Paris Dreaming

by Katrina Lawrence

  I had booked myself a room in a small hotel not far from Colette’s final Parisian residence, the Palais-Royal. And so the next day I made a pilgrimage there, crunching over the gravel towards the tall, elegant windows of her former apartment. It was by this glass, overlooking the rows of clipped lime trees and the immaculately manicured, rosebush-trimmed lawn, that Colette penned Gigi. Luxuriating in her sofa-bed that doubled as a desk, in the aromas of the floral bouquets that garlanded her room, and in the outside sounds of rustling leaves and fountain spray, she must have felt as happily at home as she once did in her childhood village.

  Don’t be fooled by the bucolic prettiness of the Palais-Royal. This primly elegant park, so tastefully edged in colonnaded arcades, hides some shady memories. The gardens date back almost 400 years, when Cardinal Richelieu built his sumptuous residence on the site. The palace eventually passed to the royal family, ending up in the hands of the cadet branch and eventually the Duke d’Orléans, who was immensely more popular among Parisians than his ill-fated cousin, King Louis XVI. In the early 1780s, the cash-strapped duke decided to convert his backyard into a kind of forum of fun. He rented out the ground floor spaces of the arcades to shopkeepers and restaurateurs, and the floors above to all manner of shifty operators. Everyone was allowed in, from courtesans to countesses, pimps to puppeteers — everyone, that is, except the police. Not surprisingly, the Palais-Royal became a kind of revolutionary hotbed, with students and sans-culottes flocking there to read illicit pamphlets and brew radical ideas over coffee. But politics paled in significance next to its role as Paris’s ultimate pleasure palace, a den of debauchery.

  Spanning the grounds of the Palais-Royal — just next to the infamous Daniel Buren art installation: pillars painted in black and white stripes for a liquorice effect — is a twin row of columns. It’s all that’s left of the Galerie d’Orléans, one of the earliest ever shopping malls. There ladies could come to buy frilled parasols or rosewater perfumes, and if they knew where to look, they could also surreptitiously slip an erotic novel or packet of condoms into their shopping bag. No wonder Parisiennes became such passionate shoppers.

  I click-clacked my way around the shopping arcades that remain. These days, the Palais-Royal is a hallowed high-fashion address, but back in the early 1990s there was still a musty air of yesteryear, its dusty boutiques crammed to the rafters with random and eclectic bibelots, like toy soldiers, antique medals, or made-to-measure, elbow-length gloves. I stopped in front of a store called Didier Ludot, and marvelled at the vintage haute couture on display. I was myself in a 1960s fashion phase, courtesy of Brigitte Bardot. I recall wearing a black-and-white hound’s-tooth coat wrapped over a turtle neck sweater, vinyl tunic, and thick tights with shiny high-heeled boots, all in some shade of black. In the sixties, Bardot had slipped out of her girlie floral dresses and into French space-age style: mini dresses in shiny high-tech fabrics by the likes of André Courrèges and Paco Rabanne, one of whose sequin-laden party dresses sparkled in the window before me. I heaved a sigh and headed for the exit. Today was my day for Christmas shopping, and I doubted I’d have any francs left over for such fripperies of my own.

  Just north of the Palais-Royal is Galerie Vivienne, an exquisite covered passage way. In the early nineteenth century, many Right Bank streets were connected by a series of such graceful glass-topped and marble-floored boutique-lined galleries, inspired by the Palais-Royal. A shopper’s heaven at a time when the city was lacking in footpaths, these gas-lit arcades allowed women who preferred not to plunge ankle-deep in Parisian mud to glide through, leisurely admiring window displays brimming with hats, twinkling with jewels or perfumed with bonbons. Galerie Vivienne, with its swirling mosaic floor, is the most elegant, and it was especially so on this day, festooned in flickering Christmas lights.

  I spent the rest of the morning weaving in and out of this arcade, and the few that remain nearby. The Passage Jouffroy is perhaps most like falling down a rabbit hole into old Paris. There’s a whimsical toy store, where you can buy doll palaces (no mere doll houses there), a dainty salon de thé serving up frothy, creamy delights, and the quirky Hôtel Chopin, still trussed up in all its lacy Romantic-era glory. It’s a veritable time capsule of curios, a flashback to a quieter and quainter Paris, just before it bloomed into Belle Époque grandeur.

