Illustration: Elliot Elam
Your natural sunrise alarm clock just went off. You got it because you hate getting up to a ringing sound. This is more natural, more détente, less… boulot. You grind your own fair trade Guatemalan coffee and get your iPad. You read the latest edition of Paris Match online while listening to France Inter. You’re part of a generation that is quite branchée; you can do many things at once, as long as they involve technology. After a quick shower with some olive oil soap you hop onto your fixed gear bike — the black one with tan leather grips. You’re a graphic designer at this boutique agency in the Haut Marais so naturally you get invited to the vernissages where Michel Gondry plays the drums for Oui Oui, or where you once met Bambounou, and now you play his music at work on the soundcloud app you downloaded. You are a noteworthy office DJ. Did I mention that your iPhone is connected to the office speakers via WiFi? In fact, most things you use are connected to other things via WiFi. You and your partner don’t believe in marriage, but you do believe in finding a nicer loft maybe further into the 10ème, but not too far from the Canal because you like to meet up at Chez Prune at five. You don’t have a child yet, but you hope that Zadig et Voltaire will make baby clothes by the time you do. People call you a Bobo but really you’re just a creative mind with a good salary.
Our favourite places to spot a Bobo
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Japanese Gardens: Escape The City
Text: Anna Bromwich Image: Flickr CC nikoretro These last few weeks, fed up and exasperated, I’ve been dreaming exploring a number of Japanese gardens I’ve come across, hidden around the city. Many of these gardens I have stumbled on by … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
Le Bal Café
Text and Images: Omid Tavallai Anna Trattles sits across from me at one of the handful of tables inside the high-ceilinged, white-walled, windowed room that is Le Bal Café. “You’ve got five minutes,” she says, constantly looking past the counter … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
La Tête Dans les Olives
Text & Image: Omid Tavallai In Paris, food is fashion. And just as fashion has its trends and fads, so does food. In January of this year, influential food critic François Simon (after whom the über-critic Anton Ego was modeled … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
Marché Saint-Quentin
Text Brendan Seibel Today it’s hard to imagine Les Halles as anything other than an architectural disgrace. Centuries ago it was the “Belly of Paris”, but now teems with a distinctly different commerce. The tradition of visiting the neighborhood grocer, … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
From Brooklyn to Paris: A New Kind of Music School
Images: Ed Alcock Text: Leigh Johnson I was cornered into guitar lessons at the tender age of seven. Violet ran a neighbourhood music school walking distance from home, where impeccable cursive on laminated poster-board scolded kids barely thicker than … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
La Cave des Papilles
Text by Omid Tavallai & Images by Matthew Rose The story has almost become a cliché in what’s hot and exciting in Paris: A young upstart with no formal training. Someone who bailed on a corporate career to pursue an … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
Nordik Market
Text and images: Anne Ditmeyer Inspired by his travels and friends Guillaume Deroy made his long time dream a reality last summer when he opened Nordik Market, a concept shop devoted to Scandinavian design. Coming from a background in fashion, … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
Paris' 20 Best Vintage Clothing Shops
Text + images by Meg Gagnard Our vintage clothing post has long been one of our readers’ favourites. We decided it needed an update, so we called on urban explorer Meg Gagnard of De Quelle planète es-tu? to update the … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
Independent Boutiques in Paris 9ème: Le Rocketship
Text + Images: Anne Ditmeyer, Prêt à Voyager As the holidays quickly approach, it’s always a good reminder to support local businesses. I’m lucky to call the 9th arrondissement home, which is full of interesting, independent shops, and one of … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
Discovering new places: Le Lieu du Design
Text & Images: Anne Ditmeyer, Prêt à Voyager One of my favorite parts of events like Paris Design Week is discovering new venues. One of these discoveries was Le Lieu Design. Located at located at 74, rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
Blending In At BHV Homme
Text: Richard PriceImage: Le Banc Moussu There are times when you want to express your individuality and creativity. And then there are times when you just want to blend into the wallpaper. BHV Homme is the place to go where … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
Coutume – Paris, Meet Good Coffee
Text & Images: Omid Tavallai There has been much talk lately about the state of coffee in Paris. Slashing through the images of postcard-perfect zinc counter tops and romantic sidewalks lined with little round tables peddled to the masses, some … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
Super Marmite – Cooking Near You
Text and Images: Omid Tavallai On a cold night, one of the finest things one can have to warm up is a tartiflette. The Savoyard dish of potatoes, lardons, and melted Reblochon cheese is a wintertime standard around France, well outside … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
Moebius – Transe Forme
Text: Elliot ElamImage: "La Chasse au Major", 2009, Acrylic on canvas. Even back in the late fifties, Jean Giraud was going places. Drawing professionally since his teens, he’d been receiving plaudits (and even work) from great bande dessinée artists such … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
La Cave à Bulles
On a narrow cobblestone street in Paris’ Beaubourg district, Simon Thillou is slowly fomenting revolution. Or fermenting, rather… Mild-mannered and extremely friendly, he explains in fluent English, “Paris is not a beer place. It’s difficult for a beer lover to be in Paris for a long time. So that’s the reason I’m here.”
It’s Simon’s mission to turn Parisians on to and supply them with quality beer. And over the last four years (exactly four years, to the day of this writing, in fact) he has slowly but surely been fulfilling his mission. From his shop on Rue Quincampoix, he sells mostly French beers and dispenses useful knowledge and advice. But not only to beardy beer snobs.
E. Dehillerin
Text and image: Carly DeFilippo If E. Dehillerin is not the most practical place to shop for kitchen equipment in Paris, it’s certainly the most nostalgic. The vintage, forest-green storefront spans the corner of rue Coquillière and rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau, … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
Louxor – Palais Du Cinema to re-open in Barbès
Text & Image: Aidan Mac Guill On the corner of Boulevard de la Chapelle and Boulevard de Magenta, at the heart of noisy, relentless Barbès, stands a building. Amidst the clatter of the overground metro and the chatter of the … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
Geofood Association – "the geography of alimentation"
Text and image: Carly DeFilippo For international food lovers living in Paris, the discovery of new flavors, scents, and visual stimuli can verge on sensory overload. Despite gastronomic enthusiasm and awe, we often don’t know the history behind the products … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
Le Verre Volé
Text: Nick Forrester Le Verre Volé, on Rue de Lancry, has a rustic French charm, with relatively simple, but excellent quality food and a vast array of wine. This tiny restaurant doubles as a wine shop – and while you’re … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
Jim Haynes’ Legendary Paris Salon
Text and images Susie Hollands That famous address. The one and only Jim Haynes. I stop by to pick up virgin copies of the Jim’s “People to People” books. Jim and I chat about Dorothy Parker and I am reminded … [CLICK TO READ MORE]