stores and lunch counters, nestle an intimate hotel and shops with merchandise to treasure.

 

 

 

    • We enter a passage, to come upon extraordinary scarves, shawles and stoles

     

     
    Entry to a Covered passage
    Wares to compare with what we will have seen at the start
    "I receive PEF's guests in my boutique as I would in my salon."

     

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

     

    Vendors are often these intimate shops' proprietors and they share their pride in places that in themselves can be works of art. Victoria Wolff, who is pictured above, may say...

     

    "This boutique, which comes to me through my family, is like my home. I am happy to tell how my ancestors, who were peddlars 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."

     

     

     

     

    World-known luxury first concentrated in Palais-Royal and the Passages, then around the Opéra, a 15-minute stroll away (the Opéra is still the point from which the most famous luxury establishments fan out). Mass production has eliminated much of what once was done by hand, but workshops whose expertise machines cannot  replace remain.

     

    We may visit a workshop that produces flowers from silks and other textiles. Five  minutes from the Passage, it has been in the same building since the 1880's.

     

     

    • Another passage, mysterious and poetic

     

     
      Here only can individual flowers be purchased.
      Toward 1830
      Recently

         

        It is rather proletarian, but one of our artists has a studio just beyond the greenery. We can end there with an apéritif or coffee.
          •  Nearby 

           

          Since the passages are in the heart of the Right Bank, this visit can also onnect with such suggestions as:  Couture in an unexpected neighborhood,  Opéra,A workshop that couturiers patronize and that the public rarely knows   Silks of kings...  and of course,  Walking into history  – & 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

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