Paris notebook: handmade jewellery from Medecine Douce

Paris is packed with tiny boutiques selling the kind of jewellery that I love - delicate but not too girly, made of decent materials that won't turn your skin green and it's all small businesses selling products they like at reasonable prices.
But although we went in to quite a few of these boutiques, I didn't really see anything that made my heart beat that little bit faster, nothing that triggered a totally illogical desire to buy something entirely ornmental with no real purpose.

Jewellery is different in this respect from most other fashion items. It really is pointless. Shoes, however ridiculous, do serve a function, as do clothes, hats, bags, wallets... but not jewellery.

For my grandmothers, jewellery - proper jewellery - was a real investment. That was its secondary purpose beyond the ornamental. And the best pieces were saved for special occasions. But most women I know don't buy jewellery like that any more. I don't really wear much jewellery on special occasions - it's usually just a great dress with minimal additions. And I certainly don't have the kind of money that would stretch to even high-end costume jewellery of the kind that retains value.

I grew up surrounded by cheap costume jewellery as a result of my grandpa and uncles' jewellery wholesale business. Going to their warehouse was a bit like visiting Aladdins cave, except everything was neatly organised into cardboard boxes labelled in black marker pen with my grandpa's distinctive small caps handwriting. I still have some boxes he labelled as it's one of my strongest associations with him. He was an amazing person to be around as a child and I was thoroughly spoiled. I used to love wearing loads of cheap jewellery. It was fun, and experimental, and quite freeing to just be able to wear it all at once.

However, as a result of this early glut of sparkle, I am now very picky about jewellery. So back to Paris, where the jewellery was lovely but failed to be lovely enough... and then we walked into Medecine Douce (I'm sure that name sounds much better when pronounced properly in French and without the unfortunate Anglophone echoes).
Founded by Marie Montaud in 2000, Medecine Douce moved to Paris in 2007 to occupy its current space designed by architects Flavia Fabbro and Philippe Delannoy.

The shop (image via bijouxmedecinedouce.com)

The MD shop, just off the Canal St Martin, takes up the left hand side of the space and is about the same size as most jewellery boutiques. It's pretty enough, but right next door is the workshop where you can watch people hand making all the pieces. Which is a brilliant idea because for people like me who love that shit it makes it much easier to fall in love with the jewellery. And fall in love I did, with two necklaces from the Faust range. I can only find images of the collar necklace and the bracelet, but the long necklace was probably my favourite of the lot.

Collier Faust by Medecine Douce - 95,00 €

Bracelet Faust by Medecine Douce - 80,00 €

And yet I walked away. Realistically this was because I  had already carefully budgeted all my money for goats cheese and pain au chocolats (food always wins for me I'm afraid). But a week and a half later the necklaces are still haunting me.

There is an e-store but I'm a goofball so I'm going to wait until I can go back and walk in and lay down cold hard cash. It's better that way. Also, there's an incredible bakery and a Maje outlet shop just up the road...

You, however, should definitely visit the e-shop, unless you're lucky enough to live in Paris already. They have some beautiful fine jewellery pieces in the Beaurepaire collection at the moment.

Medecine Douce
10, rue de Marseille
75010 Paris
Monday - Saturday 11am - 7pm

I leave you with this thought for the day: Baby Stingrays!

Paris notebook: Le Fumoir - good food, great cocktails

image from the website of Le Fumoir

I've been lucky enough to find myself in Paris twice in the past month, and both times I've visited Le Fumoir.

I don't know Paris spectacularly well, and hadn't been there in years until I had to go for a work trip in June (I say had to - I was practically jumping for joy when they asked me to go). I went on the earliest train possible so I could have lunch and a bit of a wander with one of my favourite colleagues before we had to meet up with the rest of our group and actually work.

Le Fumoir, just behind the Louvre, was the perfect spot and I would never have discovered it if not for a strong recommendation from a friend. Thank you Martyn!

image from the website of Le Fumoir

We ate lunch from the bar menu - a mushroom salad with a creamy dressing - which was good but not hugely memorable. The cocktails, however, were quite something. And it's a lovely place to just hang out. Given its location it should be packed with tourists and hyper expensive, but it isn't. I think because it's at the back of the Louvre, most tourists just don't get that far. They get sucked into the crowds around the museum and spat back out into the Tuileries and the roads on either side. The foreigners that are found in Le Fumoir tend to be a bit more stylish and/or well informed.  Or those who don't simply follow the crowd.

A few weeks later when we found ourselves walking around the area with a friend who lives in Paris and wondering where to go for a drink, I was rather proud to not only be able to suggest somewhere decent but to also know where it was and how to get there.

We drank zanzibars - delicious concoctions of rum, ginger, honey and lime - and negronis, smoked some cigarettes and listened in on other people's conversations on a warm evening and watched people walking their dogs and the dust blowing around the pathway behind the Louvre. It was all rather nice.

Le Fumoir also has a proper restaurant with a good reputation which I am determined to try on our next trip.

