After the uncertainty of ever-changing travel bans to France, eventually, I made my trip to Paris, the world’s fashion capital, in October 2021, even though I had to go through complicated procedures of Covid tests.
I was in Paris for Men’s Fashion Week in January 2020, before the Covid spread globally. Paris was a long-time-no-see friend who I missed a lot during the lockdowns.
Paris welcomed me with all-day rain, but it didn’t affect the city’s beauty. Through raindrops on the taxi window, I saw the city’s colours, Haussmann-style architectures, and the lights’ reflections in the streets, which reinforced its romantic soul in the autumn rain.
After checking in to my hotel, I changed from jeans to a more ‘fashionable’ look (a silk-lined long trench coat and a pair of stiletto heels) then went to a fashion show at the Hotel le Meurice.
Crystal chandeliers, glided doorways, champagne, and models wearing a Lebanese designer’s floral embroidered gowns. All of those keep reminding me that Paris is a romantic city, near but far, full of fashion, fun, beauty, and fantasy. There was a je ne sais quoi moment that I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn’t watching Great Gatsby’s glamour in New York in the 1920s.
An acquaintance, an art collector who lived in Paris for years, sent me a video of Blagencia’s short film “The Simpsons” during my trip in Paris. The quote inspired me at the end of the episode “This is Paris, every minute is fashion week.” I can well understand the fashion capital, the french ingenuity, which is full of character and colour.
On my 2nd day in Paris, I booked a photoshoots service with a local photographer, Manon, the Provence-born turned up in a leather jacket and platform boots. We met in front of a restaurant in Saint-Dominique to start the photoshoots. When I shook hands with her and was about to introduce myself, the 26-year-old said:” I can tell that you are from England. You are so polite and formal.”
Despite a few street shoots near Alexander Bridge III, I required a few photos in front of the wrapped Arc de Triomphe. Manon thinks the opposite about such public art, “They spent $16 million to wrap it up. Considering how many people had lost their jobs in France due to Covid, this was a waste of money. In addition, the material (to wrap the Arc de Triomphe) was not eco-friendly.”
Concerning her career as a photographer in Paris amid Covid outbreaks, Monon declares, “I went back to my previous office job doing administration last year, there were no bookings from tourists for photoshoots. I was always trying to find my way back to be a photographer again.”
A friend of mine used to tell me that “The most beautiful part of traveling is getting lost” when I complained about my phone being stolen outside Gar-du-Nor in Paris back in 2016. On the second day of my stay in Paris, I left my phone in the hotel room charging and roamed around Place de Clinchy, where my hotel was located. I didn’t get lost but discovered a few anecdotes of Paris during the morning walk in the rain.
Traces of economic depression can be seen in Paris after the Covid outbreak in 2020. Some flower shops shut down for good, and I saw messy and empty shelves through the window. Most of the shops were closed on Sunday morning except supermarkets. I heard church bells ringing in the distance, so I spontaneously walked into that church. People wearing white gowns at worship, a young boy suddenly raised his head and started to talk to me in French sadly I didn’t quite understand what he was saying.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude, who created the concept of Wrapped Arc de Triomphe, once said, “Freedom is the enemy of possession, and possession is permanence.” I reckon some kind of possession, such as the memories of Paris, is permanent. Once you experienced the city’s romantic soul and scenic look, those memories stay with you wherever you go. Like Hemingway, the American novelist describes, Paris is a moveable feast.
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