Jean Pierre Poulet
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cult© Jean-Paul Goude
Hello sailor...
A new Galeries Lafayette poster just appeared, created as usual by the store’s graphiste Jean Paul Goude. It features the aging bad boy Jean-Paul Gaultier, turning his naked chest into a marinière with paint. This is a joke with so many levels that to fully decode it would require a semiotics professor.
The blue-and-white marinière is a French stereotype. Part of the county’s naval uniform since the nineteent...
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cult© S. Sampson
August is the cruellest month
After the national holiday on 14th July, there are two kinds of Parisians; one is either a juilletiste (aka juillettiste) or an aoûtien. The former, less numerous, start their summer holiday during July while the latter choose August to depart elsewhere. Each plays a crucial role in shutting down the life of a city.
The legendary French holiday entitlement, les congés payés, is a 1936 legacy. The country’s first soc...
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en passant© J.P. Poulet
Valentine or vice?
Lovers padlocked to Paris forever? Two souls that seal their future ensemble dans la perspective d’un beau monument ou d’une belle vue? Whatever the impulse, more and more couples are attaching tokens of their bonds to our loveliest bridges – before casting keys to their padlocks into the Seine.
Their legacy? The city’s cadenas d’amour, better known among les internautes as “love locks”....
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en passant© J.P. Poulet
On with the dance
Repetto uses the romance of ballet to provide ultra-feminine fantasies with their windows. These always draw from the magic of classic dance, which they link to everything sweet and seductive. Founded after World War II by Rose Repetto, (mother of the great 20th century choreographer Roland Petit), the company is known worldwide for launching flat shoes as a fashion craze.
Their secret weapon, then as now, is the ballerine. ...