I realise that tickets to watch the Grand Slam tennis tournament at Roland Garros are normally like Gold Dust. However this year Galeries Lafayette have decided to create their own socially distanced viewing point complete with deckchairs in front of a giant screen. You can watch the tennis games direct, via France Télévision without hacking out to the 16th arrondissement to watch this and it’s probably more fun than being at home!
It’s free, but obviously it’s first come first served for the deckchairs!
You can watch every day until 13th June and if there is no play on the courts you can always turn your gaze to the Eiffel Tower. The tower has reopened to the public on the 20th of July after more than 260 days of closure!
Rendez-vous atGaleries Lafayette on their Rooftop Terrace which is on the top of the building with the beautiful glass coupole. Bring your own strawberries and cream 🙂
As tourists are meant to be able to vist France from 9th June, I might just see you there 🙂
By the way, click on the deckchair photo and buy your own deckchair!
A très bientôt,
Do join me on Facebook for more whitterings and general information on what’s going on in Paris 🙂
I’ve never been to the Palais de la Porte Dorée before, it’s a vast exhibition space plus aquarium (obviously a great mix !*?), but then I heard about a new exhibition on Christian Louboutin, his life, art, passions and a few shoes with red soles!
I’m not normally hot off the mark to see new exhibitions but this was widely acclaimed and quite fully booked. The idea was to get there early to avoid the crowds, whizz round then find a great new place to have lunch in this area I’d never been to before.
Plans got changed! We were there nearly 4 hours! And we didn’t even have an audioguide! I haven’t been to such a fascinating exhibition for years!
Apparently his interest in shoes was piqued by this sign in this museum when he was a child – no walking in high heels on the beautiful mosaic floors of the museum…. – and so the World comes full circle!
I’d no idea what to expect apart from seeing lots of shoes…. actually there was very little of that inside, there were 8 different rooms showing different parts of his creativity; his life, motivations, his fetishes and his muses.
This is my favourite boot!
Most of his shoes were actually designed to be pieces of art, not to be worn. This is my favourite boot! There was a room dedicated to explaining the entire process of crafting the shoes in a workshop, on video and with the individual pieces, from creation to pattern-making, stitching … You know I love How to do stuff, this was fascinating, so fascinating I didn’t take a single photo !
There was a room full of his collections of ‘Nudes’; the 8 colours of Nude stiletto shoe with a red sole. I hadn’t been aware there were 8 colours for 8 different shades of leg, fortunately the pair I bought years ago seem to be ‘pale’ enough, though it’s a bit difficult to be as pale as my legs LOL. There were also full-sized leather sculptures of female forms in the nude colours, I wasn’t quite sure about that bit…
Sure there were some shoes….. but
There were holograms of Dita Van Teese doing a burlesque dance wearing his shoes and not much else by the end and also the footballer Iya Traoré (have you seen him on his lamp post at Sacré Coeur ?) but he kept his clothes on!
The fetish room was an English sitting room where the hand made carpets, furniture coverings, wallpaper and even lamp shades designs were all, if you looked reeallllly closely, explicit nudes – more ‘odd’.
Who would have thought Mae West wore these and then added wheels later!
Bizarre, many things were, but this shoe takes the biscuit! It was Mae West’s way of adding a bit of height under her long gowns and then skidding around when she was older! This really tickled me pink.
But the best space by far was a photographic collaboration with David Lynch. I tried to post some of the most beautiful photos on Facebook but they got banned!
You are just going to have to hope they extend the exhibition period from 26th Feb – 26th July 2020 to a lot longer as it is so very much worth a visit.
The Musée d’Orsay is organising a series of balls to celebrate their exhibition the “Spectacular Second Empire”. Some of the balls are masked! You can spend the day learning the Polka (if you can count to 3 you can dance this) or the Quadrille from the members of the Association Carnet des Bals. Take part in the ball in the afternoon just as Emperor Napoleon III and his wife Eugenie would have, all within the spectacular surroundings of the Musée d’Orsay.
I was really looking forward to the Magritte exhibition ‘La Trahison des Images‘ at the Centre Pompidou. 5 differently themed rooms (flames, shadows, curtains, words and the body in pieces) bulging with paintings from this amazing Surrealist painter who was deeply interested in Philosophy. The art bit is at the bottom 😉
“Horses are wonderful partners with whom one can create poetry.” Bartabas
On achève bien les Anges (we shoot Angels) is a spectacular theatrical event, perfect for the run-up to Christmas but don’t miss it as it closes on 31st December. I have tickets for the end of November and I am so excited I want to keep crossing and uncrossing my fingers and toes and am having trouble even thinking about writing this!
