Paris, Day 15: Place de la Concorde and La Madeleine

On Monday, we went to the Place de la Concorde and La Madeleine, was originally a church built by Napoléon I dedicated to the glory of his army.

From the Place de la Concorde, you can see La Madeleine, l'Arc de Triomphe, the French National Assembly, the Louvre, and the Tuileries Gardens. The Place de la Concorde has a lot of history and I'm going to attempt to give you the highlights:

• The name of this place was not always Place de la Concorde. This was place was where the guillotine--the contraption responsible for beheading thousands of people during the French Revolution--once stood. The square earned its name as we know it today uears after the French Revolution in an effort to leave behind the bloody memory. In case you were wondering, the translation of "concorde" means friendship...
• The obelisk in the center of the Place de la Concorde was a gift from Egypt, not stolen (although Napoléon would take plenty of treasures from Egypt and bring them to Paris). The details of how the obelisk came to Paris are inscribed at its base--essentially it was brought on a barge from the Nile to the Seine. There were supposed to be two obélisks, but the process to bring in the first one was so arduous the second one was left behind.



Place de la Concorde

The lamp posts in Place de la Concorde are unique and only seen here. The double light fixture at the middle of each lamp post is supposed to look like a boat.

There are eight statues of ladies sitting in chairs bordering the Place de la Concorde, each one represents one of the major cities in France. The rumour is that there was a black veil on Strasbourg for a long time, because she is now part of Germany...

As far as La Madeleine goes, it was going to be converted into a train station, but the idea was dismissed. It still serves a church and a monument to Napoléon I and his army.



La Madeleine

If you look at this wax painting on the cupola, you can see Napoléon and his symbol, the falcon, on the bottom center.

Historical tidbits aside, it's hard to ignore the beautiful display windows passing by Chanel and Dior....

One last bit of history--the place where the Lumière brothers made the first movie is now a Gap Kids store...

We also stopped by Opéra Garnier and discussed the architecture outside, but I was already well-versed in its history from the tour last week.

Voir Un Film: Masters of Style

On a lazy Sunday, what else is there to do than snack on cookies, drink tea, and watch HuluPlus?

I found a treasure, Masters of Style, a late 90s/early 2000s documentary series about the greatest fashion designers of our time--Alexander McQueen, John Galliano, Jean Paul Gaultier, Michael Kors, Valentino, and Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana of Dolce & Gabbana. It was unreal to see the fashion giants in the 90s: Alexander McQueen and his mentor, Isabella Blow, were still alive and John Galliano had yet to make his infamous anti-Semitic remarks while at Dior. Anna Wintour looks much younger now than she did ten years ago, but Andre Leon Talley looks exactly the same.

The production may not be the finest--it was made during the 80s and 90s after all--but Masters of Style offers a unique, intimate glimpse at how the designers became successful.  

Check out the first episode of Masters of Style on Hulu, featuring Alexander McQueen:

Fashion Reading List Winter 2011

Media Credit: xaxor.com

Now that the fall semester is finally over, it's time to catch up on some fashion reading. There are a lot of books that have been released, the most exciting are the Christian Louboutin and Dior Couture pieces. I left the PDFs on fashion branding in the dorm, but I plan on going into town and checking out books from the library (and yes, libraries still exist, even though you're probably too busy reading your Kindle or ordering your books off of Amazon):

1. House of Versace (2010) by Deborah Bell- Especially with the recent collaboration of Versace for H&M, it'd be great to explore the fashion house's past.

2. Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty (2011) by Andrew Bolton- I should have read this a while ago. Enough said.

3. Christian Louboutin (2011) by Christian Louboutin- There is a beautiful exhibit of his work and archives at the London Design Museum on display in the spring. Reading this book before attending the exhibition will greatly add to your viewing pleasure.

 4. Dior Couture (2011) by Ingrid Sischy and photographed by Patrick Demarchelier- Everyone is dying to admire Dior's beautiful creations by Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Bohan, John Galliano, and Dior himself. One of the most critically acclaimed fashion bibles to date.

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Reading Aloud: The Beautiful Fall

The Beautiful Fall: Lagerfeld, Saint Laurent, and Glorious Excess in 1970s Paris

Written by Alicia Drake

Drake exposes the lives of Karl Lagerfeld and Yves Saint Laurent, two designers who "shared the same stage, but a different destiny." Both Lagerfeld and Saint Laurent were visionaries in the business,tried to move away from their bourgeois pasts, but the similarities end there.

One worked for Balmain for a brief stint, while the other designed at Dior and already heir to the fashion house.

One chose to fall in love with a youth, while the other with his work.

One a "styliste," the other a "creator.

For decades, the Lagerfeld and Saint Laurent crowds respected each other, but a schism between the groups still remained--an unspoken competitive air pushed them apart. The author does a phenomenal job chronicling the journeys of these two fashion legends. After reading, you'll see how Lagerfeld and Saint Laurent greatly contributed to the fashion world as we know it today.