Travel & Hotspots
MAY-BRITT’S PARIS DIARY
The first thing I do when I wake up, is open the window. The curtains were already open. It’s a tic of mine, sleeping with the curtains open. Preferably in a strange city. Falling asleep while the moon graces the Parisian roofs and waking up in an Amélie setting can make you intensely happy. If I lived here, I would go crazy from all the trucks that drive by, the garbage contains that get emptied (glass containers included) and sirens that continue to go off, but yesterday, I loved it.
I was in the city for the launch of a new Hermès perfume. An intimate trip with my colleague editor in chief of a Dutch magazine called JAN, Esther Goedgebuure. Esther and I are always a good match on trips so during our Thalys train ride we didn’t read a single word (=chit chat) and opened one of those fun, little mini bottles of white. Cheers to Paris.
Our hotel was around the corner from my favorite street and from walking distance of Café de Flore, but we didn’t have any time to drop by those places. We had work that needed to be done after which I would shower in a bathroom full of Hermès products. The ride in the elevator alone was already a lot of fun. You have to picture the entire hotel being filled with fashion people from all over Europe. And as it always goes when you’ve been in the business for longer, you’ll have friends from all over the boarder. Like the editor in chief of the Flemish ELLE. And that fun girl from the Italian Grazia.
“At first we were slightly panicked when we didn’t spot any waiters walking around with champagne”
Esther (in her vintage leopard Yves Saint Lauren dress) and I (in my flowery Dolce and Dsquared sex heels) hopped into a taxi bus and hit it off right away with our Italian business colleagues. Cell phones went from one hand to the other to exchange Instagram names (business cards are so passé), cigarettes were being clamped onto and consummated before we would have to go inside and we tried to take a selfie with the entire gang. The latter seemed to work, until the driver decided to press that pedal of his a little harder.
We snapped some shots in from of the Eiffel Tower and we elbowed each other any time a women would walk by in a fairytale-esque Hermès dress. I’m telling you: this collection in which the silk scarves from Hermès have been working into their clothing is everything you’ve every dreamed of. Christine Nagel, the so called nose of the perfume being launched, wore a silk dress that couldn’t be more chic and couldn’t be more Hermès. I had an appointment to interview her and planned to immediately propose to take over the dress from her.
Anyways, back to the dinner. At first we were slightly panicked when we didn’t spot any waiters walking around with champagne. All they had was a red juice and something with black tea. But people, aren’t we in Paris? At eight thirty in the evening? Until we figured out that these were the ingredients that had been used for the perfume and this was their creative way of presenting it. Yikes, alcoholics much?
“Until we figured out that these were the ingredients that had been used for the perfume and this was their creative way of presenting it”
In a room in the Trocadéro (where Vanessa Bruno always has her shows during fashion week) were two ballet dancers performing a beautiful modern piece. In culottes and tops from Hermès, so subtle, so beautiful. During their performance they started galloping. The base (and the name) of the new perfume referring to the heritage of Hermès: the horses.
Then we got to see the bottle. It was in the form of a stirrup which was already very cool, but apparently it was also the gift that was received at the Hermès boutique in New York when it was opened in 1930. Love heritage.
I’m not the best at writing descriptions about scents (although just like every other Hermès scent, this one was also divine), but since I interviewed the woman responsible for this new perfume (remember, the one from the dress), I can fill you in on it later. Or you could just take a whiff of it on your own.
