II.2. BRANDS TAKE OVER THE HISTORIC CENTER

MENU: 2.2. Brands take over the historic center 

"I HOPED TO FIND INDEPENDENT CREATORS WITH A POINT OF VIEW, BUT ALL I SAW WAS BRANDS"

 -- New York lawyer

"You've discovered the rue de Sèvres!" said a cousin when it was a street for couture at affordable prices, but now one finds brands alone:

Rue de Sèvres facing métro Sèvres-Babylone

Brands raise prices exponentially: A friend working for a well-known name was stupefied when an invoice showed wares produced in Bangladesh marked up 2000%.

Made in Bangladesh by Rubayat Hossein with Rikita Shimu, 2019

The movie begins with a fire in a workshop and continues with the difficulty of union organizing, especially for women (for a résumé,  please click and scroll down). 

•  " 'Virtually entire' fashion industry is complicit on Uighur forced labor, say rights groups:" headline in The Guardian.

•  The environmental impact is often disastrous. "Responsible" production is rarely verified.

• Quality can be cut when it hurts the bottom line.* 

*A Dior lipstick fell apart after I used it twice. A coat bought for 700€ at un upscale department store (Le Bon Marché), did not fit professional production standards. The wife of the former director of the Établissement Michel (hatter bought by Chanel) said that commercial directors were not trained in crafts and might not know the effects of their cost-cutting decisions.

Clients whose wealth is recent may not know know what quality is and when they buy for the label, do not care. 

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"Oh, today I’m wearing a Rolex..." begins an article of The New York Times*

  

* Considered the most respected American newspaper.

-- The New York Times, by Andrew Zucker, Jan. 20, 2024

 

Finishing with wares "...that most people can only dream of owning" suggests that the writer thinks them worth their price. 

Photo gone from the web, March 2025, cropped 

As announcements of social status

that has been recently acquired,  

they probably are. 

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Brands' impact on Paris

and shopping that makes more sense

 

• Ads hover over the river 

• A left-bank oasis evokes a recent past 

• Skip the grotesque profits: affordable shopping in "real" Paris 

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II.2.1.

Ads hover over the river 

II.2.1. ADS HOVER OVER THE RIVER

START FROM NOTRE-DAME CATHEDRAL, FOLLOW THE RIVER...

Adapted from Mappy maps

The island (Île de la Cité) is where the town began. It is still the heart of City government (this is the police headquarters). 

Come upon this statue of a king on pont Neuf,* an emblematic site...

*Henri IV, toward 1600. 

Where giant ads take have taken over (since 2025):

Cross the bridge...

Look at the  booksellers' stalls...

Go on to the famous left bank.

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2.2.2.

A left-bank oasis now

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

MENU: 2.2.2. Left-bank oasis & recent past

PUSH OPEN THE GATE TO THE PARKING LOT, CROSS THROUGH WHAT WAS ONCE THE RAMPART...* 

*Passage Dauphine, pierced in 1825 

Discover landmarks and a quiet that initiates favor but whose excellent boutiques have recently closed.

Adapted from a Mappy plan

 34 rue Mazarine

L'Heure gourmande

 22 passage Dauphine

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

Echoes of the past remain.

But the neighborhood mainly shows

the disastrous impact of brands.

• Gertrude Stein, classic movies, Picasso and no cars

• Beloved dinky toys, collectors' item

• Fashion that was classic yet unique

• End of a Japanese landmark

• Metamorphosis

• A bookstore where tradition remains intact

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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:

A plaque that recalls that achievement. 

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 would stay 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).

# # #

The toys have become antiques and the boutique has doubled in size.

The founder in the shop's new room.

It is an exception

that standardization does not challenge.

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Fashion that was classic yet unique

FASHION THAT WAS CLASSIC YET UNIQUE

 

"SIMPLICITY REVEALS THE SLIGHTEST ERROR," THE COUTURIER MICHEL LÉGER WOULD SAY

Michel Léger
19, rue des Grands Augustins

"The essential is enough," he also said, and the outfits' simplicity was original and flattering. Perfectly made, they exemplified the quality that one associates with Paris.

The boutique closed in 2021.

A store for new web techniques replaces it. 

 

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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

 

A site for Jehovah's Witnesses

replaces it.

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Metamorphosis

METAMORPHOSIS

A COUTURIER NOW SELLS ONLY TO A BRAND 

What individual clients used to obtain 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"

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A bookstore where tradition remains intact