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La Grande Prairie At La Bellevilloise

Image: La Grande Prairie
Text: Nicola Hebden

La Grande Prairie at La Bellevilloise, housed in an exhibition area situated at the highest level of the century-old culture factory on the north-eastern edge of Paris, has transformed itself into a literal urban jungle this summer.

Complete with real plants, fake creepy-crawlies and a floor of Astroturf, walking into the 400-metre-squared loft area is like being transported to an idyllic, indoor hippy commune. Only there’s soft jazz playing instead of 60’s tunes. Oh, and there’s no communal sex.

Deck chairs and cushions are scattered around the room inviting you to come in and relax. In the far corner there is a tented area, crying out for you to go have a nap. Next to it, a mock-up jungle scene, with rich green plants, bursts of colour from pretty flowers, and a quarter-sized elephant.

Monkey Shoulder run the beach-hut bar, and provide a range of delicious and healthy fruit smoothies, which they will willingly transform into a potent cocktail, if so desired. And for the occasional gig held on the tiny stage in La Grande Prairie (Lys is playing in a couple of weeks, and an electro swing band at the end of August, among others) there are reasonably priced beers, wines and spirits.

Unspoken Rules Of Paris: Supermarket Savoir

Image: Flickr CC Sylvain Raybaud
Text: Guillermo Martínez de Velasco

As skinny as everyone around you looks in their rolled up navy or khaki pants, people in Paris have to eat. As a matter of fact, you have to eat also. In short, we all do. But unlike other things that we as humans cannot live without - sleeping, breathing, laughing, listening to early Madonna - food costs money.

In a mythical time some have come to call the 90s, people had secure jobs and the euro was not this impossibly valuable currency. During this era, Parisians managed to keep food shopping at a medium level priority, right in between learning another language and finally taking that trip up to Normandy. As times have gotten progressively tougher however, people have had to worry more and more about what to buy and where.

This may have disturbed the cherished 'natural' order of things in the city but it has also prompted some to explore more places on the fringe and find cheaper ways to eat well. There are bistros on every corner but even if you could afford to eat there every day, for three meals a day, you would get tired of it. Besides, spoiler alert, (don't read the end of this sentence if you like to eat out a lot in Paris) most of their food is pre-bought and frozen. Hopefully this breakdown will help you be kinder to your taste buds, and your bank account (which did take about a month to open).

Oliver Burkeman And The Happiness Industry

Image: Oliver Burkeman / Canongate Books
Text: Aidan Mac Guill

Five years ago the journalist Oliver Burkeman embarked on a mission, a mission that might sound about as enticing to some of us as a bout of gastroenteritis, but a mission nonetheless. He decided, through his weekly column in the Guardian newspaper, to explore the world of self-help books; taking a rational, reasonable, journalistic approach to an area not always synonymous with rationality or reason (or indeed reality).

“I think everyone on some level would like to be a bit more happy, or efficient, or achieve their goals,” he explains in a phone interview from New York, where he lives. “I very much doubt that most of these books are going to contain the answer to that, but there's a tiny little part of you that thinks: it would be fantastic if they did.”

“That was the idea, to sort the wheat from the chaff, knowing that there would be a very large amount of chaff,” he says.

What has emerged from the project is a book, Help! (modestly subtitled 'How To Become Slightly Happier And Get A Bit More Done'; modesty being another quality often foreign to the world of self-help). It is an insightful, remarkable account of what could slightly pretentiously be termed the modern condition; how the technological and societal changes of recent times have impacted on our psychology, and our age-old search for happiness. Also it's very funny.

Pousse Pousse - Pushing Paris In A Healthy Direction

Images: Alice-Kate Raisch / Plaza Athénée
Text: Alice-Kate Raisch

Well, the sprouts must be working. Lawrence Aboucaya sits across from me in the famed Hotel Plaza Athénée with painted nails to match the hotel's awnings and a vivacious smile to match her enthusiastic disposition to talk about the current collaborative project at Alain Ducasse's La Cour Jardin. Vivacity is the theme.

Continuing until mid-September, the Hotel Plaza Athénée will continue this inventive menu selection headed by Chef Christophe Marliex. Even though he has a lot on his plate, Chef Marliex and his team mastered the art of the sprout and crafted plates focused on the freshness of spring, with the generous assistance of Aboucaya. 

20 Questions

Marc Holzman is a certified Anusara Yoga instructor. He teaches locally and abroad, and online.

1. What initially inspired you to move here or visit?
Sister Mary Theresa, my high school freshman French teacher. She enthralled us with vivid stories of France and French culture. She also plied us with Astérix and Obélisk comic books and chocolate, a tricky but effective way to hold our attention.

2. Earliest Paris memory?
Backpacking through Cimetière Père Lachaise with a map searching for Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison.

3. Best neighbourhood you've ever lived in?
Where I live now in the 5th. I love the feel of this most ancient quartier mixed with the vibrancy of students. And the Jardins des Plantes at this time of year is fabulous.

