“Seule Paris est digne de Rome; seule Rome est digne de Paris”
Paris and Rome are Sister Cities. Something to do with fostering contact and cultural links. I never knew it was an official thing. Anyway I was wiki-surfing, and read a whole bunch of stuff about Paris, crap there’s so much I don’t know.
Anyway I just watched the clock jump from 1:59am to 3:00am. And so I finally (after so many years of distant interest) went to read up on it. Adding more daylight hour to save electricity and improve economy and lots of tales like that, well, fine. The entire European Union shifts at the same time, nice, from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October. and then there’s a mnemonic “Spring forward, Fall back”. My laptop timezone is selected as “Brussels, Cophenhagen, Madrid, Paris”, and at the bottom it is named “Romance Daylight Time”, previously “Romance Standard Time”. Romance region indeed, nice.
and yes before that i was surfing. I was surfing for Hermès Scarfs. You know, those Carrées 90cm that cost 265€, account for 15% (or was it 10) of their revenue, appears in many movies, two sets of designs a year, requires 250 silk cocoons, and can be worn in every single way possible.
Went window shopping today down Rue de Faubourg-Saint Honoré, Rue Montaigne, Rue Georges V. That route brings you through all the filthily expensive couture houses around. Hermès, Chloé, Ferragamo, Yves Saint-Laurent, Christian Dior, Gucci, Versace, Sonia Rykiel, Kenzo, Agnès B., Claudie Pierlot, Ventilo, Et Vous, Chanel, Christian Lacroix, Givenchy, Vuitton, Bottega Veneta, Prada, and any brand worth it’s salt. The difference between just seeing these names in Takashimaya or La Fayette, and actually going to these places, is that here you practically find their flagship store or headquarters. The shops here are actually rather quiet, none of the tacky hustle-bustle of Champs Elysées. well you can buy a 96000€ crocodile skin jacket. I like Bottega Veneta.
Hermès. founded in 1837 as a saddlery company. The trademark silk scarf was started in 1928, and well Lyon’s great silk industry.
The modern Hermès scarf measures 90cm square, weighs 65 grams and is woven from the silk of 250 mulberry moth cocoons. The per-pound cost of a scarf today is approximately $1,965.00 (compared to a pound of steel at $0.19).
All Hermès scarves are hand-printed using multiple silk screens (43 is the highest number of screens used for one scarf to date, the charity scarf released in 2006, one for each color on the scarf) and the hems are all hand-stitched. Two scarf collections per year are released, along with re-prints of older designs and limited editions. Since 1937, Hermès has produced over 2,500 designs.
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Hermès does not use assembly lines; only one employee may work on one handbag at a time. Due to the labour-intensive nature of Hermès production methods and the use of rare materials (sometimes including exotic skins such as alligator, crocodile, ostrich and lizard as well as precious metals), one bag can take 18 to 24 hours to create.
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The wait for a special order Birkin can be up to six years, based on the type of leather or skin requested.
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The company acquired ownership of shoemaker John Lobb in 1976 and sells ready-to-wear shoes under this brand; however, the bespoke shoemaker’s original shop in London remains under the control of the Lobb family. Hermès has a 35% stake in Jean-Paul Gaultier, who has also been chief designer for Hermès since 2003.[4]
now that John Lobb thing, they do custom make shoes. “A pair of made-to-measure leather shoes costs over £2000.”
and Jean-Paul Gaultier!, who has one of the nicest names around
Jean-Paul Gaultier. never received formal training, was taken as apprentice by Pierre Cardin, enfant terrible of french fashion, his lover Francis Menuge died of AIDS
alright back to Paris herself:
Jussieu campus. opened in 1971 (that’s not very old), “The main front of Jussieu is bounded by a 10 meter deep dry moat, and many pedestrian entrances are bridges over this moat that can be readily secured. The high security features of the campus are likely a response to the student riots that occurred in 1968 in this neighborhood.”, omg are they mad or what, yeah it really is a moat.
The campus is generally decried as an architectural failure. The hollow space under the building wings enables wind to build up its force, and thus the environment on the slab is unfriendly. The regular grid plan may be confusing, since it is sometimes difficult to know where one is located, especially since not all corridors allow through crossing nowadays (laboratories etc. have often chosen to lock their corridor for safety reasons). The campus has become increasingly degraded since its erection, and its older tower stairwells and exteriors are covered in perpetual graffiti–towers renovated since about 2000 are constantly kept in a cleaner state by painting over new graffitis.
The most worrisome particularity of the Jussieu architecture is its extensive use of asbestos as a fire retardant. Asbestos fibers are carcinogenic when inhaled, and as a consequence the use of asbestos in buildings is prohibited in France, but wasn’t at the time when the campus was built. The risks are particularly acute for workers who maintain the building (drilling walls etc…). Also, it seems that the fire retardation is not really sufficient, which, coupled with the use of metal for frames, would result in an early collapse in the case of a large fire. An ambitious clean-up program was begun in 1997 after some high-profile protests. The wings are stripped off all equipment, walls etc… to the naked concrete frame, and are then rebuilt in modern materials. Many advocated for the destruction of Jussieu when the asbestos problem was addressed, however, the campus is protected as an architectural type and must be restored to its original condition.
yeah it is really in a terrible condition. terrible. the Wind, is amazingly strong all the time. it’s insane. it’s colder than other places, and so everyone hides somewhere and the place looks empty. and it’s more like a construction site right now anyway. disaster. up till like 40 years ago it was still under one big University of Paris, which means would have been together with Sorbonne and all that. hm.
ah bother there’s too much information about Paris to write it all down. anyway i went out walking today (the only sunny day in sight). and i met my first manifestation, which is a demonstration.
the theme was “Ni Pauvre, Ni Soumis”. They were protesting for higher monthly payouts to disabled persons, which is why you see so many of them in wheelchairs. Apparently, according to a flyer, 600-odd euros per month is insufficient for a decent life. Hm, i dunno. Sarkozy apparently promised 25% increases during election but only delivered 5% increase. Donc, ils sont pas du tout content. [video, french] they claimed to be 30,000 people strong, police estimated 17,000. but it was quite amazing that they came from all over France, which means they took planes, trains and buses to get to Paris for this event. Was rather peaceful anyway, the only police i saw were diverting traffic to other roads. ok now i’m done with getting pissed off with a SNCF grève/strike, and stood in a manifestation. it wasn’t that difficult to encounter some after all. Manifestations take place here like every week or two.
Hey there Delilah
What’s it like in New York City ?
I’m a thousand miles away
But girl tonight you look so pretty
Yes you do
Times Square can’t shine as bright as you
I swear it’s trueHey there Delilah
Don’t you worry about the distance
I’m right there if you get lonely
Give this song another listen
Close your eyes
Listen to my voice it’s my disguise
I’m by your sideOh it’s what you do to me
Oh it’s what you do to me
Oh it’s what you do to me
Oh it’s what you do to me
What you do to meHey there Delilah
I know times are getting hard
But just believe me girl
Someday I’ll pay the bills with this guitar
We’ll have it good
We’ll have the life we knew we would
My word is good…