Photos by Nicolas Calcott for Paris By Appointment Only™

If you asked Parisians ten years ago what Pilates (pronounced “Pilottes”) was, they would have answered you with their habitual I-have-no-idea-what-you’re-talking-about-you-may-as-well-come-from-Mars shoulder shrug and dismissive lip fart.

But oh how the times have changed. Now, almost every sports club and well-being center is offering some kind of Pilates class, just like every grocery store these days has some kakamayme organic product line that they’re pushing. The point is that finding a fabulous, authentic, personalized Pilates studio in Paris can be as costly as it is exhausting. But now you can save your Euros and your breath because I have the Pilates pro for you!

Long, lean, strong and supple, American-raised, Paris-based Annie Venier is a walking and talking advertisement for Pilates.  As well she should be, she’s been doing it now for close to fifteen years. Venier fell into the discipline quite literally by accident. After a running injury knocked her off her feet, she found herself in search of a deep, therapeutic strength-building alternative. She got hooked immediately, and before long quit her job to pursue a new career as a Pilates professional.

Certified by The Pilates Center of Boulder Colorado, Venier moved to Paris in 2003 and opened up her one-woman Pilates studio two years ago. Located on the second floor of a residential building near the Jardin du Luxembourg, her word-of-mouth studio is as discreet and private as it gets. The two-room studio has a sun-filled space with a Reformer machine and lots of accessories, while the Fame-like dance room next door is used for group mat classes.

Venier is a fun, straight-talking professor whose prior-life as a painter has a tendency to creep into her descriptive vocabulary. She may asked you to hug Pavorotti, walk in goo, slide like a piece of ham between two slices of bread, or grow giant feet while you’re doing one of the various exercises she has incorporated into your personalized Pilates routine.

So what is Venier’s unique approach to this method invented by Joseph Pilates in the 1920s? Here’s Venier’s list of the top 5 benefits to pursuing Pilates.

1. Healing the body and preventing injuries: “I didn’t go into Pilates with a perfect healthy body so when I look at someone who has a fear of movement due to pain, I can relate to that. For me, Pilates is therapeutic. With each client I try to create a program that will not only make their body look great, but help them feel better in that body too. Pilates creates a structure that will keep you pain-free and teaches you habits that will prevent you from twisting, pulling your back or moving carelessly.”

2. Breaking routines and building a healthy system: “We ordinarily use our large muscle groups when we work out. Pilates is about creating a total-body healthy system, which means that all of the little pieces that link together with the big muscles also have to be strong and healthy. There are all sorts of little muscles that we never use because we do the same thing over an over again. Pilates gets you out of your routine, and helps you discover all of these tiny balancing and deep core muscles.”

3. Feeling and seeing the results of improved balance: “Pilates gives you balance between your muscles and your bones and your relationship to gravity. You feel centered, and your body becomes more symmetrical. When the joints are aligned and everything is falling into place, it’s attractive. You have long, lean, sculpted muscles. A balanced body is a beautiful body.”

4. Increasing your strength: “Pilates teaches you how to recruit core strength, which for an athlete, or anyone who wants to be stronger in what they’re doing, is fantastic.  Be it golfing, or swimming, or tennis or just hauling shopping bags up stars, it gives you a much more performant body. Because you’ve learned how to connect your hands and your feet with your core, this additional powerhouse now fuels any activity you do.”

5. Breathing, centering and self-awareness: “We get more of our energy from breathing than anything else. Pilates helps you use your breath, its rhythm and the rhythm of the body to calm down and to listen to what your body needs.”

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Schedule: private and group classes with Annie Venier are by appointment only.
Prices: From 65€ for a private class to 25€ for group class when you purchase a 10-session card.
Contact:  lepetitstudiobis@yahoo.fr, tel: + 33 6 98 12 64 18

Photos by Fabrice Fortin for Paris by Appointment Only™

Even though they live in the capital of couture, most Parisians can’t sew a stitch. Like most countries, France kicked home economics to the curb decades ago. Since hardly any one knows how to shorten a hem, fix a button, or take in a seam, you can find a retoucheur on practically every Parisian corner. But all that is about to change thanks to Sweat Shop, a new creative collective in the residential 10^th whose mission is to teach Parisians how to make and customize their own clothes.

Filled with revamped 60s school desks, a large central worktable, vintage sewing patterns, pools of colorful yarn, top-of-the-line Singer sewing machines and an adorable chill-out corner with sweet treats, Sweat Shop is a fun communal space where work equals wardrobe.

