My Paris Dream: An Education in Style, Slang, and Seduction in the Great City on the Seine by Kate Betts

Author:Kate Betts [Betts, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780679644422
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2015-05-12T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

Flâneurs

Balzac wrote that Paris is a place where one wants to walk, flâner. Flâneurs were devoted to “the gastronomy of the eye.” They strolled the streets of Paris, taking in the architecture, the crowds, the culture and fashions of the cafés. Impressionist paintings depict the Parisian flâneurs turned out in shiny black top hats or beribboned straw bonnets. Flâneurs today are not dressed as elaborately, but they are just as hungry for the sights of Paris, and May is their prime month, the time when they come out to strut their finery, to see and to be seen. M’as-tu-vu.

Everywhere you look, you can see the pride Parisians take in their appearance: When spring comes, young women doff their winter coats and revel in bare legs, miniskirts, and snug tweed jackets. Pint-sized girls frolic in the Luxembourg Gardens in smocked Liberty print dresses and red leather Mary Janes. Sunbathers, joggers, tourists, and fashion photographers emerge from the winter grisaille to congregate along the banks of the Seine. In the spring of 1989, Paris appeared pristine and fresh, too. The façades of official buildings had been cleaned in preparation for the bicentennial celebrations. The new I. M. Pei pyramid at the Louvre glistened in the midday sun. Mitterrand’s grands projets were in full bloom.

Credit 12.1

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