Happy Valentines from the city of Love

I wish I grew up here.  I wish that all you guys; family, friends, could just be transplanted here, and we all spoke French and had our own little community.  It just feels right here, that people just know how to live.  They’re so loving with each other.  I love how friends kiss each others cheeks when they greet.  I saw these two girls about 13, with looks of being drunk on happiness, one leaning into the other sitting, swinging on a chain of one of the fences that border street corners.  They have less of a need of “space”, they like affection.  And I love how cute couples are with eachother.  It’s just very sweet and romantic.  They’ll stop by a wall of a sidewalk and just talk, kiss a little, and look at each other so that you can really tell they enjoy eachother’s company 100%, no distractions.  Sometimes it’s gross, though, like this couple I saw the other day who were eating each others faces AS they walked down the street…or the couple directly above my apartment who very vocally go at it all night long, and sometimes wake me up at 3 in the morning.  And if you know me, I’ve slept through a gunshot before.  It takes quite some noise/disturbance to wake me up.  It’s disgusting.  Anyway, haha, Paris just has got it going on.  It’s all very local, there’s not many big chains, and the fresh local stuff is usually the cheapest.  In the supermarket, most recycled “green” (vert) things are cheaper.  And for a big city, it seems really safe.  I don’t hear police or ambulances very often, and I’ll see girls who are like 14 years old hanging out around town at around 11-12 pm. People don’t really drink to get drunk, there’s not so much of a bar scene, but rather just chill cafes where you go at night with a friend or two.  And girls actually cover themselves up and dress for the weather when they go out at night.  And kids will take the metros by themselves.  For being a big city, people seem to be looking out for each other, and they’re just pretty responsible for themselves.  I'm in love with this city, it'll be my date for valentines -- the whole city, all of it.  The thing is, I want to be a part of it!   I almost feel like a ghost.  A third party observing and being fascinated with the living.  Whenever I make my presence known (with my awfully accented French) it’s always throws em a little off kilter, too.  It’s embarrassing.  I’m going to be so nice to any future exchange students and invite them to go do things because the language barrier makes it so hard to meet locals!

A couple days ago we went to a sewing fair type thing that had an exposition on Haute Couture.  We went with our Haute Couture teacher, Muriel Ivagnes, who speaks very little English who worked for Nina Ricci Haute Couture for 29 years.  I forgot to put my battery in my camera, so I couldn’t take pictures of the delicately sturdy wedding dresses we saw!  Usually every Haute Couture fashion show ends with a wedding dress, it’s the grand finale, and we saw I think three.  They looked like they were made out of spiderwebs and feathers, they were a little avante garde for my taste, but definite works of art.  It's kind of mind blowing and overwhelming.  We saw a video on the whole production process of the latest chanel haute couture collection.  I don’t know how these ladies do it.  It’s a sweatshop even in the highest end of clothing making.  They only make about 10 garments, but it still forces them to only get a couple hours of sleep every night in order to get it all done in time.  They’re hands are like machines, and every bit of it has to fit like second skin so it feels like you’re wearing nothing even when you have 15 meters of fabric in a dress.

In my pattern making class, my prof who specializes in costume brought in some original 18^th century clothing that common people would wear that she just acquired.  She asked a volunteer to try it on, so that she could take pictures of it on a body, and I was the only one who raised my hand.  They made clothes that fit so much better back then.  The seams are a completely different placement than what we have on our clothes right now, they curve with the curves of the body, giving it a much better fit.  Even with all the fabric, I really liked the way it fit.  It made me have shape.  After that she taught us how to make a “ruff”, those tutu type dog collars people like queen Elizabeth and such would wear around their neck.  My teacher is so cute, I love her, she’s a blonde soft lady, and she says “cloz-es” for “cloths”.  Imagine in a sweet cute French accent: “Zey would wear zeir clozes like zis”  …So fricken endearing.

 And today we went to Premiere Vision, that textile show that has fabrics for designers to use in their collections two years from now.  Awesome.  But they’re not too keen on students, they like the buyers, and this was the bitter end of it and the last day.  Still, I pushed my luck.  Just to make things clear, this is a place where buyers from companies can order/buy no less than a large quantity minumum of yardage/meterage.  I figured, it’s the last day, those who are going to buy have already bought, and we just got an assignment to make a purse by the end of the year, so I asked a sales rep from a leather company if they had any extra stock, and it may be a long shot, but could I have it?  She said yes and got my name and address.  I’ll only have to pay for shipping and handling.  I asked her what sort of thing I might get and she said maybe some lamb, baby cow, elk.  This is leather for two years from now!  Nice stuff, I saw some samples.  My teacher who went with us said a girl did the same thing a few years ago and made all of her assignments from it.  I doubt I will, but maybe I’ll have some extra leather that will inspire me to finally figure out how to make boots.  I patted myself on the back, though, because no one else from our school group got any fabric.  I had some cocky thoughts that I should’ve tried at more places.  Who knows if they’ll actually follow through and send it to me, though.

Up for the weekend: flea market, pastry buying and nicer dinner for valentines, and dancing in the marais district (which is the gay neighborhood)

I have no food report, I’ve been eating at home, I’m so used to being stingy after saving up for this for two years.  That, and it’s freezing, snowing, and raining over here, so I’m not too inspired to go out.  I did find my sandwich shop today, though, with the perfect baguette (not too chewy, not too soft, not too crunchy so that it tears up the roof of your mouth), real, well roasted cold cuts of chicken, tomato, lettuce, good cheese, and some sort of condiment that must have crack in it cause it’s sooooo good.

This one’s even longer….sorry!  Happy Valentines.