First Love - Mrs. Blandings

There are times when I feel the universe is looking out for me. While I had planned to go the lingerie show in Paris with my friend, to lend my eye and my ear for her buying trip, my design friends began to message, “Hey! I’m going for Maison & Objet and Deco Off. Let’s meet up!”

Both trade shows, for furniture and fabric, run concurrently in Paris in January. So while we were there, men’s fashion week was ending, the lingerie show was beginning, Maison & Objet and Deco Off were in full swing, and women’s fashion was getting ready to begin. “How was the weather?” a lot of people have asked me. I barely noticed the weather.

We stayed in a tiny, charming hotel in Saint-Germain staffed by a lovely gentleman named Bruno, who was indulgent of our late night arrivals (which required the ringing of a bell to rouse him) and our charger issues and our constant need for directions.

My friend and I chose the hotel together after about a minute and a half of consultation at her desk. Cosmic forces, which I think are quite powerful, plopped us right down in the midst of the fabric showrooms. Truly, I couldn’t have been happier.

During the day there were clipboards and meetings, people taking pictures and taking notes.

But many of the showrooms were open in the evenings, and while people rubbed their thumbs back and forth across the cloth gauging the hand of a fabric tossed or hung, they drank and laughed and felt the energy of being in a small room with a lot of people who understood the business of beauty.

Looking at fabric was not what I had gone to Paris to do. Even after I became aware of the show, I had not planned to go to the showrooms. But there they were, right there in my path. They called to me, a siren’s song of color and pattern and texture.

While in a significantly more charming location, the showrooms there were really no different than the ones I’ve visited here or in New York or Los Angeles or High Point. But they reawaken in me a love for the art of design.

The images, top, are of the lights strung across the streets made of fabrics from the new collections of the showrooms in Saint-Germain. The top three images I’m sure are are from Hermes; the remaining are Dedar. Do correct me if I’m wrong.