Aujourd’hui Nous Avons Marche Jusqu’au Louvre

How would you begin the story of your vacation? 

Would you start with the driver not showing up at the airport and so you had to figure out how to get to the hotel? 

Would you start with the interesting sight of the man in the row next to you saying the rosary and kissing it while you flew and then, just a few hours later, as you landed, the Jewish man in front of you wrapped his tefillin and davened while he said his morning prayers. Then he put his Dodgers baseball cap back on. 

Would you start with all the homeless men of color wandering the streets and asking for money? 

Or, would you start with your view from your taxi (that's how you got to the hotel) of the Paris Opera which is magnifique!

Non, I am going to start with my favorite moment of the day. Let me paint the picture: It was 1000 degrees in Le Louvre and there were 20 million people from all over the world trying to see five things: Victory at Samothrace, The Mona Lisa, The Coronation of Napoleon, Venus de Milo, and Liberty Guiding the People. Wanting to get away from the crowd, I decided to go see the Yves Saint Laurent exhibit.

The exhibit is in a room filled with jewels and decorative arts from Napoleon’s time.

Displaying Yves Saint Laurent’s jackets in this room was inspiring and explanatory. Also, wow! The jewels and the clothing. I turned to an Arab woman next to me and said, “You know, I see these in magazines and it is just nothing compared to seeing them up close,” and she agreed. We talked about the many times we have seen them on the runways and how they have a very different effect editorially than in person.

Although this is a different designer (Christian Lacroix), the jackets reminded me right away of this most famous Vogue cover.

Now, it’s very interesting that all of this Parisian fashion reminded me so much of New York City because it also happened when we went to the Bourse, which is the new museum donated by Henri Pinault (gazillionaire and husband of Salma Hayek). It exhibits present-day art, like this piece:

And all I could think about when I witnessed this piece was The Russian and his “light installation” from Sex and the City, so basically I found it laughable.

I thought this was ridiculous, too, but I bought a postcard of it:

All in all, a lot of fun walking from the Opera House (which is across the street from our hotel) to the Louvre then to the Bourse. Tomorrow we are touring Le Marais!