Toulouse: Young, relaxed, colorful

Toulouse: young, relaxed, colorful, and loads of vintage and depots/vente!

I am now in Toulouse for the spring season, with another group of students and another city to explore.

It was at the Marché Saint-Aubain that I first realized that I was no longer in Lyon. This is the south, and in the south, there are many more markets per square foot, and more people to observe. Markets have clothes, loads of cheap clothes. Markets are also good places to wear cool clothes.

(am wearing the last purchase I made in Lyon at "Des Habits et Vous", machine washable silk skirt).

I could just sit at cafes all day and snap away at the movement, the flow, the lightness of people here.


I’ve discovered two vintages shops and a handful of consignment shops.

I spent a bit of time at one called “Au choix de Sophie” ("At Sophie's Choice," or "Sophie's Selection") located on the tiny rue des Gestes, on the back side of the enormous temple of books, Ombres Blanches.

I asked the owner if that was her name, and she said yes. I’m not sure I would choose that name for my consignment shop even if my name were Sophie. But once I began chatting with the owner, it occurred to me that her controversial choice of name for her shop, pardon more unfortunate punning, reflected her own persona.

We talked about over consumption and the pathology of women who can’t control their buying urges. It’s one thing to shop, it’s quite another to buy uncontrollably. Retail therapy vs. clothes bulimia.

On a second trip to her shop, we discussed the progress I was making in getting to know the city of Toulouse. The tiny little meandering streets; the used book shops (found the used bande dessinée store, the owner is a bit taciturn but his shop is well stocked); the ambidextrous bookseller on Place du Salin.

Sometimes, ladies, we must choose this one OR that one, or not to buy at all today, this week, this month. Yet I succumbed to temptation. But my rule of thumb is that it cannot exceed thirty euros. I bought a black skirt that was still considered a winter item, so it was half price. It has pockets and pleats, several fabrics mixed so nicely together, and a comfortable elastic waist.

The following visit to Sophie's Choice, I bought a cotton jacket, after having looked obsessively for one in new and used clothing shops. It was when I examined the washing instructions to a jacket at Zara (it actually read "do not wash") that I realized how some clothes are really made to be worn a few times and then tossed away. "Do not ever wash." Wear it until it smells really bad, and then throw it away. Or perhaps it's made of such cheap materials that the jacket is more likely to fall apart, perhaps even disintegrate, before it has a chance to reek.

So Chez Sophie, I succumbed once again, after having negotiated for a better price, because indeed, a pink leather bag from the previous owner had left some stains on the left shoulder and bottom right pocket.

Sophie asked me to make my blog readable for French readers as well. So in the next several weeks, I will attempt to do just that. A good exercise for my bilingual brain.

Spring color in London suburbs

A very quick trip to London spawned no visits to consignment shops, but much delight in finding splashes of botanical and sartorial color in and around Kew Gardens.

Thrifting in the Marais in early March

This past weekend I met up in Paris with my old school friend Carla. We agreed to meet in the Marais neighborhood, near the Place des Vosges. On a Saturday afternoon, the ambience was reminiscent of Soho in New York: the sidewalks filled with people shopping.

We stumbled upon a vintage market which was packed with stuff and people. Overall it was a bit difficult to browse, but Carla managed to spot a dress that was reminiscent of a 1970s career woman like Mary Tyler Moore, who remains one of her idols. It also felt sort of White House in the 1960s -- something that Jackie might have worn.

Nothing was jumping out at me, probably because too much was jumping out at me at the same time. We did wander into a bead shop that sold mostly semi-precious stones. I asked the crew of Chinese salespeople whether they could put a clasp on three strings of very small smokey quartz beads, which they did for a mere five euros.

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The next day I visited friends who live just south of Paris, near Melun. They drove me to Milly la Forêt where we visited the house of Jean Cocteau, the artist, author and filmmaker known for his imaginative adaptation of "The Beauty and the Beast." Cocteau himself was quite the dandy.

In the town of Milly la Forêt there was also a "brâderie" or antiques market in an old grain hall.

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Back in Lyon, it's spring, and I'm starting to pack my bags. I stopped by "Des Habits et Vous," the consignment shop I have mentioned before, where I found a silk skirt that I could wear into the next season without having it add much weight to my suitcase. I wish I could have captured on tape the ambiance in the shop. A woman with a very short hair cut and Doc Martensesque boots was trying to decide between a bright pink knit dress and a black one. She opted for the pink one. She looked great in both. While trying on jackets, another woman shared her weight fluctuations caused by pregnancy and quitting smoking. I love the way we all end up sharing the same mirror and a little bit about ourselves.

