II.2.2. A LEFT-BANK OASIS EVOKES A RECENT PAST

MENU: 2.2.2. Left-bank oasis & recent past

TRACES OF GERTRUDE STEIN AND PICASSO REMAIN, BUT SUPERB SMALL BUSINESSES ARE GONE

Push open the grill to the parking lot, cross through what was once the rampart* and discover an oasis.

*Passage Dauphine, pierced in 1825 

 Back to 34 rue Mazarine

L'Heure gourmande

 22 passage Dauphine

A "salon de thé" too hidden for clients come by accident.

In brief

• Gertrude Stein, classic movies, Picasso and no cars

• Beloved dinky toys, collectors' items

• "Simplicity reveals the slightest error"

• End of a Japanese landmark

• Evolution

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Gertrude Stein, classic movies, Picasso and no cars

GERTRUDE STEIN, CLASSIC MOVIES, PICASSO AND NO CARS

LEAVE THE PASSAGE TO COME UPON A PLACE WHERE CARS ARE ALMOST ABSENT

(RUE CHRISTINE)

             Passage Dauphine and corner rue Christine / rue des Grands Augustins  

At n° 5 is the apartment where the Gestapo came to arrest 

Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas: Not finding them it made off with the silverware and rugs, leaving the "degenerate art."

"Matisse, Cezanne, Picasso, the Stein adventure"

Facing it is a theater for Hollywood classics:

Studios Christine 

   One of the small cinemas that make Paris the movie capital.

Picasso painted Guernica on the next street, which is almost as quiet:

At the corner on the river, a restaurant where 19th-century tycoons invited the most dazzling courtesans:

 

If you ask very politely during off-hours, 

an attendant may show you the private salons...

with mirrors that the ladies would scratch to make sure that the diamonds their admirers offered were real. A walled-off door is said to lead by underground passage to the Senate, to ensure that senators' trysts remain unknown. Couches remained until a generation ago.

Those private salons are still known for their personnel's discretion, which can be politically useful.

The almost empty street brings fashion shoots...

The exceptional shops are mostly gone:

Next is one that remains.

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Beloved dinky toys, collectors' items 

BELOVED DINKY TOYS, COLLECTORS' ITEMS

A MALE BASTION WHERE WOMEN ARE WELCOME AND THINK OF THEIR BROTHERS  

 

Behind a dark window and a door that is often closed, another universe:   

Galerie du jouet ancien

 8 rue des Grands-Augustins

No web site or Internet comments:
Most visitors are collectors,
but the proprietor welcomes whoever pushes open his door.

Little boys loved these well-made toys (toward 1935-75) :

"The assassination of Heydrich:" That the sole assassination of a top Nazi official should have taken place in a car led this toy-making company recall it:

Reinhard Heydrich, Protektor of Moravia and Bohemia and a director of the Holocaust, was mortally wounded when the Resistance attacked him in his car (on May 27, 1942).

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Standardization does not challenge toys that have become antiques and the boutique has doubled in size.

The founder in the shop's new room (in 2019)

But that is an exception.

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"Simplicity reveals the slightest error"

"SIMPLICITY REVEALS THE SLIGHTEST ERROR"

 

SAID THE COUTURIER MICHEL LÉGER

Michel Léger

Michel Léger
19, rue des Grands Augustins

"The essential is enough," he also said,  

and the outfits' simplicity

was both original and flattering.

Perfectly made,

they exemplified the quality

that one associates with Paris.

The boutique closed in 2021. 

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End of a Japanese landmark

END OF A JAPANESE LANDMARK

GALERIE 1 À 7 REPLACED IKUO, A JAPANESE REFERENCE FROM THE 1980'S

Its successor was even more refined...

 11 rue des Grands Augustins

 

...but nothing is there now. 

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Evolution

EVOLUTION

A COUTURIER NOW SELLS ONLY TO A BRAND 

What used to sell for 300 euros now goes for more than 700,* and

the collection is far more limited.

*The brand does not even have to finance a store, since sales are made through the web.

Until 2020

Philippe Vidalenc,

 a sculptor trained at the School of Fine Arts

whose subtle colors came from dying collections himself:

He still works in the workshop under the former boutique,

but now...

 No retail sorry. mail@vidalenc.com"

At the end of the street

Brands and mediocre consumerism

 have largely destroyed the creativity of central Paris.

Well-established businesses remain,

but are becoming rarer and are seldom replaced.

But there are other solutions...

End of this section.

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Next,

2.2.3. 

Shun the grotesque profits: "real" Paris's affordable shopping