4. What's the best meal you've eaten in Paris?
Le Chateaubriand in the 11th.

5. Sexiest moment you've had in Paris?
A packed restaurant in the 8th. I was at a table with six other guests. The handsome waiter and I were flirting only through eye contact for the duration of the meal. I was only 23 at the time, but I still remember how our restricted environment intensified the game. He was very busy. I was required to focus on my dinner guests. And in this chaotic, public setting, we furtively held long gazes and half smiles for three hours.

Hermès Takes A Left Bank Leap

Text and Images: Aran Cravey

No few times have I strolled passed the Hermès store on rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré and dreamt of living in the luxurious, fairy tale worlds of style displayed in their dazzling windows. Just as Holly gazed longingly into the 5th Avenue windows of Tiffany’s, imagining a world where nothing bad could possibly happen, I too had envisioned life à l’Hermès as an island of chic serenity. While the lavish vignettes from behind the glass teased with the promise of refined divinity, though, the commercial chaos of its interior never quite fulfilled my fantasy of quiet sophistication.                                        

 So when I heard that a second grand outpost would be opening on (gasp!) the Left Bank, my hopes were revived!                      

After over one hundred and seventy years, Hermès is finally making the leap across the Seine, in addition to taking a bold step towards a more modern approach to their iconic style. The airy, new tri-level store on rue de Sèvres in the 6th arrondissement was originally created to house the swimming pool for the Hotel Lutetia during its grand dame era of the 1930’s. 

Louis Vuitton At Musée Carnavalet

Text: Emily Sands-Bonin
Image: Jacques-Henri Lartigue / Ministry of Culture – France / AAJHL

The curators of 'Voyage en Capitale: Louis Vuitton & Paris', which runs until February next year at the Musée Carnavalet, could not have chosen a more illustrious Parisian setting. Nestled in the chic Marais district, the Musée is comprised of the ancien Hôtel Carnavalet, where Madame de Sévigné penned her letters (later quoted to Marcel Proust by his literary grandmother), and the ancien Hôtel Le Peletier de Saint Fargeau. Once the seat of the ill-fated Michel-Étienne Le Peletier, a noble with revolutionary pretensions (an early bobo), who voted enthusiastically for the execution of Louis XVI in 1793. His fatal stabbing by a royalist sympathizer, as he sat peacefully at a café, earned him eternal glory, as well as his depiction in a pieta-like drawing by Jacques-Louis David.

Hosting 'Voyage en Capitale' is a golden opportunity for the Carnavalet, which, like most museums, is probably sorely in need of a blockbuster exhibition. As indeed it is for Louis Vuitton, for whom association with one of the most stately and venerable of the smaller Parisian museums, with the holiday season in full swing, can only be a good thing. For Vuitton the exhibition represents a further chance to lump the history of the company, which began with the opening of Louis Vuitton’s first boutique in 1854, in with the history of Paris and France.

Outdoor Swimming

Text: Nick Forrester Image: Grenouille O_O

Swimming isn’t really the same in summer unless you can do it outside. But where can one possibly hope to find outdoor swimming in central Paris? 

There are 30 or so public swimming pools located within the Périphérique, all very well priced at around 3 Euros for a one-off entry. However, most of them are serious indoor exercise areas; many boast hostile 70’s facades; and attract such little publicity that most visitors to the capital wouldn’t know a Parisian pool if it was staring them in the face. 

All but the Piscine Josephine Baker.  The only swimming pool to be built in Paris in the last 18 years, which is spectacularly set on the River Seine. It floats on the river, just next to the Quai François Mauriac and the retractable roof allows for prime sunbathing territory. Priced at a relatively modest 5 euros for a 2 hour dip and open until 10-11pm during the week, it is surely the jewel in the crown of Parisian swimming pools.

Club Quartier Latin and Piscine Pontoise

The Club Quartier Latin gym offers access to one of the most legendary pools in Paris.

Built in the 1930s, this historical landmark has attracted stars such as Commander Cousteau and swimming champion Johnny Weismuller (also known as Tarzan).
More recently, Juliette Binoche swam here on the set of Kieslowski's "Bleu," and Issey Miyake held a fashion show.

Nowadays, you can work off your stress with a formule nocturne (pool entry, gym, cardio and sauna from 8:15pm to 12:45pm). Other activities include squash, yoga, French boxing, and Tai Chi among many others. Full schedule available here.

Fornarina Beauty Show

Fornarina will be hosting a "Beauty Show," a chance to party in their vision of the world Monday May 12th, at the Carrousel du Louvre.

A mélange of music, installation and visual art, bubble gum pink, and the Über trendy will come together to spawn the Fornarina atmosphere.

Numerous prestigious collaborations will take place at the event, including: US painter Glenn Barr, the Spanish-Dutch illustrator Mijn Schatje, the French Graffitist Miss Van, Simone Legno for Tokidoki, the Japanese artist Junko Mizuno, the tattoo artist Angelique Houtkamp...

Music involves Nu Rave stars New Young Pony Club and Simian Mobile Disco.

Free entry; invitations to be printed out off their site.