Reader’s Digest International — August 2017

August• 2017 | 101

READER’S DIGEST

poem of display, [chanting] its stan-
zas of colour from the Madeleine to
the gate of Saint-Denis.” In the 19th
century, these innovative establish-
ments were more than places to buy
goods; they were venues in which to
see and be seen, catwalks where one
would compare sartorial choices.
Imeetmychildhood
friend James Geist – a
Parisian law student
of Franco-Algerian
descent – at Le Bon
Marché, Paris’s old-
est department store,
which inspired Zola’s
novel of commerce and
seduction,The Ladies’
Paradise. While Print-
emps and the Galer-
ies Lafayette are better
known, James tells me,
it’s only at Le Bon Marché, further
from the tourist hordes, that one finds
remnants of old Paris.
Today is a perfect day for flânerie,
he informs me. Thesoldes,a govern-
ment-determined period for sales, are
taking place; all Parisians, rich and
poor, are coming out to shop – and see
who else is shopping. “Everything is a
symbol,” James says. “In New York or
London, labels are what matter.” Here,
he notes, distinctions are more subtle:
the stitching on a handbag, the design
on a scarf – all form a complex visual
language through which Parisians
communicate.
As we ascend an escalator to the

women’s section, light from the

stained-glass ceiling illuminating iron

balustrades, James points out Parisian

character types. There’s a man he iden-

tifies as a dandy from the trendy Marais

district, with a long beard, sailor shirt,

turquoise scarf. Near him, a balding

businessman hunts for a suit with his

mother, a dowager with

lips that signal contempt.

“Butmaman,this one

isn’t as good as the Saint

Laurent!” he whines as

wepass.“Justgetit,”she

snaps.

Then James spies our

target. Barely 1.5 metres

tall, with immaculately

highlighted hair and a

face moisturised into

agelessness, she repre-

sents the ultimate Pa-

risienne of eras past. Her understated

Hermès bag and high-waisted trousers

signal her identity as a matriarch of the

seventh arrondissement, Paris’s bas-

tion of inherited wealth. She roves

through the shop, picking up and then

discarding scarves, blouses, shoes, in

her search for that single object that

will bring her outfit together.

James laughs. “In Paris, even leisure

is a craft,” he says.

THE NEXT DAY,James ferries me to

Café de Flore, on Boulevard St Ger-

main. If the boulevards of the Right

Bank were the prime locations for

flâneurs of the 19th century, the café

Everything

is a symbol–

a complex

visual language

through which

Parisians

communicate