Travel & Hotspots
MAYS PARIS DIARY
The first thing I do when I wake up is open the window. The curtains were already open, you see. A little quirk of mine, sleeping with the curtains open. Preferably in a strange city. Falling asleep while watching the moon kiss the Parisian rooftops and waking up in an Amélie setting can make me incredibly happy. Although if I lived here, I would go crazy from the trucks that seem to drive back and forth, the trash bins that seem to be emptied a thousand times (and the glass container too) and the sirens that keep going off, but today I find it delightful.
A new perfume from Hermès was launched and the question arose whether I wanted to be there. An intimate trip with my colleague editor-in-chief Esther Goedegebuure from JAN. Now Esther and I do particularly well together on trips and parties (proof!) so during the Thalys journey, not a single letter was read (because we were chatting) and we had already opened such a cozy, tiny little bottle of white. To Paris and to life.
Our hotel turned out to be around the corner from my favorite street and within Louboutin walking distance from Café de Flore, but we just didn’t have time for that yet. Work had to be done and then a shower with Hermès products that were waiting for me in the bathroom. Even in the elevator, it was a party. You have to realize that this entire hotel is filled with fashion people from all over Europe. And as it goes when you’ve been in the business for a while, you also find friends across the border. Like the editor-in-chief of ELLE Vlaanderen. And that nice girl from the Italian Grazia.
“We first wondered in a slight state of panic where the tray with wine and champagne was”
Esther (in her vintage leopard Yves Saint Laurent dress) and I (in my floral Dolce with Dsquared sex slippers) climbed into a taxi bus and had instant fun with our Italian colleagues. Mobile phones went from hand to hand to exchange Instagram addresses (business cards are so over), cigarettes were grabbed to consume later before we would go inside, and we tried to take a ussie from above. The last one seemed to work until the driver, for whom ussies apparently are not a major agenda item, suddenly stepped on the gas.
Yes, we took photos in front of the Eiffel Tower and elbowed each other every time we saw a woman in a fabulous Hermès dress shuffle by. I tell you: the collection where the silk scarves from Hermès are incorporated into clothing is everything. The nose of the perfume being launched, Christine Nagel, wore a silk dress that couldn’t have been more chic or more Hermès. I’m going to interview her later and then I’ll make her an indecent proposal to take over hers.
Anyway, back to dinner. We first wondered in a slight state of panic where the tray with wine and champagne was. Only a red juice and something with black tea were served. But people, we were in Paris, right? And it was surely already half past seven in the evening? Later it dawned on us that these were of course the ingredients of the perfume that were creatively presented to us. A bunch of alcoholics that we are.
“Later it dawned on us that these were of course the ingredients of the perfume that were creatively presented to us”
In a hall at the Trocadéro (where during fashion weeks the show of Vanessa Bruno always takes place), two ballerinas danced a beautifully modern piece. In culottes and tops from Hermès, so subtle and beautiful. They expressed the gallop in their dance. The basis (and the name) of the new perfume which naturally refers to the heritage of Hermès: the horses.
Then we got to see the bottle. In the shape of a stirrup, which is already fun, but also turned out to be the gift when the Hermès boutique in New York opened in 1930. Love heritage.
I’m not very good at describing scents (although I found it, like all Hermès scents, delightful), but later I’m going to interview the woman who made the perfume (you know, the one in that dress), so afterwards I’ll tell you all about it. And otherwise, you can also go sniffing yourself.
Now first running with Esther and come on, who knows, maybe just a little stop by Le Bon Marché. Bonne journée!