“The idea is to encourage people to buy less, make things for themselves and recycle what they already own,” explains fashion designer Sissi Holleis, who came up with the out-of-the-box concept with makeup artist Martena Duss.

Sweat Shop functions like a cyber café; only instead of computers you have sewing machines at your disposal. You can rent a machine by the hour and stop by anytime during the week and work on that little design of yours if you know what you’re doing. Or you can sign-up for one of the five thematic workshops that are available each week, and have one of the experts on hand teach you the ropes.

While I’ve never as much as sewn a hem, I’m already obsessing about the 70s YSL jumpsuit that I’m going to make using one of the vintage Vogue patters available for rent.

What to expect at Sweat Shop:

Atelier Ouvert (2H): From beginners to the highly advanced, anyone is welcome. All you need to do is bring your supplies to fix that winter coat lining, make a dress, or copy a pair of your favorite slacks, and your professor will guide you through your project.

Atelier Enfants (2H): Put that kid to work! This introduction course teaches children how to knit, crochet and sew by hand as well as by machine. Think of how much money and time you’ll save when your little tike knows how to hem his own pants or sew back buttons that have fallen off.

Atelier Tricot (2H): Every Tuesday night Sweat Shop turns into a knitting circle during this two hour all-level class.

Atelier Custom (4H): Ripped jeans, cut-off Ts, studded leather jackets, it all sounds so easy, but think again. Customization is the subtle art of glamorous destruction. So let the Queen of customization, Vava Dudu, guide you through the death and rebirth of your favorite frocks.

Atelier Mlle Kou (7H): Mlle Kou, aka Céline Dupuy, swings by the shop once a week to give this all-day couture workshop which starts with an original pattern, is punctuated with tea and snacks prepared by Bob’s Juice Bar next door and ends with you walking away with a fabulous handmade design.

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Prices: Click here for a list of prices.

A Florida expat with spitfire spunk and a Southern drawl as thick as molasses, Wendy Lyn is not your typical Parisienne (hallelujah to that!). What she is, however, is every foodie’s fantasy come true. For an inside taste of Paris, join this culinary go-to-gal on one of her fabulous food walks.

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When Wendy Lyn moved to Paris twenty years ago she found herself living out a foodie version of the book series, Eloise. Instead of the Plaza hotel, she had the famous Paris bakery Poilâne as her delectable dominion. With the luscious scent of buttery pastries as her alarm clock, she’d run down from her chambre de bonne on the top floor of the bakery to pick up apple turnovers or sourdough country bread fresh out of the wood-burning ovens.

Often she’d be invited to join the owners and staff in the adorable dining room behind the shop for breakfast under a bread chandelier. Call it crazy, call it fate, call it freaking unfair, this mouthwatering set-up sparked Wendy’s incurable passion for food—its origins, its producers, its purveyors and its best Paris addresses.

Today, Wendy’s got the city’s culinary circuitry running through her veins. With the speed of a 1920s switchboard operator she can plug you in to the latest hotspot, make an impossible reservation, or have your sipping Champagne with a three-star Michelin chef. When she’s not doing all of the above for her international clientele of gastronomic journalists, professional chefs, and restaurant owners, she’s leading lip-smacking food safaris and wine crawls through Paris.

So on one of the coldest days of the year, I bundle up to meet Wendy and a family from Chicago (I blamed them for the weather) for a winter wonderland tasting tour through St. Germain des Près. Leading us on a side street passed a bagel stand that I, the New York native, had never heard of (!!), we arrive in front of Wendy’s first apartment above the Poilâne bakery. Standing there, she gives us a primer on the history of the site, explaining that it was originally a 17th century monastery before it was purchased by the Poilâne family in 1932, and that during WWII hungry artists nearby would barter paintings, many of which are on display in the secret dining room inside, in exchange for a steady supply of fresh bread.

Once inside, we’re led down a stone staircase to the ancient wood-burning ovens to see how the famous miche bread is made. “Every time you eat piece of Poilâne bread, you’re tasting a part of history,” says Wendy, explaining that not only the recipe, but also the starter is the same as the first batch of Poilâne loaves from 1932.

Light dusted with flour, we take our appetites upstairs to pick up some shortbread punitions before heading down the street to another benchmark in edible history: Debauve & Gallais, the first chocolate shop in Paris. There, Wendy tells a brilliant behind-the-scenes story about how Dr. Debauve, the royal pharmacist to Marie Antoinette, was asked by her doctor to hide the Queen’s meds in something sweet (she did marry at fourteen, remember).

