J'adore Paris!

Bonjour mes amis! I just returned from Paris and what a trip it was! It began with an extremely unpleasant 12 hour train ride from Florence to Paris. It was a "couchette" which slept 6 people. Luckily, everyone in our couchette was from our school and got along, so we didn't have any creeps in our midst. There were 3 beds stacked on top of each other, and there was maybe 1 square foot of room to walk, it was smaller than a closet. The worst part of the train was that it was unbearably cold and the train car rocked. It was so scary and I definitely watch way too much CNN, because I have seen the train accidents in Europe and I was sure that I was going to be a part of another one. I woke up with every shake, wobble and screech; it was not ideal for sleeping even after tossing back a few Excedrin PM's. Once it was morning, we had to get dressed and ready for an entire day of things our professor had planned for us. Getting dressed and putting on makeup on a moving train was a gymnastic feat in itself, but somehow I managed to look semi-human. Once we got off the train, we headed to a charter bus that took us to a little French restaurant, where we had a traditional French breakfast consisting of croissants, baguettes, pound cake and coffee.
After our carb filled meal, we went back to the bus for our guided tour. It was great to see the city and have a French person's perspective. She showed us Notre Dame, the Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower, Champs Elysees and all of the other major Parisian attractions. We were then dropped off at a store called Collette that is a "lifestyle" store that offers high-end designers next to unknown designers and a wealth of trendy magazines, books, music, footwear and gadgets. They do not show the labels of the clothes and don't put prices on anything because they want you to purchase the item because you love it, not because of who made it or how much it costs. I think this is a great philosophy if money is no object, but unfortunately that is not my case, so I looked intently and with envy.
Immediately after visiting the store, we were rushed off to the Paris-American Academy to attend a workshop given by Madame Picot, who was the head draper for the House of Gres, a French couturier known for the micropleating of the dresses that was done by hand. These dresses were mostly popular in the 60s and 70s and could sell for around $50,000. They took about 300-500 hours of work per dress and everything was done by hand. Madame Picot told us the story of Madame Grès and showed us the pleating technique. I took a video of it so that I can refer back to it at a later date, it was very inspiring.

After the draping demonstration, we walked to a place called the "Trend Union" where a woman named, Li Edelkoort plays God of all things fashion. She predicts the future of trends, colors, textiles, lifestyles, everything. She puts together 250 trend books that sell for around $3000 a piece. They contain all of the information portrayed through her visual presentation. Her predictions are usually accurate and she says she is never wrong, just too ahead of the game. This arrogant attitude was experienced first hand by my friend and I after her presentation. We spotted her across the room and decided to go talk to her, so we walk on over and she is talking to someone else, so we patiently wait. After she is finished talking to the other person, I introduce myself to her and tell her that I was very inspired by her work and thanked her and then told her I was an American fashion design student. She looks at me, laughs and says, “Oh how unfortunate.” I just stood there in shock as she turned around to kiss and hug someone else. My thought is that you do not have to be rude to people and everyone was no one at some point in their life, but I guess she did not get that memo. I just feel that if ever, one day I get to a position where people admire me or my work and tell me so, I would graciously thank them and feel grateful that someone thinks I am important enough to even have the position, but I was raised correctly and with manners and respect for others. The funny thing is that, this would not be my first encounter with a very rude person in France.

After my nice experience with Ms. Edelkoort, Tracy and I stuck around to drink her free wine, as this was also a cocktail party, so we figured that since she was rude, we would take extra advantage of her party. So we made friends with the waiters and they made sure our glass was always full and we always had something to eat. I met some interesting students from all over Europe and it actually turned out to be an enjoyable evening.

The next morning was the “big day.” We had tickets to the largest textile tradeshow in the world: Première Vision. This trade show is where all the important designers, buyers, companies and textile companies come together as one. I am not sure how much space this building covered, but it was HUGE, bigger than anything I had ever seen. The fabrics there were of spectacular quality and were beautiful. I saw a lot of interesting things that I wished I could either take a picture of or purchase. Unfortunately, fabric was not being sold by the yard, (obviously) and cameras were forbidden! I saw a girl take a picture and the security guard yelled at her and stood there while she deleted it. They were very serious about that! We strolled around touching fabrics and staring in awe for a few hours and then we were off to a fashion show at Galleries Lafayette (which is a very large and famous French department store).

It was actually like a mall fashion show, so it was a little bit cheesy, and the models looked about 14. The clothes they were wearing were expensive designer clothing, such as Armani; but to see a girl who looked 14 in an Armani suit, was a bit of a joke. It was still cool to watch I guess but afterwards we went shopping, so that made up for the lack of coolness in the show. Actually, the best part was the rooftop deck, which had a great view of Paris and the weather was perfect. While browsing through the store, I saw about a million things I wanted to purchase, but unfortunately my financial situation does not allow purchases of this magnitude, so I instead looked with awe and envy.

After Lafayette, it was time to go back to our “hotel,” which I guess I haven’t even said anything about. It was called “FIAP Jean Monnet,” and it looked more like a human experimentation facility than a hotel. Apparently it’s actually a hostel; my professor who plans these trips really dropped the ball on Paris, considering our money is supposed to be used on airfare and hotels, not overnight trains and hostels. Anyway, when we walked into our room, we noticed that it smelled like a foot and the bathroom smelled like there may have been something dead in there. Our beds were really hard (which I actually enjoyed because it felt good for my back) and the pillow was like a piece of paper. However, breakfast and dinner was included in the price, so that was great, even though the food was a little cafeteria-ish. Unfortunately, we were not informed that dinner was included at our “hotel” so we had made reservations at a couple of really nice restaurants, which were most certainly not free or cheap.