  Few phenomena have transformed the cityscape and psyche of Paris like the boulevards. I took a right from Passage Jouffroy onto Boulevard Montmartre, which leads into Boulevard Haussmann, named after the man who made Paris the city famous for its grand tree-lined streets complete with wide, stroll-worthy footpaths where Parisians could see and be seen. Cafés spilled over onto what is now a Parisian institution — la terrasse — and patrons would sit and spend hours watching the world — clattering carriages and misty-eyed window-shoppers — go by.

  Some say the repetitive nature of Haussmann’s streetscapes make for mind-numbing monotony, but I’ve always found they induce a state of harmony, as you can walk endlessly, almost in a trance. Unless, of course, you’re wearing boots that aren’t made for walking. So this is why Parisiennes wear comfortable little ballerina flats, I realised that afternoon, adding a pale-pink pair to my mental shopping list. Luckily, I was about to reach shopping nirvana.

  It might by now come as no surprise to learn that Paris invented the department store. Multi-levelled retail meccas, divided according to product categories, sprang up along the grand boulevards. They were temples of commerce for a new consumer culture, houses of worship topped with a dome through which light could shine. I walked into Galeries Lafayette and stood in the perfume-hazed atrium, in awe beneath the stained-glass cupola, a prismatic jewel atop the golden, crown-like interior. You feel as though you’re in a treasure chest. Your head spins and your senses are dazzled. No wonder I never come out of there sans shopping bag.

  On this particular trip, I bought my parents a scarf each from the accessories department (it’s impossible not to come home from this city without such a souvenir, the ultimate symbol of Parisian panache), then glided up an escalator to find myself in the lingerie department. The word lingerie in France once meant ‘things made of linen’. No longer. These days Parisian lingerie is more likely to be slinky, silky slips of sweet nothings in a spectrum of shades; there is always the classic black, often in lace, but also a selection of delicious macaron hues. I couldn’t help but be tempted, walking over and picking up a balconette bra made from whisper-light tulle, tinted a shade of apricot sorbet.

  ‘That would suit you, Mademoiselle,’ said a tall saleswoman, made even taller by a beehive of a hairdo.

  ‘Oh, I’m not sure, I’ve never worn anything like it,’ I replied.

  ‘Have you ever been fitted?’ she asked, looming over me. And before I knew it, Madame Lingerie had whipped out a tape measure and bustled me into a change room. It had been a good five years since I’d been measured for my first bra, and I self-consciously peeled off my top.

  ‘Oh là là, that is not right for you,’ she tut-tutted, looking at my black elastic-edged triangle bra with equal parts sympathy and disdain. ‘You need some oomph, Mademoiselle.’

  It was true. I could have done with some help in that department. I just always ended up spending all of my money on outerwear.

  ‘Voilà. See how this style of bra gives you shape, but still appears natural?’

  I looked in the mirror and couldn’t believe it: I actually had cleavage. It was subtle, granted, but it was most definitely there. The French, I’d later find out, abhor overly engineered push-up bras. They like tricks, sure (what is couture if not clothing that makes the body look better?) but those whose effects fall within the realm of nature’s possibilities.

  ‘It’s very pretty but I don’t really need it,’ I protested, but only halfheartedly, my powers of rationality fast dissolving in the face of such feminine allure.

  Madame sensed me weakening. ‘One doesn’t have a need for beautiful lingerie, one has a desire for it!�
� she declared, triumphantly.

  ‘But I don’t even have a boyfriend . . .’

  ‘You don’t buy lingerie for a man,’ she replied scoldingly. ‘You buy it for yourself, because it feels good. When you wear even the simplest outfit, if you have beautiful lingerie underneath, you feel better in your skin, you walk more seductively. You will see.’

  So that’s the secret to the swaying, sashaying stroll of Parisiennes.

  ‘And you must buy the matching culottes,’ Madame added. ‘You should never wear mismatched lingerie.’

