Friday, October 10, 2014

A Day's Worth of Looking and Eating



Delicate, aren't they, these ruffles?  Hard to believe they're ceramic.


As is this lovely undulating form.  Just a couple of the photos I was obsessively taking at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs exhibition this week.  The museum invited a number of important French interior designers to each select a piece from the collections of the museum and build a room around it.


Some of the spaces were wonderful, some merely odd, but virtually all were treated as if money were no object.  Walls of marble or metal or layered glass or precious woods, floors of onyx, furniture representing the annual earnings of a bourgeois family.  


The lighting and art were spectacular.  I wouldn't have lived in any of these rooms on a bet, but they were super to look at.


We also made our usual pilgrimage to Merci, the "concept store" on the border between the Marais and the Bastille (can't get any hipper than that), where the designer of the month or season or whatever the designated time period is was a woman from Los Angeles who hand dyes fabric to make clothes.  The large center space was filled with what looked like drying Victorian lingerie.



But one of our primary reasons for going that morning was the breakfast.  Some years ago we discovered that the absolute best things to have for breakfast in Paris were the oeufs a la coque at the bookstore café at Merci.  Perfectly cooked and served with toast fingers made of delicious bread served with Normandy butter, fabulous.  Add freshly squeezed grapefruit juice and a grand creme and heaven has been achieved.


And then you can shop.  


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