Wednesday, June 5, 2013

The heat really kicked in yesterday and stuck around today.  I was given the address of the Apple Store on rue Halèvy near the Opèra by the receptionist at the Orsay, and made my way there by a few minutes after 9:00 a.m.  The kit of adapters I bought in New York lacked the one adapter I needed for France, the techies confirmed, but their device is not sold separately, is in fact part of the same kit I bought in New York, inclusive of the missing adapter.  Rather than spend for the kit, they sent me to Galeries Lafayette’s luggage department --which was out of adapters.  The clerk told me it was likely I would not find one in a hardware store, but to try the same department at Printemps across the street; or FNAC, the media department store a bit further away, near the Gare Saint Lazare.  Eschewing another luggage department, I was lucky at FNAC and found the adapters for a few Euros.

By the time I was done, it was 2:00 p.m.  I had just enough time to visit the Pinacothèque, which is having a Tamara de Lempicka show, including films, photographs and the correspondence she exchanged with that great seducer, writer and Italian fascist, Gabriele d’Annunzio.  D’Annunzio wanted to make a conquest of her, while de Lempicka wanted to make a portrait of him that would conquer the pre-war art world.  Neither prevailed over the other,: stringing the aviator-fantasist along until his frustration reached such a pitch that his housekeeper had to tell him de Lempicka was unworthy of him and to forget her, de Lempicka might be said to have won on points.

From the Pinacotheque, I walked the rue Saint-Honoré, the Madison Avenue of Paris, if you will: to call it that does the avenue a disservice though.  It is home, not just to scores of vitrines featuring luxury goods, but the British embassy and the Elysée Palace, the home of the President of the Republic, as well.  I turned onto AVenue Gabriel, which becomes rue de Ponthieu, and a few blocks down, reached the address of my elderly friend, Marie-José Mengs.  She buzzed me in.

To call Marie-José elderly is to belie her Protean energies: painter, frequenter of galelries and auctions, collector of old postcards and every kind of squeak toy (known as pouées in French), she has one for virtually every comic book character, from Dumbo to ASterix and Tintin, to Mickey Mouse and the more esoteric Prince Jean, a rabbit-y creature who carries a primitive sword and wears a peaked hat, like Robin Hood or William Tell.  Piled one atop the other, in mounting piles on shelves, they live cheek-by-jowl with Marie-Josés ancient computer, which uses a television monitor.  To give an idea of its age, it must weigh thirty pounds.  Nothing daunted by the clutter around her, that surrounds her, Marie José books rentals from it.  It’s another way she makes ends meet as a pensioner with two partments, and a family outside Paris, to which she drives each week.  Not as inclined to take it easy as many her age, which I don’t know exactly (she got her driver’s license in 1954), her conversation is sharp, her curiosity unabated since I met her by chance at the Cafe du Rond Point des Champs-Elysées, where she was lunching, accompanied by Biscotte, her bichon frisé.  

After a quick recap of my activities and a chance to look at her latest finds (including a refrigerator magnet that says, I found Jesus - he was behind the sofa all the time!), we set out.  Marie-José has big plans for us, an early dinner at the café across the street, then a jaunt down as many of the galleries in the area as possible, starting with those on Avenue Matignon, the summit of Parisian chic.  Everyone in the galleries (which range from dealers in Flemish landscapes to installations to Pop Art to the merely decorative-- looks elegant, superficial and indifferent.  Except us: Marie-José has no pretentions to chic, and, with my money-belt and sneakers, I reek of tourist), but what strikes me is that not a soul has even the smallest tatoo or piercing.  

Everyone --or almost everyone-- looks slim-hipped (a frame classically French), and perfectly groomed.  Unlike New York, where edigness and cool are the prevailing poses, on Avenue Matignon, it’s about aristocratic detachment, which is unsurprising, when you think about it:   France still has its aristocrats, and the very lifeblood of its luxury goods empires is their origin as purveyors of exquisite articles for the French court in the ancien regime, under Napoleon I, during the Restoration and the SEcond Empire.  It was a relationship many a modern consumer may think apposite when he plunks down his money foir a wildly expensive tie or scarf bearing one or another of the famous labels.

The French are very good at presenting “Made in France” stand for articles non-pareil in terms of craftsmanship.  Which is why, despite the sclerotic economy (foreign investment in France fell 13% from its level a year ago, to give one indicator), the luxury goods sector continues to do well, outpacing its closest competitors in Italy, Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom and Switzerland.

This is self-evident on a walk through Galeries Lafayette: there is a department of the beautiful store, with its gorgeous cupola of Art Nouveau glass, dedicated to welcoming Japanese visitors, credit cards at the ready.  On the rue Saint Honoré today, there was no shortage of shoppers loaded down with large luxury shopping bags from the street’s boutiques.  What is distinct from the rest of the luxury goods-making countries seems to be that to a greater degree, the French embrace their brands, wanting to own an Hermès tie or Dior sunglasses every bit as much as the Japanese housewife.