  I blushed at the thought of the beige cotton briefs beneath my tunic.

  My funds being so unexpectedly and dramatically depleted, I decided to cut my losses and head for the exit. The ballerina flats would have to wait. Anyway, I apparently now had the real Parisian secret to a seductive swagger.

  Later that week, I went to Angelina for breakfast. The iconic tearoom, having opened in 1903 in the fading years of the Belle Époque, retains the diffused golden glow so symbolic of those times. And you can still order the chocolat à l’ancienne dit ‘l’Africain’, the famous pot of decadently thick hot chocolate. Which I promptly did. It was all I could do not to dollop the whipped cream on top.

  I had pretty much starved myself all year, recording every ingested kilojoule in a slim notebook I carried around with me. I’d only recently realised how crazy this was, as I emerged from the pressure-cooker that was my final school year. I guessed it had been my way of trying to control the situation. Plus, I swore that an empty stomach seemed to sharpen my mind. Fortunately, it wasn’t a true eating disorder, as it disappeared overnight. Literally. I woke up one day and knew that I no longer needed that notebook, which I proceeded to toss in the bin — before smearing butter (butter!) and jam (sugar!) all over my two (yes, two!) thick slices of toast (carbs!). Still, I was wary not to go too far to the other extreme. I knew my limits — and whipped cream atop molten chocolate was definitely one.

  The waitress placed a tiered tray of petite pastries on the table. Now these, these I could do. I mean, how could anything so little and so pretty possibly do any harm? As I nibbled the mini croissant, at once buttery and flaky, I could have melted with happiness. Really, I thought, where better to get reacquainted with the utter joys of eating than Paris?

  After breakfast, I walked around the Tuileries Garden just across Rue de Rivoli. As in many French parks, statues of nude nymphs seemed as common as trees. I wondered how this shaped the impressionable minds of young girls, still coming to terms with their changing bodies. Surely it would give a certain perspective to the issue; the commonness of all this nudity would, you’d think, make for a shrugged-shouldered sense of the c’est normale. At home, one barely dressed stone maiden would probably have everyone up in arms, railing at this immodest attack on Australian girls’ virtuous minds. And yet, Australian women generally flash much more flesh than Parisiennes, who can often seem prudish in their simple, classic wardrobe choices. And yet! Parisiennes are the ones who come across as most comfortable in their own skin, so at ease with their body that they don’t feel they have to show it off for reassurance from the crowd. Incidentally, wolf whistles seem non-existent in Paris; in their place, a subtle smile of appreciation.

  I was wearing another mini dress that day: a thigh-skimming red shift, worn with black tights and my trusty boots. A leopard print faux-fur coat topped it all off. It was not what you’d call a subtle look. Nor very Parisian. I felt very much out of place that day. Fashion is all about finding yourself, but it can just as effectively be about working out who you’re not, and I was starting to not feel like myself. What’s more, my clothes felt out of sync with my body, which I was still trying to understand, if not control. I wasn’t sure I liked my legs, my thighs and calves having bulked up from a year’s worth of daily step aerobics. Or my chest, which I was increasingly wishing was a little larger, to rebalance a figure with bottom-heavy tendencies. Or maybe I just hadn’t grown into my own skin.

  I wandered over to the Louvre, where I planned to spend the rest of the morning. I began with the Venus de Milo, the Ancient Greek sculpture depicting Aphrodite, the goddess of love. The marble-carved, semi-draped Venus is a figure of breathtaking beauty, even without her arms. And even when judged in today’s world of body perfection. Venus is what women’s magazines would somewhat derisively term a Pear. And yet, for centuries this very figure has been the ideal, because this Venus — who was sculpted in the second century — boasts the magical waist-to-hip ratio of 0.7, which to this day tops the lists when it comes to men’s preferences.

  Evolutionary biologists would say it’s something to do with childbearing hips signalling fertility. And they must be onto something, because the art world, like the Louvre, is filled with examples of naked women whose waists measure approximately 70 per cent of their hip circumference. Think of the sinuously satin-skinned Une Odalisque by Ingres, or his curvy women of The Turkish Bath, or the various mythical Three Graces, sculpted or painted in all their fleshy glory.

