Paris France Guide: Paris Hotels, Food, Wine and Discounts

From Los Angeles to New York to Paris, fashion industry veteran Amy Lassalle has paid her dues and learned her trade, opening and managing key stores for such prestigious companies as Kenzo, Barbara Bui, Fendi, Bonpoint, and Kenneth Cole.  Now, this top retailer – who also was a personal shopper for tourists - and mother of three has opened her own boutique in the heart of Paris.  In partnership with the founders of Le Marchand d’Etoiles clothing line (in English, The Star Merchant), Lassalle opened, focusing on the soft, beautiful things that truly provide a child with “sweet dreams”. 

By now you’ve seen the Fall trends, right? Wrong. Take another look, Paris-style. 

Summer holidays are officially over. Scarves are flung around necks and copper leaves spill from the chestnut trees along the Seine. With a nip in the air, chairs are disappearing from breezy terraces; umbrellas are snapped shut, and doors slam on cosy cafés as Parisians prepare for cooler months ahead. Gone too are the mountains of strawberries, the flowing streams of summer cherries. Stuffed with the fullness of autumn, the French countryside has been trucked to Paris and the open-air markets explode in fiery shades of scarlet, bronze and gold. Shopping baskets now brim with treasures found on forest floors. Stalls swell with cheery clementines. Rickety crates of corn are banged down next to mounds of purple plums and pears with windblown cheeks.  

It was fall.  It was Paris.  It was love at first sight.  Yes, that jacket with my name on it, in that little shop on Rue Dragon, was going to transform me from the woman I see in the mirror every day to one of those women the city is known for, those who have that je ne sais quoi that makes you turn around for a second look and wonder how did they ever figure out how to wrap that thing around their heads/arms/shoulders/hips and pair it with that/those pants/skirt/leggings. 

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Fashion Week when I ascended, with studied elegance, the stairs of Bryant Park to the white tents above. I suppose I should have anticipated a great deal of vanity—with myself as its first culprit. I couldn’t help but be secretly pleased and surprised by the way the teenagers were staring at me, salivating from behind the velvet rope. I may as well have been dressed in Galliano with Jake Gyllenhaal on my arm.  Suddenly, it seemed, I had reached that stage of life when I had been inducted unwittingly into New York high society. I can pinpoint the exact moments: January, the Antiques Show at the Armory, followed by the Auto Show at the Javitz in February, the MoMA’s Benefit for Charity in June, and now, crème de la crème, Fashion Week in September. I had become—my father was pleased to announce to his colleagues and friends, as I looked for the nearest table to duck under—a debutante. I was making my New York debut. A few years too late. 

It’s not for nothing that le quartier Saint Germain has become one of the world’s most famed international shopping hot spots. From the luxe splendour of Prada, YSL and Etro to the bourgeoisie bohemian appeal of Custo, this is an area where stellar style shines. But it’s slightly away from the spotlight’s hot gaze where a few lesser known – though no less intriguing – addresses are to be found. In the jumble of streets tangling south of Boulevard St Germain you will stumble across Rue du Cherche-Midi, an elongated street drawing from the Carrefour de la Croix-Rouge back toward Montparnasse and across the invisible border of the 15th arrondissement. 

Trend-spotters may be proclaiming loud and long the rise of Shanghai as the new shopping Mecca, but it will be some time before Paris’ extensive wardrobe of eclectic wares is usurped by fashion’s newly-crowned Johnny-come-lately. Gather all the evidence you need with a short stroll along rue Montmartre, a veritable jumble of the sleek, the unique and the scruffy chic in the heart of the city’s streetwear garment district (both Paris headquarters for Diesel and Replay call this area home).

Since last April, my job has consisted of conducting exhaustive 'research' for les bons shopping adresses in Paris for my North American tour clients. Well, shopping places as well as great cafés, restaurants, clubs and other interesting diversions. I know, it's a tough job, but someone has to do it and I figure it may as well be me!