londonienne
-
So close
“Fresh from defeat (...) Livingstone hailed the results of last week’s local elections in which Labour won more than 800 seats – as well as four additional seats on the London assembly – saying they showed that the party was now in a strong position.
“The lesson is that we are getting the economic strategy right,” he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. “For the last two years people have b...
-
memory© Sweet Memories of Arundel
Ils nous vendent leurs salades...sucrées?
Aujourd’hui, il faut qu’on parle d’une nouvelle entente cordiale grâce à la réception anglaise qui est maintenant accordée au chèvre – au plus exactement, au chèvre chaud. Étant donné que nous, les rosbifs, n’avons jamais été doués pour les salades et que nous avons déjà passé plusieurs siècles en gaspillant un grand patrimoine de légumes verts, a réussite anglaise de cette chose est d...
-
métier© Colourful Life/Ian Wright
Wright on target
The talents of Londoner Ian Wright fit his city perfectly; his curiosity has kept pace with it over decades. “For me, London’s all about the people and the place, even though it’s changing more rapidly than ever. Every time I leave and return, I can look with different eyes. Right now, I think there’s this great kind of creative explosion.”
Yet Wright knows his home is becoming homogenised. R...
-
object© A. Hughes
L'air du temps perdu
The luxury goods of France have always been seductive. But, to this day, nothing can outdazzle her 18th century porcelain. This “white gold” remains an art form of its own, a showcase for flawless decorative skills and technical virtuosity.
A tour of any UK collection – whether at the V&A, Hereford House or Waddesdon Manor – can still startle the eye with proof of just how lavish life once was.
From it...
-
memory© J. Liebling
Streets of London
For Londoners, this is a year to celebrate the street photographer, as historic shots of their capital light up the Museum of London. Here, in precious and remarkably vivid photos, one can glimpse the very world detailed by writers like Mayhew and Dickens – as street photography commences in the Victorian era.
While most early photographers fixated on buildings and vistas, some planted equipment around the teeming streets....
parisienne
-
La vraie victoire
“Vous êtes bien plus qu’un peuple qui veut changer, vous êtes déjà un mouvement qui se lève partout en Europe et peut-être dans le monde pour porter nos valeurs, nos aspirations et nos exigences de changement. Merci, merci, merci!”
“…Soyez heureux, soyez fiers, soyez généreux, soyez respectueux (...) soyez fiers d’être des citoyens français”. L’allocution a été courte. ...
-
cult© Jean-Paul Goude
Hello sailor...
A new Galeries Lafayette poster just appeared, created as usual by the store’s graphiste Jean Paul Goude. It features the aging bad boy Jean-Paul Gaultier, turning his naked chest into a marinière with paint. This is a joke with so many levels that to fully decode it would require a semiotics professor.
The blue-and-white marinière is a French stereotype. Part of the county’s naval uniform since the nineteent...
-
métier© Katharine Mac Daid
Hats off to heritage
Without hats, said Christian Dior, “we would have no civilization.” The legendary couturier was well aware of the hat as pivotal to le style anglais. In Paris, since the 1770s, these three little words have stood for elegance. It was around then that French aristocrats fell in love with the riding and sporting clothes of their British counterparts. Thet were celebrated for their expert tailoring, understated style a...
-
cult© Pret A Manger
Paris, capital of the fast food revolution!
If you don’t see the City of Light as a fast-food mecca, you’re behind the current media buzz. Predictably, our “fast food explosion” corresponds to the average worker’s sinking pouvoir d’achat. Other reasons cited for the trend of eating sur le pouce (“on the go”) revolve around ‘Anglo-Saxon’ impositions: shorter lunches, long commutes and the need to use lunchtime f...
-
memory© Maison de Balzac
Paris fashion's good time girl
Before the 20th century’s muse or supermodel, Paris fashion had its own special heroine. She was la grisette, a young woman who spent her life in the service of style. Grisettes made the dresses, lingerie and hats of Paris; they also created the laces, flowers and trim which distinguished them. Despite low wages and sweatshop hours, la grisette always found the time to dance and flirt. In the 1830s, she became a public se...