Voici Paris, a dream of Haute Couture!

                       

Paris, September 2025

My Dearest,

After that false start two months ago, when some vagrants were stealing high speed track cables, I didn't even know that was a thing, and my train was unceremoniously cancelled at 5 am, I am pleased to report that I have at last made it to Paris. One must accept, I suppose, that even the most exciting journeys sometimes stumble at the first step. Still, it made my eventual arrival feel all the more like a small triumph.

My very first stop, was Petit Palais. To finally see the Worth exhibition, a gathering of the master’s greatest creations, assembled from across the globe and from quite a few private collections. To stand before them, under that painted ceiling, was almost overwhelming. Worth has long been one of the chief personas that fuelled my love for haute couture, and to see such a assembly of his beauty together in one space was profoundly moving. It felt, if I may say so, like being in the presence of history not as an abstraction, but as a living, breathing beauty.

I confess there was a moment, that was very much my own, when I felt nearly emotional. It is not every day one encounters the garments, paintings and objects that shaped one’s imagination in youth, the very stitches of the dream that set one on the path of beauty, craftsmanship and elegance. For me, it was as though the room itself whispered back all the reasons I fell in love with couture in the first place. Those endless evenings when I was a teenager and I would bring my books downstairs to attend my parent's Friday or Saturday evening soirees, only to sit in the corner or on the rug, as I still do from time to time. To have my own little private carpet picnic with fifty people around and be absorbed by yards of silk and exquisitely shaped dresses. I knew all of them by heart and have been lucky enough to have seen quite a few of them already. but it was high time that the founder of Haute Couture received his own solo exhibition. It was a dream!

From there, my path led to the MAD, where Paul Poiret awaited me in all his flamboyance. It was another revelation, the sweep from fin de siècle to modernism, from orientalism to the birth of a new silhouette, hobbling of course, haha! The rooms glowed with colour and patterns and illustrations, textiles alive with the rhythm of far-off lands reimagined through Parisian eyes. To see how he drew inspiration from across the globe and fashioned it into something so unmistakably of his time was nothing short of inspiring and innovating, something, I feel they don't do anymore today. Today they just add a pseudo deep conceptual story to it in the hope it hides their lack of inspiration.

I couldn’t help but think, as I wandered through, what a time it must have been to be alive in Paris then: the city in full bloom, vibrating with invention, couture as daring as jazz, art deco and modernism on the cusp of exploding and everything touched with that intoxicating confidence of the modern age being born whilst being swathed in wraps of refinement and knowhow.

And yet, after so many impressions, Worth’s grandeur, Poiret’s audacity, I found myself almost undone by beauty. My eyes and my thoughts were saturated, my emotions verging on exhaustion. What I needed, quite desperately, was not another encounter with a genius, but a simple, restorative lunch.

As I crossed the river, still dazed from so much splendour, I allowed myself the smallest pause at one of my favourite brasseries, a haunt, incidentally, also cherished by one of my favourite photographers. There, I did the only proper thing and ordered a Kir Royal. The first sip, reviving and just the right shade of pink, seemed to rinse my mind of velvet and fur and heavy embroidery, readying me instead for the infinitely more delicate art of observation.

From there, I crossed the road to what I often call, my Parisian headquarters, or at least one of them. Lunch unfolded in that most perfect of ways. I ordered a steak tartare since I didn't have enough of that during my holiday in Normandy, a glass of Burgundy, and a millefeuille with coffee for pudding. The sort of meal that leaves one both fortified and gloriously idle.

The true entertainment, however, was in the theatre around me: an elderly English couple sending photographs off to grandchildren via WhatsApp, a quartet of terribly elegant Japanese girlfriends having the most marvellous time, and a local family anchored by their grandparents, sharing afternoon laughter over a late lunch. And then there was me, ensconced in my usual corner, processing all that I had just witnessed and dining in the company of ghosts, with a mind full of conversations with people who had been dead at least fifty years, if not longer. This is no news to you, I know...

At length, I rose, fortified, restored, and quietly amused. As always, before departing, I inspected the telephone booth, for I am firmly of the opinion that every respectable Art Deco brasserie ought to possess one. A tiny ritual, perhaps, but one that pleases me immensely, a reminder that elegance resides as much in the smallest of details as in the grand gestures.

From there, I allowed myself a leisurely walk, after quite a substantial meal, crossing the river once more. My steps carried me toward the Russian Cathedral, its gilded domes gleaming against the sky, a sudden apparition of old empire transplanted into the heart of Paris.

I am always terribly impressed by the Nevsky Cathedral. Each time I stand before it, I cannot help but imagine all that it has witnessed: the visit of the Tsar in the gilded days, the long procession of White Russian émigrés after the Revolution, men and women who carried their lives in their coatpockets, their keepsakes and memories folded among the few silks and icons the were able to bring with them, arriving in a strange world yet making it somehow their own. How many marriages, how many funerals have been consecrated within those walls; I myself even witnessed one not so long ago.

The splendour of the interior leaves one quite breathless, the gilding, the incense, the murmured prayers that seem to hang forever in the air, layer upon layer. I lit a candle, for her and for others, and allowed myself a quiet moment of contemplation, surrounded by the ghosts of old Russia in Paris, strange times no doubt. It is impossible not to feel their presence in such a place, as if history itself has chosen to stand in the room alongside you.

From the cathedral I wandered into my most beloved streets, those corners of Paris where memory and habit conspire to make every doorway familiar. I slipped into my favourite bookshops, naturally acquiring volumes I did not strictly need but immediately declared essential, a form of self-deception in which I am happily complicit and then almost regret when I get home, but not quite.

Crossing the Avenue Montaigne on my way to one of my favourite Paris Moderne haunts, when I was stopped by the most charming boy and his boyfriend, who, it seemed, follow me on the socials. How sweet they were, warm, courteous, a little shy and seemed terribly clever, and how terribly flattering I always find it when someone approaches me in such a way. It felt like a fleeting moment of recognition in a city which is technically not my own like London is.

From there I allowed myself a pre-travel cocktail, a much-needed pause after the dazzling boutiques and endless streets and alll the books I wanted to buy, but didn't, but for a few... The setting, a mirrored and gilded hall filled with the delightful murmur of voices, the approving glances of fellow patrons, and perhaps one of the the last vestiges of the old world that doesn't sell ramen or other horrible things, was balm to the spirit. It always reminds me of what the dining room of the Île de France must have looked like: the golden panels, the sense of ceremony, as though one were forever returning from New York to the Old World through a gentle swell. For me, at least, it was all smooth sailing.

From there I visited a few more shops; windswept and curly-haired, I wandered through the streets of my beloved Faubourg and slowly made my way back to the Gare du Nord, for it was nearly time for departure after my cocktail and little aperitivo aboard the imagined Île de France.

As I boarded the train and settled into my seat, I felt that familiar joy at the thought of returning to London, yet I carried with me, as always so many happy memories, impressions of beautiful things and places, and those delightful chance encounters that make Paris such an inexhaustible treasure. I adore these trips, for one always returns brimming with inspiration.

But you know what they say, dearest: the best thing about Paris… is London!

Speak soon, and I do hope you are well.

Mille tendresse,

F.