Le Fumoir
6 Rue de L'Amiral Coligny
75001 Paris
+33 (0)142920024

Jewellery ideas that are a bit silly but I like them anyway...

I have found myself with a few spare minutes this week and am not quite sure what I'm supposed to do with them. There's not enough of them at the right time to do anything worthwhile that won't see me a/ hungover b/ wracked with guilt about how much I've spent or c/ trying to get home from Chiswick, so instead I have been rediscovering some old past times. One of those is reading proper books, which I have been trying to squish in to the tiny free moments I've had over the past weeks fairly unsuccessfully.
Now I have a bit more time in the evenings I'm racing through some of my favourite novels again. The stories in Gullivers Travels may no longer seem at all unlikely after months and months spent reading the depressing or absurd stories that pass for news in the newspapers every day but they are a bit of a relief.
I'm also enjoying some time to rediscover all the blogs I used to look at. Here are two of the silliest/greatest things I have seen on the blogs this week;

Stiletto x Eric Kayser x Mauboussin via viacomit.net
Some bright spark at Stiletto magazine had the idea to put a 7 carat Mauboussin ring inside a loaf of bread by master baker Eric Kayser and then give it away. Nice idea but surely a major choking/tooth shattering hazard? However giving this away to some lucky customer is certainly a good way to get people to come to your new bread shop in its opening week. (This is happening in Paris by the way. But of course.)

Chewed by Tuesday (can't remeber how I stumnbled upon this one)
Chewed by Tuesday is frankly a brilliant idea for people like me who like weird things. Created by Melbourne-based designer Vivienne Gibson and inspired by Brooklyn (the place in NY, not something banal) and stationery, the first range features only two pieces - a solid silver bic penlip and a solid silver bic penlid with a chewed end. Becasue who doesn't chew the ends of their pen lids. Well, JFK doesn't, but then he is very precious about his pens and would rarely sink to the level of the humble bic biro. 

(pictures from http://www.chewedbytuesday.com/)

At $250 each plus postage they're more than a little bit out of my price range, but I want one, if not both, very badly indeed.

Quote of the week - Alex Fury

"Celine is so expensive - you can pay two grand for a camel coat - but you look at the camel coat and think, this is the best fucking camel coat I've seen in my entire life."

Showstudio.com fashion director Alex Fury perfectly sums up the appeal of Phoebe Philo's immaculately cut and so beautiful it hurts collection for Celine.

(images via Style.com)

This is the collection that pretty much defines everything about the coming spring/summer season - nudes, camels, navy blues and blacks in fitted, sharp military shapes or relaxed cocoons with the odd soft bow or waterfall drape. And lots of leather. It's going to be one that is super hard to emulate on the highstreet because it relies so much on the quality of the fabric and the cut being so precise.

But that hasn't stopped them from trying.

(Leather t shirt, £75, Wallis)

I've never wanted a leather t shirt as much as I do right now. I won't be buying this Wallis one, obviously, because it is brown, but the general idea is good.

Certain people have mentioned that I have singularly failed to acknowledge the existence of the Milan and Paris fashion weeks. No, I am not pulling a Wintour, I'm just taking my time. There's been an awful lot going in the life of the Magpie recently, and my head doesn't have enough room to process all the shows and decide what I think about them all right now. These thoughts need time to percolate.

Also, A/W11 seems a terribly long way off right now given that we're all still in A/W10 rabbit fur snoods (I wish), huddled up in long coats and layers against this persistent cold weather. The fact that it is a bit sunnier at the moment is certainly helping everyone's mood, but it isn't doing much for the temperature. Even just the suggestion of a bare leg makes me want to seek out 100 denier cashmere-blend tights in Fenwicks...

Quote of the week - courtesy of the Dior press office

So, it's couture week. Emotions are running high. Chanel reconfirms its greatness. Galliano proves once again that he is "wacky" and "eccentric" but still capable of creating beautiful covetable and wearable pieces. And someone has a hissy fit.

This year's hissy fit comes from Armani who is upset that Galliano (allegedly) moved the scheduling of the Dior show and messed with the timing of the Armani show. Quell horreur. As my friend over on Layers and Swathes has mentioned before, Armani is verging on becoming irrelevant now, even though this is only his first showing at Paris couture.

The point of bringing this up is to illustrate just how perfectly catty the French can be when it comes to, well, anything really, but especially all things fashion related. I really love them for this, although I wouldn't want to live or work full time in that kind of atmosphere - far too much pressure.

The Dior reps' response to Armani's whinging? "We think it's not elegant to comment."

The other thing that has been cheering me up today, and boy do I need some cheering, is the return of Osman Nosse's A Cat is a Cat, one of my favourite blogs of all time. I'm not going to explain what Nosse does, I'm going to show you instead. Here is his post from today;

I emailed him to ask if it would be ok to repost his work on my blog and got this response - "bloody hell I thought that email was from Anna Wintour and I was going to get 'got' for mocking YSL." (Note, this is funnier if you know my real name.)