Shopping in Paris

Shopping in Paris
I had to complete the set (well only as a first world problem). Rome in April last year, New York pre-Christmas, London in the Christmas- New Year hiatus and now as our vacation (so called in the USA and I have been practising my French here and vacances is more like the Americans than out holiday) ends…Paris.
I have shopped in Paris before, many times, but I have to confess I have yet to get a handle on it. The excuse used to be that they didn’t speak English or understand my bad, Australian accented French. But now all the Parisians speak English and while I would like to (and need) the practice, I can’t put them through the agony. So no excuses as to not knowing the price, where to get the forms for the tax return (if you can bear the queues at the airport) and I have been coming here too long to say I don’t know where to go. But truly I don’t.
I have walked the streets where you have to push a bell to enter the hallowed halls of the Couture houses, even plucked the nerve to push them, enter, and pretend that three costumes only on the rack are going to be enough for me to drool over and get the cheque book out for. These items don’t have price tags and Madame and I both know I would pass out if she told me. It’s not that I don’t have genuine Thierry Mugler, Jean Paul Gaultier, Galiano and Versace (though I have more of their perfume than their clothes) but I have their ready to wear variety. I am, like most of the world, not on the list to sit next to the current Vogue editor or Anna Wintour , Victoria Beckham and Gwyneth Paultrow at the Season’s show.
I have on previous trips (the times when the sales are not on; there are regimented times for these and probably rules about how much they are allowed to discount. France is the country of red tape and maximum benefit for the shop stewards rather than the shopper) decided Galleries Layfette has been too expensive and searched for something else. I have found shopping centres, one at least which was positively basic and ordinaire and not selling anything that the Parisienne women I saw were wearing. I also found somewhere underground (Les Halles) where I might find things my children would wear (and that I could afford).
But today I thought I would return to Galleries Layfette. I mean the map has them all over it, the only thing I can locate without reading glasses though I am familiar enough with Paris that this is where me feet lead me, no matter which new arrondissment my husband thinks we need to try out a new hotel in. Me, I’d choose Esmeralda opposite Notre Dame on the left bank. Quaint, poet sized over priced rooms but what the hell. It’s Paris. I’ve yet to have a room I could swing a cat in. Not that I would but I often end up with cat pictures, clocks, and ornaments from the one shop for cute things I would highly recommend, in fact several shops in one street, the only street really, on the island you get to from Notre Dame, near also the bridge with all the locks on it left my lovers. Another overpriced too small hotel there I adore too; Deux Isles.
So Galleries Layfayette. On par size wise with Bloomingdales, smaller than Macy’s and larger than Liberty, and glitzier than any of these, at sales time it’s akin to feeling like you are in the middle of a herd of bison at mating time. Not pretty. I say bison because you can hear the Americans shouting directions over each other, but I have been away from Australia long enough that it is their accents that I pick out and that grate. Do I really sound like that? And they are hopping around a plenty. One rather imagines that the French know better, that there is somewhere else they go and get the real the real bargains.
It is day four of the sales (soldes). Everything is open on Sunday for this very reason. My husband has decided a hotel (called L’Hotel) new street in the sixth, and I have to waste several moments in it. However small it is exquisite in leopard skin (matches my hat, gloves and lingerie…) and they are incredibly accommodating. They have just the restaurant for us and send us off with a map. We are distant enough from the tourist hub that when we have oysters (the only thing on the menu and in a shop the size of a postage stamp) we are surrounded by locals (including a young group who had perhaps started the day in Amsterdam if you get my meaning…) and the oysters are excellent and the Chablis crisp and big the way I like it. But GF is looking a long way away…
Then I happen on some streets off Bvld St Germaine, all with Soldes signs and excited French women. I go in. I could take virtually anything. Exactly the stuff I like, one size it seems- mine. The prices are…brilliant. I arrived in New York on carry-on and left that way because the kids took the extra suitcase home. London wasn’t a problem because we were on the Eurostar. Tomorrow returning? Okay I will have to check luggage and it’s time for another Camino (planning the next one to Rome) to remind me I don’t need so many clothes.