Solli in Paris

Staring on the interior – the first thing I do rather than checking out the new collection…that’s me in a nutshell. This is one of my favourite stores in Paris, All Saints! Love the old Singer sewing machines they have in their shopping windows, the bricks on the walls and the industrial lamps. Besides their interior I love their boots (I have some pairs) and their printed shirts, leather jackets and outerwear…. I would describe the style of their clothes as vintage meets industrial with a warm and soft touch of bohemian.

All Saints – 49 Rue Étienne Marcel  75001 Paris

Café Charlot in Paris is one of my favourite places for having an utterly delicious brunch at. It is a place I discovered when I moved to Paris in January 2010 and ever since I had my first brunch there I fell in love. Love affair deluxe I would call it…

As you can see in the photo above, me and my friends all went for their classic brunch menu: fresh squeezed orange juice, hot chocolate (to die for! Thick and creamy texture….), pain perdu, toast, cherry tomatos and shallots, fresh fruit salad, scrambled organic eggs with smoked salmon and soft chive cream cheese. Can you ask for more? This is THE place to bring your friends for some Sunday chillaxing and gossiping (ofcourse! we all want to know what happened last night at the party if your memory failed on you…) while endulging yourselves with a delicious brunch.

Café Charlot is located in the Marais district and is situated just across the Marché des Enfants Rouges (the oldest food market in Paris). It is a bistro with a retro interior and a very fashionable clientel…oh yes, this is the place were you can see the trendy Parisians almost fighting for a free table inside Café Charlot…..

It’s definately the place to be, either if you want to have a delicious brunch…or just be in the middle of a fashionshow ;-)

p.s. I’m not into burgers BUT Café Charlot‘s actual specialty is the cheese burger...which all my friends gives the thumb up for. So if you share the same passion, Café Charlot is the place!

Café Charlot – 38 rue de Bretagne, Paris

Today its May 1st and it is also the day when French people are waving these beautiful porte-bonheurs (lucky charms) through the air and wishing each other good luck!

La Fête du Muguet (muguet = Lily of the Valley) and La Fête du Travail in France, are a public holiday to celebrate workers right and also an occasion to present the fragrant Spring flower, the lily of the valley to loved ones. When I was living in Saint Germain in Paris I remember that some representatives from Croix-Rouge française (the Red Cross) used to sell this fragrant Spring flower on the street. The photo above is acctually the muguet I bought from them on May 1st in France 2010….

Wish you all a bonne fête du muguet!

View from my window in my apartment at Boulevard Saint Germain, Paris

While some people are fascinated by skyscrapes and other extraordinatry views I was and still I’m fascinated by the view over the Parisian rooftops. No building ressembles the other, time and history has clearly left signs…the window shutters are my favourite ones (please let them never be changed into ugly new ones)…and the “l’œil de bœuf “s in zinc…I remember when we were selling those in the gallery I used to work at. People use them as decoration in homes, by putting a mirror in them. Sometimes I wish I could turn into Mary Poppins, open my umbrella and just fly in the sky above all these beautiful rooftops in Paris :-)

“Chem Cheminée Chem Cheminée Chem Chem Tchéri,
Pour avoir d’ la chance, prends ta chance telle qu’elle vient.
Chem Cheminée Chem Cheminée Chem Chem Tchéro,
Dans vos mains je trouve chaque fois mon étoile d’or.“

(Mary Poppins, “Chem Cheminée”)

View from my window in my apartment at Boulevard Saint Germain, Paris. You can see the two towers from the Saint Sulpice church and the Montparnasse tower.

Rue Jacob is a charming street in St Germain in Paris and since there was a period I was working at Ladurée Bonaparte that is situated in the intersection of Rue Jacob and Rue Bonaparte, I was walking on Rue Jacob pretty often. While working at Ladurée and I had my daily breaks I always used to go out and have a 15 minutes of walk exploring the area and looking in the display windows of the boutiques…..often dreaming about the beautiful Hervé Léger dresses in the Hervé L.Leroux boutique next to Ladurée…or just being fascinated by the beautiful buildings…decorated with typical French shutters, antique lanterns, boutique signs and the building facade covered with the dirt of exhaust fumes, they all showed signs of the years that had passed….

Les nuits sont longues à Paris (the nights are long in Paris) and that is so true. The photo above is taken when I was living at Avenue Carnot in Paris…with the beautiful view over L’Arc de Triomphe. Paris by day and Paris by night…I enjoyed Paris anytime. I really don’t know what more to say than…tu me manques beaucoup Paris (I miss you alot Paris).

Cherry blossom trees in Paris

Paris in pink! The beautiful cherry blossom trees are finally in bloom…..

Cherry blossom trees in Paris

A few days ago I wrote about the Louis Vuitton Marc Jacobs exhibition in Paris. Jorge Ayala, the founder and director of [Ay]A Studio, an International design studio based in Paris, has taken some beautiful photos and covered the exhibition very well and I’m happy he gave me the permission to share his photos with my blogreaders.

