November 11, 2017
Day Fifty Two: Galleries Lafayette
To get you in the mood for today's "market place" report, have a listen this. The march rhythm is very appropriate for what you need to achieve our itinerary, but as you will see, we failed!
We had three areas in our sights for today. First was Galleries Lafayette/Le Printemps. These two are the largest, glitziest epartment stores in Paris, and they are back to back, just near the Paris Opera. Second was Rue Cler, a walking/market street on the Left Bank, not far from the Eiffel Tower. We suspect that this is not much more exciting than our own Levis street, but Rick Steves gives it such a big write up we felt we needed to check it. Finally, we got a guest book message from Mark and Jean Hoffmann in which they recommended a yarn store called La Droguerie, and a nearby hardware, E. Dehillerin. These are less than 2 km from Galleries Lafayette, less than 1 km from the Louvre, all on the Right Bank.
We began, of course, by walking down the Levis Street market. This happens not only because we love the street, but also it is the most direct way to our Metro stop, Villiers. We passed the kids' clothing store, DPAM, and once again wondered what in heaven's name "Du Pareil Au Meme" is supposed to mean. French friends - can you venture an opinion? We are super pleased with the things we bought yesterday at DPAM, but today we are hoping they will be outdone by the big boys downtown.
Flash - internet research to the rescue. "Du pareil au meme" is a colloquial expression. It means "More of the same". Now the only mystery is why name a kids clothing store that?
We are now old hands with the Metro, but we still saw something new, as a lady fired up a ghetto blaster and microphone and treated the people in our car to a serenade with a Middle Eastern flair, though sung in French. I was thinking at first how brave the lady was to get up in the middle of a subway car and start singing. That remains true, but on the other hand with a standard busker the people around can always walk away or walk by. In this case, the audience is trapped, at least until their stop or the next stop. A look at our fellow passengers was inconclusive as to how they felt about it, since literally all were in "block out all external stimuli while I have to sit in this darn swaying box" mode.
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We of course are in "absorb all external stimuli" mode, and certainly Galleries Lafayette had lots of stimuli to offer. First, at the doors there are security guards. You have to pass security to come in and shop! We told the guard that we were sorry it had to be like that, but that appreciated his work. And anyway, we opined, it was creating employment. He replied that he was sure he would find another activity if he were not being drawn into this one.
Galleries Lafayette has seven floors in the main tower, four next door, and five across the street. The first, ground floor (Floor -1 - go figure) hits you with their perhaps best, glitziest shot - shoes. Shoes? Well yes.
First a word about how the goods are sorted. It is normal nowadays for brand names to figure boldly in how things are presented. But in our favourite store back home (Mountain Equipment Coop), for example, shoes are first sorted by function - like hiking, running, or goofing around camp. After that, they may be grouped by brand, and sure, we always look for "Keen". But in France, and surely in Lafayette, Brand is everything. In fact it is likely true that each little branded section is an independent financial entity. So you encounter Prada, Chanel, Gucci, Laurance Dacade, St. Laurent, etc. before you can ever look for your slippers.
Now they do have slippers, and we are coming to them, but first we have all sorts of colourful or bejewelled footwear. Look closely at those three different heights of black ones. The shortest one may not have "diamonds" on the soles, but there are 30-40 on the toe! And how about those gold/red/blue ones from Gucci? You could have a count the rhinestones contest with those. Then you can snap them up for only 890 euros. Listen, at least that is tax included! 890 might be a little high. For example those black and red ones from Laurence Dacade are only 799. But then those are only for kicking around school. If you want to go out in the high heeled black sequined number, then you need to ask Dad for 1080 euros. Later to relax, put on the flowered slippers, a steal at 195 euros.
It is not just the colour and flash and prices and famous brands that creates the impact of the first floor of Lafayette, it's also the extent. It's more shoes than you have seen in a long long time.
The second floor (did I mention - 18 floors - are you getting tired already?) rolls out the jewellery and perfume. I was surprised at first to see Tiffany featured, and within that, Audrey Hepburn. Oh yes, "Breakfast at Tiffany's". Tiffany is not the only American brand to hack out a place for itself here - we also saw Gap, Levi, Disney (big time), American Tourister, and others).
The big thing about this floor is that it is where you first get to see the "galleries" that give the store its name. Basically the store is like a stack of donuts, with each donut (floor) looking out into a central tower. At the top of the tower is Art Nouveau and very beautiful stained glass-like decoration. Everyone on the second floor is pointing their cameras upward to get a shot of it. It actually does look cathedral quality, though in reality the look is created just by coloured paper and plastic.
