HOW TO DO PARIS FASHION WEEK WITHOUT BEING A FASHIONISTA:
You don't have to be a fashion editor to get the whole Paris fashion week experience. Honestly it's as easy as dressing in head-to-toe black with a dash of faux fur and super high heels, and following these insider tips (shhhhhh):
1. Always take the 9:00am Eurostar on the morning of the Dior show which is always at 2:30pm. You will bump into the likes of fashion editors (like me), fashionistas like my friend Carmen, owner of vintage e- tailer www.atelier-mayer.com , and celebrities, like Jade Jagger in the Cafe Nero queue wearing black boots, black jeans, black leather jacket. The same applies for when you leave Paris you're bound to bump into some intrigue (see Ronnie Wood below).
2. Find out where the big shows are. Like Dior. Dior was held in one of the fashion week spaces in the gorgeous Jardins Tuilleries. You don't need a ticket to get the ambience. Just stand outside the venue before and after the show, and you will see everyone clip-clopping across the cobblestones and the dust through the park to get to the show. Like the Dior clad socialites (they are all French so I don't know who they were), the Fashion Editors as in the entire September Issue American VOGUE stars including Anna Wintour. And the celebs like Rihanna and Bruce Willis - well they may have snuck into the show - but there is no sneaking out of them. Anyone gorgeous who is six foot clad in super skinny jeans, ultra high ankle boots, make-up and looks like she is in a rush... is a model for that or the next show. Don't forget your camera or mobile phone and fight your way past the throngs and throngs of Japanese photographers, tv-crews, and thousands of wannabe next-best-blogger things all looking for a quick snap of stardom. After all you can always flog on your blog.
3. Go to the Ritz and have a 9 Euro cappuccino. Yes 9 Euros, plus 1 Euro tip, so in total 10 Euros. It's expensive I know but it's better than going to the cinema. You'll have a front row seat to the mad fashion and celeb world. Like Naomi Campbell sitting a few tables away dressed in skin tight jeans, knee-high suede Louboutin boots, a great white jacket, fresh off the Chapurin catwalk and on her way to Simon Cowell's birtday bash. Or Angie from GIna at her spring/summer Gina press day event showcasing rows an drows of glorious sparkly Gina numbers. Or Lainey form Lainey fahsions clad in a great leather Terexov spring/summer jacket. Even if you don't know who everyone is, they are dressed so achingly chic it's a great fashion show in itself. The same applies for The Hotel Costes.
4. After your 10 Euro frothiness at The Ritz go immediately to Colette (see pic below of shop front) . If you do this on a Saturday afternoon it's perfect. Stand oustide for a while and you will watch the fashionable world go in and take ages to come out. Look at the gorgeous Coco Chanel box set complete with straw boater and vintage Chanel snaps on sale for 150 Euros, see my BlackBerry picture below. Or the 350 Euro leather Minnetonka's. And oh la la the chic little row of Christopher Kane for Topshop pieces looked like Balmain. Buy the YSL dvd of the designer at work and anything playing on the Colette soundtrack.
5. Visit Zara down the road from the Hotel Costes. You'll think you are in Balenciaga. It's so much cooler in Paris and with better product. Everything in the store is black, grey and white. Go to Balenciaga and treat it like a museum because honestly everything is sooo expensive it hurts.
6. Buy French VOGUE. It feels different, you now, buying it in Paris during fashion week! And this month is a collector's edition celebrating 90 years of VOGUE covers.
7. Visit the Fondation Pierre Berge Yves Saint Laurent - for 5 Euros you will get to enjoy whatever fabulous interiors/ fashion exhibition is on and also marvel at the posters and books and postcards in the shop. This month it was furnishings by Jean Michel-Frank - now you know where Ikea and Habitat get their inspiration.
RONNIE WOOD, EKATERINA, CLOSER MAGAZINE AND M&S??
As I strolled into the Eurostar Gare du nord Terminal late saturday afternoon, thinking what a great few days at Paris fashion week, mentally kicking off my heels, my job I suddenly realised was not done. For there standing at the counter in the news agent was the strolling bone himself Ronnie Wood, 62, and his young girlfriend Ekaterina 20. Ahhh. Red alert. Paris, the city of love and high fashion, and these two, a couple on the brink? What was it he was buying for her at the shop - turns out it was a bag full of lovely smelly L'Occitane products. As they strolled off, her in her sunglasses and Ronnie Wood for Liberty silk print scarf, him carrying her little floral holdall like a true rock 'n roller (!), I noticed his big burly minder was carrying an M&S suit bag - does Ronnie wear M&S???
Ohhhh but is Ekaterina into her gossip and cooking like the rest of us? She came back to the newsagent (without le Ronnie) and after searching all the magazines snapped up Jamei Oliver's cooking mag and Closer. So I bought a copy of Closer to see what all the fuss was about - and I wondered how she felt reading the article about herself and Ronnie in a which a relationship expert analysed their body language in two snaps of them
No comments:
Post a Comment