  I watched a group of school children, aged around thirteen, as they sat before Pradier’s sculpture of the trio of Graces, listening attentively as a teacher explained the history of the work. Not one schoolgirl squirmed with discomfort, not one schoolboy sniggered from embarrassment. To them, nudity — both artful and natural — was as much a matter of respect as a mere matter-of-fact affair. I couldn’t imagine the same scene taking place at home, which made me feel envious. I wished I’d grown up in a country where there were enough displays of natural bodily beauty for a girl to know that it’s perfectly normal to have hips. Maybe then we’d have a healthier respect for our bodies, and not torture them with daily aerobics and occasional starvation. Instead, we’d nourish our bodies with the right amount of good food, keep trim by simply walking — and enhance the rest with great tailoring.

  My last stop at the Louvre was the Winged Victory — or Nike, Goddess of Victory. If I get to the Louvre right on opening, I run straight to her, so as to have her all to myself even if only for a few seconds. But I also always visit her at the end, as she’s such a high note on which to complete a tour. Like the Venus de Milo, Victory dates to second-century BC Greece, and she is also incomplete, missing her head. But this only lends so much momentum to the rest of her. She stands at the top of a dramatic sweep of stairs, and you sense the power of her body before you start to climb; the beautiful drapery can barely contain her force, while her majestic wings are set to take flight.

  Nike, the winged goddess, happened to be the emblem of the university in which I was enrolled for the following year. It was a cleverly chosen symbol, because Victory represents a journey into the unknown, a bracing of self against the winds of resistance. Still, I wondered if I was on the right path. I’d worked so hard all year to get accepted into the same law school my parents had gone to, yet when I received the letter of acceptance, it felt anti-climactic. I mean, I liked the law well enough, and I was very much the law-abiding citizen, never even daring to cross against a red pedestrian light. But it’s not like I wanted to make it my life. The first thing I did in Paris was not visit the tomb of Napoléon to doff my beret to the man who created the Civil Code; non, I went and got myself a deluxe manicure. Paris and my hands knew my future. I should have accepted my fate and switched from law to beauty school then and there. Perhaps Winged Victory up there was trying to tell me to lead my life with my heart, not my head.

  That afternoon, I explored the Les Halles district. Once the area around the city’s old markets, the patchwork of higgledy-piggledy streets was now studded with eclectic boutiques. One caught my eye, its windows crammed with vintage mini dresses made from all sorts of light-flashing fabrics, from vinyl to spangles to lurex. In this city of subtle tailoring, I exhaled with relief to finally see myself reflected somewhere. Experiencing an overwhelming need to feel like I belonged, I walked inside, happily inhaling the patchouli incense that filled the air and smothered my senses, already under assault from t
he sounds of the Rolling Stones and the sight of a riot of colours.

  ‘Bonjour, petite BB.’

  I swung around so swiftly that I almost lost my footing, and certainly my composure, because peering at me was a pair of dark-brown eyes, narrowed with curiosity. They belonged to the most handsome face (dark eyes, chiselled cheekbones, pouty lips: check! check! check!) I’d seen in, well, I could barely remember how long.

  Hang on, did he just call me a bébé? I wondered. Baby. I mean, he did seem old — perhaps even thirty (mon dieu!). But then I remembered that Brigitte Bardot’s initials, in French, are pronounced bébé. He’d called me a little BB.

  ‘I wish!’ I laughed, a little self-consciously, if embarrassingly gratified by the compliment.

  We introduced ourselves. His name was Marc and it turned out this was his shop, which he filled with vintage clothes from the 1960s.

  ‘Brigitte Bardot must be more popular in Australia,’ he said. ‘Parisiennes don’t dress like her that much. It’s difficult to sell the 1960s look here.’

  ‘Then why do you do it?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t find the other eras appealing,’ he replied, with a shrug. ‘Paris was at its peak in the 1960s. It was all about the future. Since then, everyone has been looking backwards.’

  ‘But you’re looking back, too,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Well, true, but I try to really live the period. The optimism. Le free love.’

  I could feel my cheeks turn as red as my dress.