II.4.4.i. "THE EMERGING DESIGN HUB OF PARIS..."

MENU: 2.4.4.i. "Emerging design hub of Paris"

WROTE THE BBC OF SHOPS THAT HAVE SPRUNG UP IN LA GOUTTE D'OR

(SINCE 2016)

Little Africa

6bis rue des Gardes

Since 2021

The first Black concept store

Best known is Maison Château Rouge. It has published a poster that promotes them all:

Maison Château Rouge

39bis rue Myrha

In brief

• "An African brand out to conquer the world"

• African market signs

• Positive commercialisation

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"An African brand out to conquer the world"

"AN AFRO BRAND OUT TO CONQUER THE WORLD..."

WROTE "LE MONDE"* OF ITS MIX OF AFRICAN MARKET SIGNS, WAX PRINT DESIGNS, POP ART AND COMICS 

*France's most influential daily 

Zoom

Youssouf Fofana, born in the northern outskirts and creator of Maison Château Rouge

Ibrahim, vendor

The client in the black t-shirt spoke English with a foreign accent. Maison Château Rouge corresponds to what Chanel used to be, luxury unique to Paris. 

The graffiti are not deliberate. The panel replaces a broken window and kids scribbled on it:

Two months later it was still there.

Perhaps it was left on purpose.

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 African market signs

AFRICAN MARKET SIGNS

UNTIL FOFANA MADE THEM HIS SPRINGBOARD, ONE CAME ACROSSS THEM BY LUCK ALONE 

"My parents brought it back from a trip to Africa," says the doctor whose office this sign adorns: 

"These canes were part of the assortment of a collector who had lived in Africa," an antiquarian explains:

La Galerie Jantzen 

18 rue de Beaune,7th

"I found them when cleaning out an attic in Alsace," the founder of the recently-founded tea shop across the street from Maison Château Rouge admits:

La Régulière

43 rue Myrha

To my knowledge, such signs appear by calculation only in a restaurant whose decor Fofana created:

Monique Wells, Another Soul Restaurant in Paris (Baba Soul, 10th), "Entry to Black Paris" 

By highlighting an overlooked art 

he launched an idiom that is direct, fun and humanistic.

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Positive commercialisation

POSITIVE COMMERCIALISATION

 

ADS IN WHICH THE MODEL IS PART OF THE CITY...

Newsletter

          Newsletter 

AND IMMIGRANT INVENTIVITY IS BROUGHT INTO THE  MAINSTREAM:

  

End of this section.

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Next section,

2.4.4.j.

Suddenly visible Blacks 

II.4.4.j. A CHANGED CONTEXT: SUDDENLY VISIBLE BLACKS

MENU: 2.4.4.j. Suddenly visible Blacks

A WOMAN OF GUADELOUPEAN ORIGIN SANG THE MARSEILLAISE AT THE OPENING CEREMONY OF THE OLYMPIC GAMES   

Axelle Saint-Cirel on the roof of the Grand Palais.

Evolution

• The city honors heroes of color

• It has welcomed African-American artists since World War I

• Then it acknowledged Blacks from outside France

• Now it has discovered immigrants' children at last

• Ads reveal the shift

• Marketing experts go step by step

• Publicists' ploys and a downside to ads' racial mix

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The city honors heroes of color

THE CITY HONORS HEROES OF COLOR

SUDDENLY...

Of the 15 "Mariannes"* whose photos surrounded the Panthéon

to honor Women's Day, three were Black...

(In 2021)

*Marianne: the symbol of the French Republic 

 

Three Black Mariannes, " Entrée to Black Paris," March 2021

 

• Fatoumata Kébé, daughter of a Malian cleaning woman, is an astrophysicien specialized in spatial waste. 

• Others: of the film-maker Fanny Glissant and the judo champion Clarisse Agbeguenon, of Martinican and Togolese heritage respectively.

# # #

Two sculptures of Black heroes appear at the same time.

(At the General Catroux park, 17th)

• General Alexander Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie,* the herculean general of whom Napoleon was jealous. He was born into slavery as the son of Marie-Cessette Dumas, a West Indian slave, and as a child was briefly sold into slavery himself.

He is the father of Alexander Dumas.

*Podcast: Dumas and Napoleon in "Noble Blood"

Irons by Driss Sans-Arcidet / zoom

The irons evoke slavery in his memory.

General Dumas (zoom) and his statue (of 1906), demolished during the Occupation (zoom)

Black past with a short biography

• Solitude, a slave hanged for participating in a Guadeloupean revolt that Napoleon repressed (en 1802):

   By Jacky Poulier / zoom with a short biography (in French) 

The attitude she confronted

"And since nothing stops people without education, of whom violence is the essence of character, they indulged in the greatest excess [...]. Thirty thousand were in full insurrection and had already burned down 2018 sugar plantations and massacred 300 whites [...]. The merchants Le Havre and other ports offered all their armed ships for the transport of troops." 

-- Memoirs of Madame the Duchess of Tourzel, governess of the children of France,

 1957 ed, pp. 251-252

Her biography, The Mulatto Solitude by André-Schwarz-Bart (1972), is fictionalized since little is known of her. But the context is real. 

The hanging took place the day after she gave birth, because the baby was valuable as a slave. 

This is the only statue of a Black woman in Paris. 

WikiTimbres

    This stamp appeared at the same time.

Other cities also remember... 

• La Rochelle, the second French slave-trading port  

Entrée to Black Paris

Musée du Nouveau Monde (New World Museum)

By Ousmane Sow (please scroll down), 2015. zoom

Toussaint-Louverture, best-known general of the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804)

 

Clarisse, wet-nurse slave by Woodly Caymitte, called Filipo, 2024

She nourishes a white child. Her child, who is Black, cries. 

• Bordeaux

                                                                                                                   Zoom

Modeste Testas, slave of local people who own a plantation in what is now the Dominican Republic, also by Filippo in 2019.

# # #

The Senate's recognition of the slave trade and slavery

as crimes against humanity is commemorated each May 10... recently with drama.

• In 2021 President Macron came to the ceremony but remained silent, though a speech by the President is traditional. A few days before he had given an oration in praise of Napoleon, who restored slavery that revolutions in the Antilles had abolished.

• Christiane Taubira, the former Minister of Justice, deputy from Guyana and driving force behind the law just mentioned, walked out in protest.

# # # 

In autumn 2022, Black popular arts appeared at...

• The City Hall métro station

Baudoin Mouanda

"Sapeurs" of Congo-Brazzaville mocked the white conquerors by exaggerating their dress, and now make overdressing an art.

• The Louvre

 "Wax" prints are worn throughout sub-Saharan Africa and almost nowhere else.

•   "Black legends" at the 13th's mall

 

Creole music on Bastille Day:

"JULY 14

 Paris celebrates its overseas departments" 

(In 2023)

Sign on a street in the 13th

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It has welcomed African-Americans since World War I