Week 26: Parc de Bagatelle

Now, I know I said I wouldn't talk about the weather anymore, but it feels necessary to make some mention of the heatwave which seems to have been sweeping the globe for the last couple of weeks. This is mostly necessary because it played a large part in deciding where this week's shoot should be!

This week, delightful boyfriend and I headed to the Parc de Bagatelle. So chosen because it was outside – and being inside is not an option in this heat – and a little bit off the beaten track so less likely to have been mobbed with tourists. For those of you who (are lucky and) don't know me – I'm a complete treasure, a TREASURE I TELL YOU… unless I am too tired/hungry/hot or need the loo. Then I can be the grumpiest being you ever did see. (Yes, just like a baby…) This means that it is a good strategy to keep me away from large groups of people who have a marked predilection for walking slowly, pausing suddenly, and taking photos often. 

Anyway, less about my foibles, more about the foliage. The Parc de Bagatelle is situated outside of central Paris, in the 16^th arrondissement's Bois de Boulogne. It forms the extensive gardens belonging to the Chateau de Bagatelle, an ex-hunting lodge which was transformed into a neoclassical playground for the aristocracy in the 18^th century. The grounds passed to the Comte d'Artois in 1775 and, following a bet with his sister-in-law (Marie-Antoinette – you might have heard of her) the chateau and its gardens were completed in under 3 months (63 days to be precise).

The name comes from the Italian word "bagattella" meaning "a trifle" or a little pretty thing. For any linguaphiles out there, the word "bagatelle" in French has now come to mean "philandering/nooky/rumpy-pumpy" as well. So now you know.

A chateau it may be, but it was considered very small at the time, as is reflected in the Horace quote which stands over the porch to the main entrance; "Parvus sed aptus", which means "small, but able". Incidentally, I'm thinking of using that as my new way to introduce myself, you know: "Hi, I'm Fran, parvus sed aptus", followed by a wink and a cheeky grin. Thoughts?

The gardens are enormous, were designed by Scotsman (woo) Thomas Blaikie, and include a pagoda, an obelisk, several waterfalls, and all sorts of fake ruins and grottoes. There is also an orangery and a rose garden and in June every year the gardens host an international competition for new breeds of rose.

In 1842 the 4^th Marquess of Hertford inherited the chateau from his father and used it to house his extensive collection of French art. Upon his death in 1870 both the chateau and the collection, along with a house in London, were passed on to his illegitimate son Sir Richard Wallace. In 1897 the art was brought over, installed in the house in London, and the Wallace Collection was born.

Due to the Anglo-Chinese style of the gardens and – to be frank, more importantly – because of the ridiculous heat, this week I opted for this simple floral dress from Apricot. I've said it before – floral dresses are not my fave. They are too simple, leave me very little to play with or embellish. However, it was 36/37 degrees this weekend. 36! I'm not sure if you know but Scots aren't really built for heat, we're not used to it. As a result, if I'm subjected to temperatures above a balmy 30° Celsius, my brain melts to a liquid not dissimilar to a fine French bouillon, and trickles out my ears.

Disgusting metaphors aside, it was too hot to be creative. Plus I love the fabric of this dress- the thick cotton makes it sturdy enough to not blow up in the breeze, but the cut means that it is held away from the body and doesn't cling. It's much shorter than I would normally go for but needs must in this heat, and I figured the slightly oriental style of the flowers would go quite well with the Chinese parts of the garden.

Dress - Apricot for New Look
Blue flats - Marks+Spencer
Wedges - New Look
Earrings - Present

I paired it with floral wedges initially, to try and invest some flair with an overload of patterns, but gave up halfway through and retreated to my faithful M+S flats. A girl's got to know her limitations. That's all for this week folks! Hope you're all enjoying the heat and the sunshine where you are and, if there isn't any chez vous at the moment, COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS, I HAVEN'T SLEPT IN DAYS.

Week 20: Giverny (Monet's Garden)

Well it turned out to be “Dressing up in Normandy”, rather than “Dressing up in Paris” this week, but we were only 50 miles out of the capital so I’m sure you’ll forgive me. Also we stayed nicely thematic, moving from an indoor garden to an outdoor one – which was just as well, since the weather was nigh on perfect this weekend. I’d also like to take this opportunity to say that I will to endeavour to stop telling you the weather every week (unless there’s a freak hailstorm again), as I suspect it’s getting a little dull. If this is your main source for the Ile de France’s forecast, I will do you the kindness of re-directing you here, in the hope that you will still come back for my fashion pizzazz and sagacity.

SO, this week we headed to the beautiful town of Giverny, nestled in the Normandy countryside, and best-known for housing one of the most famous artists of the last couple of centuries. Claude Monet noticed this charming little town whilst staring out of a train window and promptly decided he had to move there. This he duly did and lived there happily from 1883 until his death in 1926 and he is buried in the cemetery there, alongside several family members.

Drawn by both the beautiful landscape and the Monet’s presence, several American Impressionists (including Willard Metcalf, Louis Ritter, and Theodore Earl Butler – who later married Monet’s stepdaughter) came to Giverny in the late 19^th century and formed a productive little art colony until the beginning of the First World War. Nowadays there is a new wave of artists in Giverny, with a range of workshops and art classes for tourists and locals.