He “started goofing around, putting medicine in chocolate along with rose petals, earl grey tea, honey, orange blossoms and rolled them into shapes,” says Wendy. They were such a hit at Versailles that they had to be hidden in hollowed out books in the library to keep the staff from stealing them. Which lead to another problem: them melting together. So, the chocolate box as we know it today is actually the pillbox of yesteryear: a way to keep the Queen’s gout and flu medication separate. Go figure!

Skipping ahead two centuries in chocolate history, we enter the cutting-edge kingdom of master chocolatier Pascal Caffet with his hot pink eclairs, single origin, single bean, single plantation Venezuelan bars, and salted caramel, chocolate-covered crispy treats that Wendy appropriates declares “as good as sex!”

After a quick stop into the Ladurée’s secret gift shop, we’re ready for a savory salve to all those sweets. Within minutes we’ve got the most delicious mulled-wine I’ve ever tasted warming our insides while we speak with the purveyors at the delectable oyster and Champagne stand at the annual St. Sulpice Christmas fair.

We’re told to save our appetites for something that’s going to knock our socks off: a fresh stack of Ibaïona ham croquettes made-to-order by Wendy’s friends at Yves Cambdeborde’s hot new wine bar, L’Avant Comptoir. Crispy, gooey, sinful and addictive, they’re the perfect finish to our expertly-led edible escapade.

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Tour length: 3 hours
Prices: 80E/person, 300E for 4 people, 460E for 6 people (tastings along the way included)
Reservations: Through Wendy’s online food-magazine, The Paris Kitchen™

Breathing fresh air into the formulaic art scene, Atelier 7 is a chic, discreet gallery that resuscitates the forgotten genre of the Parisian art salon.

A stylish home where people go to mingle with art, and each other, Atelier 7 has the perfect pedigree for the part. The Montparnasse home-studio was built in 1904 by Louis Süe and André Mare to attract the artists who lived in the neighborhood—and boy did it work! None other than Picasso settled in from 1911-1913.

Exactly a century after the two-storey apartment, which butts against the side of the Cemetière du Montparnasse, was built, Louise Brody, a graphic designer, and her architect husband, moved in. Inspired by the space’s unusual artistic past, they decided to make it into a gallery to showcase the work of their talented circle of friends.

“Sharing the space and living with these artists’ work for five weeks is part of the experience.”

For each five-week exhibition, the couple fills their living room with the work of a different artist. Which means their convictions have to be spot on: not only do they have to believe in the artist, they need to love their work enough to want to live it with it, too.

In contrast to the abstract paintings by Nieves Salzmann earlier this year, the walls at Atelier 7 are now filled with the sensual, elegant images of the George Clooney of photography, Ferrante Ferranti, an artist Brody has worked with for fifteen years.

To say she knows the material well is an understatement: she did the layout for the last twelve of his photography books. Choosing which ones to live with was a piece a cake for Brody who carefully curates her space like the pages in her books, shifting images around to get the perfect juxtaposition of forms, composition and color. In the case of the Ferrante, that meant creating the perfect vibrations between his energetic colors and tactiley black and whites.

This sense of intimacy, from the setting to the set up, is what makes Atelier 7 so special for the artists as well as the visitors. “I really wanted to introduce his work to a larger audience, and like other artists, he felt at home showing here,” says Brody.

It’s also a great way to get a feeling for what an artwork would look like in a home, which is something the stark walls of your traditional gallery hardly help with. While Atelier 7 is not your typical home, it gives you a sense of how the art interacts with furniture, shelving and lighting.

Which brings me to the next fabulous part of Atelier 7—not only can you experience amazing art in an intimate setting and meet the artists (Ferranti is there every weekend during the show), you can also lounge around some phenomenal mid-century furniture from Noguchi, Corbusier, and Matégot. If you fall in love with the furniture, the multitasking Brody, who also runs a vintage furniture-scouting agency called City Styles, can help you find some of your own.

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Photographs by Ferrante Ferrante: from December 3, 2009-January 17, 2010 (including New Years day!)
Atelier 7: 242 boulevard Raspail, 75014 Paris
Hours: Thursday-Sunday from 3pm-7pm, or contact me to make an appointment
Prices: Unframed, fine-art prints (€380E-650); Framed, artist-printed in limited edition of 7 (€1300); Color prints on wood support (€800-1400); Black-and-white prints, framed or mounted on wood support (€480-2300).