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Here is a quick video of the "galleries", the blue dome, and the Christmas decorations. Of course, as always, people have in the past posted far better views of Galleries Lafayette, but this is exactly what we saw.
(Sorry, this does not appear to work on Opera, but it does work on Chrome).
Women's clothing, and lingerie, next three floors may be what one thinks of most in terms of Paris fashion. As the least (or maybe most) fashionable people in the building (all stylish yellow!) we were much more impressed by the prices that in what the clothes might do to enhance the body. For example, look at the outfit with the leopard jacket, on the mannequin. That jacket is 4250 euros. The dress is 1680 euros, the shoes 575 euros. Strangely, the socks are just 6 euros. What on earth was this mannequin thinking? Anyway her outfit totals 6500 euros. It looks like something you would wear to, PTA meeting? Anyway, best not to throw it in the washing machine.
There was one brand that seemed pretty interesting. It was called Alice and Olivia by Stacey Bendet. These clothes were high colourful and looked like fun. Except, and hate to keep harping on price, that colourful furry coat cost 1105 euros.
The lingerie section was what you would expect, with the stuff being either black and lacy or red and lacy. It shares the floor with ... Disney!
I was thinking that Disney must have flexed a lot of economic muscle to get a place here, but then again Paris has its own Disneyland, and maybe Disney is a good money earner in Lafayette. They certainly had more floor space than I would have expected.
Also, we did not expect to see anything we could not buy at home, and maybe that's true, but some things were quite attractive anyway.
Finally (were you wondering if it would happen?) we got to the children's clothes that nominally we had come to see. It was a disappointment, unfortunately. Unlike at DPAM, the clothes did not strike us as being uniquely stylish or top quality or both. For some items, except for a 50 euro price tag I was thinking "can you convince me I am not in Walmart?". Other things were admittedly quite nice, but always double the DPAM price. Like the flowered dress for 109 euros or the red jersey for 55. Shoes? 200 euros.
One nice and reasonably priced brand was called Desigual. It was interesting to see the price quoted in euros, pounds, swiss francs, and SEK. SEK are Swedish Krona. Dior, on the other hand, seemed stuffy and was portraying kids as miniature adults, but from the 50's.
Dodie left me at Gucci as she went to find a washroom. The total floor area was quite small and was "guarded" by two unsmiling sales girls. They were stern enough looking that I did not try for a shot of the whole display. I did record the rather nice blue sweater. 550 euros. It was locked to the rack, of course.
Were were surprised that from the windows of Lafayette, Sacre Coeur looks quite close. It is a beautiful sight too. Lafayette has noticed this as well as I - they have a full wall sized photo with the scene I tried to shoot with my pocket camera.
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As we made for the exit of the main tower, we tried to smile at some of the unsmiling sales staff standing in front of their areas. It was possible to get a smile back, but we found it a tiring exercise. Back on ground level, the crowds seemed to have thickened.
But we bravely barged across the street, to the gourmet food levels. This is what we had seen two years ago with Joni, and yes, our unaffordable favourites were all there. Like the "bamboo" green tea slice, for 6.50. Remember, Joni? As I rounded one display area I was surprised to think I had stumbled back into shoes. But no, it was just a single high heeled model - made of chocolate but with a really leather looking grain. 68 euros and 20 centimes. I wonder how they calculate the 20 centimes?
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We called it quits for Lafayette. But that left Printemps. Printemps is just as large and just as glitzy. But lacking the coloured dome, they featured a block's length of windows, each with an animated (marionette) display on the theme of travel and toys. Cleverly they integrated products they sell into the magical displays, but still it attracted lots of children, and really recalled the Christmas windows of Macy's in New York or department stores now long gone in Montreal that our parents took us to see.
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Well now, remember our brave objectives for the day? It would soon be dark, and we did not really look at Printemps. So we achieved about 30% of what we set out to do. What's worse, I had found time to buy a book in Lafayette: "10 Walks to Discover Paris". It is 191 pages long. It will take us a day just to read the darn thing, 10 more days to walk it. Clearly we need to go home, get Dodie's knees fixed, and come back for another crack at it. On the other hand - there is still also tomorrow and the next day. We are thinking about that...
Appendix: We picked up a rare sesame baguette today. This is the closest thing to a sesame bagel in Paris. In a few days we will be choking on sesame bagels in Montreal, but right now, this is going great with the peppered Brie!
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