Anyways, Friday night, Tracy and I had reservations at Buddha Bar; while the other girls were going to see Moulin Rouge. (google it, very cool place and they have great music that they release in compilations, and I own all of them!) The tickets for Moulin Rouge were about 200 € and that is way too expensive, so Tracy and I decided not to go. Buddha Bar was amazing and we stayed afterwards to hang out in their lounge area and have a couple of very expensive, yet very tasty cocktails. We always end up meeting random people who have connections elsewhere, so we ended up at an ultra-exclusive club near the Louvre, with a table and our own complimentary (well, to us...) bottle of Belvedere. After having a good time dancing and hanging out, our bottle came to an end, so as we were making our way to the dance floor, Tracy met a couple of nice gentleman who invited us to sit and hang out. After having a drink with them, some guy comes up to us and tells us to get up from the table because it’s not ours. So were like, “ok, whatever” and get up. I was rounding out the rear of the 6 of us and the mean guy was standing next to me yelling. I didn’t realize what he was saying until he was screaming in my face, “you didn’t pay for that!!!! Get out of here!!!!! This isn’t your table!” and I’m like, “Obviously. But we were invited to sit, what is the big deal?” Well, he keeps repeating himself as he grabs a hold of me and starts shoving me, like “you wanna fight?” style. So, by this point the conversation has escalated to a screaming match and me getting manhandled by some psycho. He is pushing and shoving me towards the door (which was really hurting) and I am screaming at him to get off of me and let me go. I turn around with my back to him and he shoves me so hard that I fly face first into a bouncer. The bouncer then proceeds to literally drag me up the stairs (I don’t think my feet were even on the ground) and toss me into the street. While all this is happening, the girls I was with are just watching and come running after me. I have no clue as to why this all happened, but after that I was done with French people being rude to me. After being tossed into the street, we waited about 3 ½ hours for a cab and finally arrived back to the hotel after 5am. It was a horrible end to my night and I am so mad that it happened, because I really wanted to dispel the rumors that the French aren’t nasty horrible people, but it got harder and harder with each passing day.

We got a very late start Saturday morning because of how late we were out, but we made it to the Louvre around noon and headed straight to the Mona Lisa. It was weird, because I always thought the painting was so much bigger, but it was kinda small. It was really neat to see it, but I feel like I have seen it a million times because it’s plastered everywhere. When we got to the Eiffel Tower, I felt the same way; which is all King’s Island’s fault. Anyways, so after the Mona Lisa, we went to see the coronation jewels and then the Venus. It was a very quick and abbreviated trip, but we had a million things to do, so unfortunately it had to be that way.

After the Louvre, we went to lunch because we were starving and had a traditional French sandwich called a Croque Monsieur. It is usually a hot ham and cheese sandwich with a certain type of cheese (I don’t know what kind) but ours was open-faced style, but was pretty good. After lunch we walked through Champs-Elysèes and down to the Arc de Triomphe. Afterwards we walked back and went to the Louis Vuitton flagship store and the Chanel store, yet another amazing and mouthwatering place to be. By the time all of this was done, it was almost time to go and get ready for dinner, so we did.

We had reservations this night at a restaurant called, “World Place” which used to be called, “Man Ray” and is partly owned by Johnny Depp. It was very hip and chic, but the service was HORRIBLE! After sitting at our table for about 20 minutes with no menus or seeing our server, a girl comes up to our table and says “Drinks?” And to that we responded, “Menus?” So she finally brings us 4 menus for 9 people, we ask for more but she says they don’t have anymore; which was odd considering the restaurant was probably a quarter full. Anyways, the food was way overpriced, there was barely anything appetizing on the menu and once we ordered we never saw our waitress again. I ended up getting veal, which was actually amazing but I was still annoyed to be paying so much money for such a disappointing experience.

After dinner, Tracy and I went to the Eiffel Tower because at night it is blue and it sparkles every hour. It was so beautiful and huge! It definitely puts the one at King’s Island to shame! Haha. We walked around for a bit and decided we were tired and our feet were killing us so we just went back to the “hotel.”

Sunday morning we packed up and left for Versailles, our final destination in Paris. Versailles was amazing and huge and grand and all of those describing words you could ever think of. It was also jam packed with tourists, but I guess we are tourists as well, so oh well. The décor was unbelievable, and the Queen and King’s rooms were so beautiful, it’s no wonder they didn’t care what was happening to their country, why would you ever want to leave that? Check out my pictures of Versailles and see what I am talking about, however the magnitude and vibrancy of the colors is not done any justice in the photos, but still, check them out.

After Versailles, we went to the airport and came back to reality. As I sit here and think about Paris, I try really hard not to be ignorant and think that the French are terrible people, any of these situations could have happened in the States, but they didn’t, and I am constantly struggling not to think that way. I met plenty of nice French people, and plenty of rude French people, so why do I struggle? I guess it’s the preconceived notion that every American has of France and the French and you just have to try to put it out of your mind. I loved Paris as a city and the people and I are still working on a loving relationship. I guess as with any relationship, it takes work and persistance.

Ciao-

Kellie