The exhibition is more or less comparing the past and the present, the founder (Louis Vuitton) and the actual Creative Director (Marc Jacobs)…click here to read more about the exhibition and have a look on the beautiful photos below:

Photo credits: [Ay]A Studio ,  [Ay]A Studio Facebook page

Photo credits: [Ay]A Studio ,  [Ay]A Studio Facebook page

View from my French balcony at Avenue Carnot in Paris

In 2011 I was living at Avenue Carnot in Paris, with other words, I was the neighbour of L’Arc de Triomphe. Having that beautiful monument just outside the window couldn’t be more Paris! Imagine opening up the windows and just be infatuated of living and feeling Paris…the noises from the cars from the streets and around L’Arc de Triomphe….the warm feeling of the sun that was reflected in the windows in the opposite buildings…..listening to the people down the street… leaning towards the French balcony and just seizing the moment was the first thing I did every morning. It was like having my morning dose of Paris ;-) (and the very polluted air)

View from my French balcony at Avenue Carnot in Paris

Solli 2011

Me in the late Spring of 2011 when I was living in an apartment at Avenue Carnot, right behing L’Arc de Triomphe. When this photo was taken I was about to go and visit my dear friend Jo who was living just a few blocks away. Living in the 17th arrondissement in Paris was quite a difference from St Germain (6th)…but Ladurée at Champs-Elysées was just minutes away (even though it could never replace my Ladurée Bonaparte in St Germain) and Jardin des Tuileries was not that far either….and then I was dangerously too close to le triangle d’or …which was not financially good for me if you know what I mean ;-) But strategically I was very well positioned for the Fashion Weeks in Paris when I was taking lots of photos…

image source, click here

I so wish I was in Paris right now…would have loved to visit the Louis Vuitton Marc Jacobs Exhibition they are having at Les Arts Décoratifs in Paris.

Extract from the website of Les Arts Décoratifs about the exhibition: “This exhibition tells the stories of two men, Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs (artistic director of LV), and will highlight their contributions to the fashion world. How did they succeed in taking the pulse of their respective periods to innovate and take an entire industry forward? How did these two personalities, each with their own language, appropriate cultural phenomena and codes to write the history of contemporary fashion? An analysis rather than a retrospective, this parallel Vuitton-Jacobs comparison will provide new insight into the fashion system during its pivotal periods, beginning with its industrialisation and ending with its globalisation, focussing also on its artistic professions and crafts, technological advances, stylistic creations and artistic collaborations. It will also be homecoming for Louis Vuitton, who set up shop only a stone’s throw from the Louvre, the home of his first great patron, Empress Eugénie. Over a century separates Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs, but both come together in the excellence of their creativity.”

Exhibition:  Louis Vuitton Marc Jacobs
Date: 9 March–16 september 2012

Les Arts Décoratifs
107, rue de Rivoli
75001 Paris
France

Asparagus

I love aspargus! I bought some yesterday…boiled them for a couple of minutes and then topped them with grated lemon peel, grated parmesan cheese..and served them with egg, salmon and mashed avocado with red onion…. The asparagus were delicious but still not comparable to the ones I was served at my favourite Italian restaurant in Paris, Oenosteria, or Mama shelter in Paris.

Asparagus

"Sous le chapeau" by LAPIS Andras, this statue of a seated woman can be seen outside the Hungarian Embassy in Paris at 92 rue Bonaparte

Just because I will not be living permanently in Paris doesn’t mean I will not blog about Paris anymore. I still have so many photos to publish and yet so many stories to tell, so don’t worry on that part ;-) And I will go to Paris a couple of times before this year ends…for short weekend visits…so I will have even more things to write about. With other words…the Paris blog continues ;-)

Me in Jardin des Tuileries in Paris

Ever since November last year it feels I’ve spent more time in the AIR than on the ground. I went for a short visit in Stockholm and then back again to Paris…then I went to Asia….then I went back to Paris and then back to Sweden and so on. I’m a good client for the airline companies, that’s for sure ;-)
You must be wondering what I’m doing and so have I until I’ve decided to leave Paris for a while. I love Paris and when I moved there in 2010 I did it with the intention to stay there. But before I settle down for good I want to check off some things on my to-do-list-of-my-life and so I decided to move back to Sweden for a couple of months. To be continued……

Me walking in Jardin des Tuileries in Paris

View from my old apartment in Odéon, Paris

This is where I used to live, back in the days…. It is the apartment in Odéon (St Germain) where I spent my first year in Paris and I have so many beautiful memories from here :-) I’m still in contact with my landlord and his wife who are living in the apartment now and when I’m in the area sometimes I check if they are home, always bringing some pain au chocolat with me from the bakery Pauls, 2 minutes from there. They have a sweet tooth just as me and their favourite is pain au chocolat. He and his wife were my first contact in the French society and they really took good care of me and always invited me for dinners, different occasions just so that I could meet French speaking people and improve my French. They also helped me with all the administrative things when I first had arrived and without all their help I really don’t know what I would have been doing so I’m so thankful I was lucky meeting them. And the view you can see on the photo above is from the window from the apartment, where I once used to live :-)