Power
Paris has its new sun king
Paris is back, polished, renovated and adorned with gold.
Paris is back, polished, renovated and given a thick layer of gold; it's the city that matters again. There is clearly plenty of money. Unfortunately, not everything is for sale.Text: Ivo Weyel | Online editor: Fleur de Jong
Image: Herman van Heusden'Modèle d'exposition' is written on the sign next to the bag in the Paris Hermès store. So the bag is not for sale, it is only there for viewing. Even when I want to grab a bottle of Rocabar, my favorite scent that is running out at home, I come across such a sign. “No, Rocabar is currently out of stock,” I am told, “but of course we can put you on the waiting list.” Look, look, don't buy is the prevailing slogan of the new shopping. I was in Paris and saw these signs in almost all brand stores. In fact, there was nothing for sale in the enormous Rolex store on the Champs Elysées. I asked about the entry-level model (six grand) that was only recently introduced, but that is also no longer for sale. Totally sold out. Yes, said the store owner, in the resale circuit. Less than a month after its introduction, it is now offered everywhere for nine grand. Supply and demand. Creating scarcity, as the diamond industry has been doing for decades, simply withholding items and compiling waiting lists. And it works: there wasn't a brand store in Paris that didn't have lines, from early in the morning until closing time. Even though there was hardly anything for sale inside.
Gold sprayed gorilla
Welcome to the new Paris, richer than ever. In recent months, the city has used the corona restrictions and lockdowns to completely clean up, renovate and renew everything. With astonishing results: there are brand new museums and dozens of museums that have been completely renovated, there are new restaurants and old ones that have been restored to their new glory (Napoleon III makes way for Louis XVI again), the gold leaf shines everywhere, in new department stores , on facades, in hotels and galleries. Paris is becoming the new capital. Also in the field of art, now that London has become difficult due to Brexit and New York (America) closed its borders. I inquire about a gold-sprayed gorilla at a gallery at the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, cast from a mold by a promising artist who continuously makes gorillas in all sizes and colors (as long as there is gold in them), so shit art, but nice on the dresser. Costs from ten thousand euros. Take it immediately? Unfortunately. A waiting list.
Pyramids pastel colored macarons
Upon arrival at the Gare du Nord we don't have to wait. We are met by a driver who guides us through everything and takes us to Le Grand Controle whizzes, a new hotel in Versailles, located in a side wing of Louis' castle. For years this part looked lost and abandoned, a ruin that no one knew what to do with, until the luxurious hotel group Airelles was allowed to operate it as an exclusive hotel and started renovating it with gusto. Five years and fifty million euros later, superlatives do not do justice to the result, not least because around nine hundred original pieces of furniture from Louis' time were bought at auctions all over the world, preferably furniture that had actually once stood here. The hotel has only fourteen suites (ours was once home to the French-Swiss novelist Madame de Staël, who did not - like me - look out from her bath over the Orangerie and Les Cent Marches, the staircase with a hundred steps, simply because she did not had a bath), so a maximum of twenty-eight guests can stay there. With a workforce of one hundred men and women. No wonder it is teeming with helpful hands, most of the time wearing white gloves that match the clothing that is indebted to a Louis, although it is not entirely clear to me which ones exactly, because they are embroidered with imagination. There are pyramids of pastel-colored macarons throughout the hotel if you get hungry along the way, with compliments from Alain Ducasse, perhaps France's most famous chef who is in charge of the kitchen here.
MASTERS MAGAZINE
Want to read more of this article? The spring issue of MASTERS celebrates regained freedom after two years of corona. The value of this is underlined by developments in eastern Europe, where the freedom of an entire people is at stake. We live in a new reality, but we can make plans again, go out for dinner, meet people. The world is turning again! Only: which way? Time for new bridges, new initiatives. What this edition of MASTERS offers inspiration for.