Since all of Paris closes shop in August, I’ll be posting “by appointment” discoveries made during my summertime travels back home in the USA this month.  Hope you enjoy this special summer edition with content from New York, Los Angeles and Maine.

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Appointment: To follow a 2-hour guided tour of Lotusland, the  37-acre estate and private garden created by Madame Ganna Walska.
Where: Ninety miles north of Los Angeles in Montecito, an affluent suburb of Santa Barbara
When: July 2nd, 2009
Time 1:30pm

An international celebutante and irresistible beauty, Madame Ganna Walska loved plants. And opera. And seducing wealthy older men. (Don’t you love her already?) All accounts from her era speak of a captivating creature with a preternatural proclivity for exuberance and glamorous excess. No one batted an eyelash at the outrageous title of her memoire, Always Room At The Top, published in 1946 because, what the hell else would she call it?

From her humble beginnings in Poland until her death in 1984 at the age of ninety-seven, she married six men—including a Russian count, a renowned endocrinologist, a Rockefeller divorcée, the heir to the Smith Carpet Manufacturing company, the inventor of the Death Ray, and a Yogi mystic with a philosophy PhD—who through death or divorce passed much of their fortune along to her.

But it’s what “Madame” (née Hanna Puacz) did with her accumulated wealth that was the final glorious act in her masterpiece theatre of life. In 1941, at the urgings of her sixth and final husband (she gave up after that) she purchased a thirty-seven-acre estate ninety miles north of Los Angeles in the manicured town of Montecito.

Initially intended as a retreat for Tibetan Lamas and a place for her husband to practice his spiritual work, she christened it “Tibetland.” After their divorce, she changed the name to “Lotusland” in tribute to the rare Indian flowers in her lotus pond and her newfound independence. From that day forward her one and only love was her garden.

“She was a total diva and she was very smart. She created this place so that people would talk about her long after her death,” says our docent before heading out on a 2-hr tour through the private botanical garden she spent the last 40 years of her life designing with the brash, eccentric whimsy that she applied to every aspect of her life.

She famously sent her garden assistants out on tours of the neighborhood with strict instructions to purchase the largest and most magnificent plants they could find, regardless as to whether or not the specimens were up for sale. Armed with cash and Walska’s determination on their backs, they always came home with the goods.

Channeling her years on the stage and penchant for theatrics, she used plants for their form and structure to create dramatic botanical experiences.

The 3,000 rare and exotic species in Lotusland are organized into enchanting chapters.  Some are poetic, like the Blue Garden with its delicate mélange of blue-shaded species; some insouciant and bold, like the mass plantings of Giant Palms; some moody and biographic, like the Theatre Garden full of statues from Madame’s chateau in France that were smuggled to the USA during the war; and others gloriously excessive and wild, like the Succulent Garden with it’s Climbing Onion plants or the Cycad Garden, the second largest in the world and by far the estate’s most valuable.

It’s impossible to tour the gardens without feeling the idiosyncratic force of nature behind it, just as Madame had wished.

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Reservations: Visits are by appointment only. To make a tour reservation call 805-969-9990 or email reservation@lotusland.org.
Schedule: Tours are offered 10am and 1:30pm Wednesday through Saturday between mid-February and mid-November.
Admission: Adults 19 years of age and older, $35; children age five to 18, $10; children under five, free.

All images by Nicholas Calcott for Paris By Appointment Only™

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Leading Role: The ageless, timeless Jacques Fivel (above), a man of many hats, including vintage fashion dealer, sculptor and gong therapist.
Supporting Cast: His wife, the amazing tattoo artist Philippine Schaefer (above), their two young kids, a couple of cats, and whoever else shows up.
Setting: Jacques Fivel’s vast, ground floor atelier in the 20th arrondissement of Paris, a remote neighborhood in the Northeast corner of the city.
Décor: A cabinet of curiosities, Fivel’s place is packed to the rafters with gorgeous handcrafted aural sculptures, random artifacts, ancient hunting tools, Balinese totems, and racks and racks of fabulous frocks.

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At high noon the first Wednesday of each month a series of sirens rings throughout Paris to test the city’s emergency warning system. Startling at first, the practice grounds you in the present—at that very moment you know exactly where and when you are. The sound is also a haunting blast from the past (it’s impossible not to think of curfews and distress alarms when you hear it). For those in the know, the signal has another sense entirely: it’s a stirring reminder to attend Jacques Fivel’s monthly fashion happening, Le Jour de la Sirène (The day of the siren), later on that evening.