Each time I walk into "Des Habits et Vous" the radio is playing "France Culture," the French equivalent of NPR. Yesterday, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Algerian independence from France, the theme was the "Harki" or Algerian native who fought alongside the French during the war of Independence. Let's just say that having people analyzing the problematic identity of the Harki as background sound to looking at clothes alters the experience. From self-indulgent to what, it's difficult to say. After the program on the Harki there was a historical analysis of hypnosis. That one I completed blocked out as I was trying on clothes. I realize that the owner of the shop wants to listen to something while she sits in her shop all day long. Perhaps she could alternate between France Culture and France Musique, just to have a little bit less talk, and a little more music?

Next stop: Toulouse! What consignment shops are awaiting me there? And what sounds have they chosen as background noise?

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Overall, this winter I wore the same clothes, the same shoes, the same coat or jacket, day after day, without that feeling of weariness I had experienced in previous years. Maybe some wisdom comes with age, like putting in the suitcase clothes that are well made and so comfortable that they become "classics" on my body. I feel like I am carving out a "look"that fits my personality and makes me feel confident. I'm not sure that I could reduce this look to a "Mary Tyler Moore/White House in the '60s" aura, I'm not sure that my look even has an aura. Comfort comes first, funky comes second, fitting in comes last. I stay safely within the earth tones and the greys. Purple means I'm going out on a limb. I do wish I weren't so afraid of color...

doppelganger

Sunny albeit windy Sunday in Lyon. I biked up to the Musée d'Art Contemporain otherwise known as le MAC to see a retrospective of post-pop artist Robert Combas. I had to take a detour through the park to catch sight of

future bourgeois maman already assuming the pose,

pelicans enjoying the sun,

before viewing the art of an artist who quite frankly was cranking them out fast and furious.

Upon leaving the museum I encountered my doppelgänger riding a bike no less: Love the pink skirt with the leggings and the short boots! Oh how I wish I had a black blazer here with me in Lyon. One more thing that I did not pack in the suitcase.

Paris with Clara

Paris with Clara means books, old books preferably, museums,theater,

architecture, deciphering Latin phrases on monuments, and of course old clothes, as in ... vintage! We found a vintage store that was open right at noon, which is not a very vintagy time to be open, but nonetheless it was.

We stumbled upon it just north of Les Halles. It had quite a varied selection of skirts, blouses, pants, leather bags, and shoes. Clara has been trying on suede and leather skirts lately. She won't eat the animal but she doesn't mind wearing it, especially if it's been dyed purple or blue. We passed up a blue leather number because we felt it was priced a bit too steep.

Clara in Lyon

Many vintage stores here in Lyon, and I showed just a few to Clara to help fight off her jet lag. This place called "Chez les Morues" (at the house of cods...) on Rue Romarin doubles as a café, and also sells new, locally made bags and a few new clothes. That's where my friend Elsa found her white leather (vintage) shoulder bag, and where I found the (new) pants I wore in Paris. Clara, as always, is wearing her White River Junction Salvation Army best. The coat however, is new.

Vintage market, Bron

This weekend the Lyon suburb of Bron inaugurated a winter vintage market. My fellow "vintager" friend Elsa and I checked it out. She and I had spent a bit of time the evening before in Lyon proper checking out the vintage shops. That's where she purchased the little white purse she is carrying around the vintage market.

She also happens to be wearing old Daniel Hechter leather boots she found at her mother's before traveling to Lyon from Paris.

I found a small purple coin purse at the market today, that actually has a baby coin purse hiding inside. We celebrated at one of the few brasseries open on Sunday in the city.

On our way back to the apartment, we stopped at the book stalls along the Rhône where the booksellers were freezing in sub-zero temperatures. Used books and used clothes: same people.

During these last months in Lyon, I've been learning to wear the clothes I brought in my suitcase. It's been very cold for the last few weeks, and I am very grateful to have a coat that keeps me warm and a pair of boots that are both comfortable and reliably warm, even when I bike. But I am slowly beginning to grow tired of the few clothes I brought with me to Lyon that are true winter clothes, and longing for some other clothes sitting in my closet back home. I don't want to buy any more clothes here, partly because I already have, and partly because I know that this weather won't last, and it's just a matter of getting used to wearing the same clothes day after day.

Which makes me think of people who do that all the time. And people who struggle in other ways. This cold weather has made me long for Asian spicy food, which brings me into Vietnamese restaurants run by young couples or extended families. And more often than not, they have young children. These children must behave a certain way in order for the restaurant to run smoothly. They must stay in their strollers, or if old enough, sit at a table and keep busy, or, as in the case of the first restaurant we went to, be put to bed in a back room from which we could hear the little boy cry during the entire meal.

It is heartbreaking for a western mother to witness such expectations of discipline, but I also understand that this is how the Vietnamese survive in the restaurant business. I am grateful that they are there to serve me spicy food for which my body is very grateful. And I smile at the little boy in his stroller, and wave and say "bonjour" and ask his mom his name ("Andy"), and how old he is. And I go home in my same old coat and my same old boots, satisfied with what life has offered me.