As the years went by, Monet developed a passion for botany, constantly searching for rare plants and exchanging them with his good friends Clemenceau and Caillebotte. He often said that most of his money went straight into his garden and many of his best paintings were of it. It has been said that Monet created his 

works twice – first he created his garden and then he painted it.

The garden at Giverny has two parts; Clos Normand and the Japanese water garden. Clos Normand was originally a walled orchard of about a hectare inside, which Monet opened up and filled with flowers. He didn’t like gardens to be too organised or cultivated, so he would just pick flowers which matched in colour and then let them grow freely. In 1893 he bought a neighbouring piece of land and turned it into a water garden, inspired by the Japanese prints he collected, and complete with lily pond. Although the current version of the famous green bridge is a reproduction, the wisteria growing over it were planted by Monet himself.

Monet’s son left the house and gardens to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1966 and it became a public museum in 1980. Now it attracts an average of 500 000 visitors a year – and it’s well worth a visit! Leaving from St. Lazare station in Paris, it is a mere 45-minute hop, skip and jump to Vernon and from there it’s a 5-10 minute taxi or bus-ride to Monet’s house. As well as strolling round the gardens you can tour the house itself which has been restored to its former glory. There is also a Museum of Impressionism just next door.

Dress - H&M
Shoes - Marks&Spencer
Shawl - present
Necklaces and bracelets - Mine and JOAR's
Ring - OC Jewelery
Sunglasses - Marks&Spencer

This week I wanted to reflect the calm, soothing aesthetic of Monet’s work in the outfit and aimed to do this with two of Spring-Summer’s hottest trends: florals and pastels. Iridescence also made a welcome appearance on the catwalk this season, and I took a few leaves out of Alberta Ferretti’s, Donna Karen’s, and (my personal favourite) Burberry Prorsum’s books and went for this lovely lilac number from the ever-wonderful H&M (seriously, why am I not their head of PR/the face of the brand yet?)

I added the scarf-cum-shawl for a floral edge, and went for pearls to keep in with the simple shimmering look and, honestly, why would you go for ONE necklace when you could go for four? Added a little glamour and drama with the bold eye make-up, courtesy of Best Friend From Land of the Brave (BFFLB) 

who was this week’s photographer.

Week 5: Musée Rodin

Between 1727 and 1732, in Paris’s 7th arrondissement, a beautiful big house was built for a wigmaker who happened to be more or less the only person to emerge  from the Law crisis (one of the worst times in history for France’s economy) with any money. Unfortunately for him the mansion – called the Hotel Biron - was only completed a year before his death, after which it was sold on and on, from person to person until 1820, when somebody had the sensible idea to place it in the capable hands of the nuns of Sacré-Cœur who turned it into a school for girls.

The school was closed in 1905 (when the French government legally separated the Church from the State) and the building split up into lodgings. The nuns’ loss became the house’s gain when the sculptor Rodin rented out some of the rooms and turned the hotel into his studio. Towards the end of his life he donated all of his sculpture to the State of France under the condition that it would turn the hotel into a museum dedicated to his work. This it did and now the hotel is one of the two sites which make up the Musée Rodin and this is where we did this week’s shoot.

Born in 1840, Auguste Rodin is widely recognised as the father  of modern sculpture. As is the fate of many great artists, fame and acclaim took their time to reach him and, although he dearly wanted academic recognition, he was never accepted into Paris’ foremost art school. Many of his most interesting works were criticised during his lifetime because they didn’t follow the generally-accepted sculptural rules; they weren’t mythological  or allegorical and lots of them didn’t even have subjects. Rodin was more interested in individual character and physicality  and he would often get his models to walk around his studio (stark-naked) rather than pose, so he could get a better idea of how they moved.

This sculpture - "The Age of Bronze" - was Rodin's first full-scale piece.
It is so realistically-proportioned that Rodin was accused of cheating
 by taking a cast of a real human body.

To pay homage to Rodin’s love of physicality, I wanted the look this week to be structured and simple, and to allow for as much freedom of movement as is possible in a floor-length ball dress... As well as its practical cut, I chose this dress because it is the perfect colour to mimic  the aged, weathered bronze out of which so many of the sculptures around the Musée and gardens are made.

The Thinker

I decided to carry on this theme with various pieces of bronze or copper jewellery which led to another home-made fashion project. When compiling the outfit, I realised I didn’t own the bronze/copper necklace which was really needed to complete it, but that I did own enough Kirby grips to make a scale model of the Eiffel Tower. SO, the necklace you can see in this shoot is a golden bird necklace from Accessorize, worn back to front with a fan shape at the front made of Kirby grips... Easy peasy!

Dress- second-hand, originally from Ghost

Earrings - Turkish shop in Edinburgh Grassmarket

As for the shoot itself, I am beginning to notice that it gets a little less scary, and a little less nerve-wracking every week. As soon as the coat was off this time, I just decided to enjoy making the bizarre shapes Josie directed me into. I think the tourists enjoyed it too, they certainly took an awful lot of photos... What’s more, we got our first sunshine in weeks, which is just as well since nothing less could have done justice to the beauty of the garden and surroundings.

This is probably Rodin's most famous statue, The Kiss.
 I hope you're all appreciating the picture, I got told off about 30 seconds after taking
this because I hadn't noticed the "No Photos" sign...