Lavender's Blue: Raising the amazing to a stellar stratosphère

Taken Too

In 1986 the Musée des Arts de la Mode opened as a sister institution before being fully integrated into the Museé des Arts Décoratifs Paris. An exhibition simply called Look 40 Years of Fashion at the Museum celebrates cloth to couture to capture on camera. MAD (what an acronym!) is one of the many highlights of Rue de Rivoli which begins at St Paul and St Louis Church and ends before Hôtel de Crillon. The museum is handily zigzagged opposite Hôtel Le Meurice, that essential pitstop for Sancerre in Le Bar 228 under the cloudy skyed ceilings of Philippe Starck’s interior.

Chronology begone. A fashion photography gallery. Juxtaposed dresses: an 18th century hoop skirt next to a backless 1970 Guy Laroche gown. A dressmaking studio. The standalone poster girl: a 2007 shocking pink cape and gown by Valentino. A costume conservation video. All the glamour of the world capital of fashion: and a lot of the work that goes into it. Chief Curator Bénédicte Gady supported by Curator Sophie Lemahieu and Assistant Curator Hannah Morelle have pulled off a triumph worthy of the first four decades of fashion next door to the Louvre.

Hôtel du Petit Moulin Paris + Christian Lacroix

We’re Here for The Ride

“Welcome to the Hôtel du Petit Moulin! We would like to thank you for your confidence and for choosing our hotel during your visit in Paris. Le Marais is full of history, wonderful shops, galleries, museums and restaurants. In fact, the building in which the hotel is set was originally the first Parisian bakery. This is where Victor Hugo would come to buy his baguette! Today, the original shop frontage remains, reminding guests of its former past as a ‘boulangerie’, protected under French Heritage. Make yourself at home, relax and enjoy a quiet drink at the honesty bar open from noon to midnight or head to the spa of our sister hotel, the Pavillon de la Reine, situated in Place des Vosges, just a 10 minute walk away from her and available to all our guests. Have a lovely stay with us.” Luc Guillo Lohan, The Manager.

Heaven’s in the detail and the Hôtel du Petit Moulin delivers from bookmarks and business cards to brass door keys and petite boxes â picorer. Highlights of the room service from Restaurant Chez Nenesse on nearby Rue de Saintonge include entrées: salade des queues de langoustines (Dublin Bay prawn salad); plats: fillets de bar aux fines herbes (sea bass fillet, sauce with fine herbs); and desserts: mousse et sorbet chocolat sauce pistache (chocolate mousse and sorbets with pistachio sauce).

Filling a pair of 17th century buildings which couldn’t be more pre Haussmann Parisian if they tried, the ground floor was once a bar and a street corner bakery. Victor Hugo’s house on Place des Vosges is just around the corner. As Monsieur Lohan notes, the former bakery still retains a hand painted glass shopfront. There are just 17 guest rooms. One bedroom on the rez-de-chaussée. Four on the premier étage. Four on the deuxième étage stacked in the same layout as below. Four stacked on the troisième étage. One on the étage intermédiaire. Three on the quatrième étage. The architecture is full of original quirks from fragments of timber structural beams to windows floating between floors. The interior is absolutely fabulous Christian Lacroix sweetie darling.The haut couture designer clearly had a lot of fun dreaming up this Louis XV on an acid trip décor. The colourful chaos of the montaged découpaged toile de jouy in the main rooms contrasts with the calm of the white marble bathrooms. Top floor Room 402 is the largest guest suite and angles into the street corner with the best views, taking in a sweep of chimneys rising above the buildings lining Rue de Poitou and Rue de Saintonge. The mirrored ceiling provides an altogether different view, not least of the shagpile carpet. “Early to bed, and you’ll wish you were dead. Bed before 11, nuts before seven,” shrieked Dorothy Parker in her short story for The Little Hours for The New Yorker, 1933.