Much like the bell for which it’s named, Fivel’s party has a bygone, La Dolce Vita feel to it. Full of fascinating eccentrics, surreal conversations, flamboyant costumes and breathtaking décor, it feels like a fin de siècle film thick with decadence, elegance and intrigue. With the exception of few added flourishes, the cinematic show unfolds much in this manner:

8:30pm: Just as the kids are finishing up dinner, people start wandering in carrying bottles of wine as offerings. A steady stream of characters, including Brazilian folk musicians, art restorers, starving poets, war heroes, and fashion muses gather around the kitchen before filling up the colorful space with their amiable charm and chatter. Animals and kids complete the Baccalian backdrop as Fivel works the crowd. Starting with his standard look—black leather pants, shagreen cowboy boots and a fitted button down shirt—Fivel changes attire every so often as the night draws on.  First it’s the tailored red and white striped dinner jacket, then the purple suede biker jacket and gem-incrusted starfish necklace made by an ex-lover, then the Dior Homme black and white spotted fur jacket with black leather sleeves.

10:00pm: Inspired by his whimsical display of sartorial play, revelers start plucking items to try on too. The gold leather Balenciaga jackets draped over the hand painted room divider mesmerizes all, as does the embroidered Kangaroo couture Lacroix jacket. People switch in an out of both marveling over their images in the mirror. Pictures are snapped, laughs exchanged and checkbooks taken out (the clothes are for sale, biensûr..)  A fan of large collars, an American expat blogger spots a Flash Gorden inspired Karl Lagerfeld jacket in the corner and tries it only to find out that it’s not only slightly too large but way out of her budget for now (800E).  One of Fivel’s more voluptuous lady friends is modeling a deep V-neck black Lanvin leather jumpsuit nearby, so no one has noticed the blogger’s disappointment.

11:00pm Camera pulls away from fashion action back towards kitchen where an erotic cartoonist is sketching figures on a sculpture pedestal in a bright pink felt marker. A crowd has formed to watch while sipping leisurely on their glasses of wine. Nearby, two people are crouched over a bundle of ancient metal spears that Fivel fetched from an off-camera closet.  Is a sale going on? Who knows? But the stuff looks pretty rare. What else does he have hidden around the house? The possibilities seem endless.

12:00am: Items modeled by Fivel earlier in the evening have now made their way onto his guests.  A strapping fellow is wearing the very smart-looking red and white striped dinner jacket and has his checkbook out. He turns to Fivel and says, “I can only pay by check, don’t have enough cash,” to which his host responds, “that’s alright, nobody’s perfect.”

1:00am
What’s this? An impromtu concert? Channeling Seu Jorge and Manu Chao, some dude is belting out Spanish love songs on guitar. Fivel saunters over arm raised like a Spanish dancer while clacking his heels against the floor. Eventually the whole crowd joins the dance, dressed to the nines is their fabulous new frocks.

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Email me if you’d like to attend Le Jour de la Sirène, the first Wednesday evening of each month.

All images by Nicholas Calcott for Paris By Appointment Only™

Over the last few years there’s been an influx of American chefs in Paris. Fusing American-style entrepreneurialism and experimentation with France’s gastronomic history, they have carved out a cross-cultural niche in Paris’ contemporary dining scene.

Two pioneers in this delicious movement are American chefs Braden and Laura. In 2007, the couple moved from Seattle to Paris to set up Hidden Kitchen, an underground, word-of-mouth, dining destination located in their Parisian flat. Modeled after the elaborate dinner parties that Braden and Laura would hold back home, HK is a sophisticated supper club where food-loving strangers come to meet and eat.

So how does it work?

Twice a week, Braden and Laura host elaborate, market inspired, ten-course meals with wine pairing for 16 diners at their swanky, super central Parisian pad (their address remains “hidden” until your reservation is confirmed via e-mail). The adorable couple greets guests with a refreshing aperitif before leading them to the communal table to meet the evening’s eclectic company, which include gourmet globetrotters, visiting friends and American expats to yes, a smattering of French!

At Hidden Kitchen, the fabulous food is the gastronomic glue that binds the diverse crowd.

At the beginning of each exciting course, Braden steals away from his tiny kitchen to explain the inner workings of his Franco-American fusion fare, fielding questions about the perfectly formed poached eggs (heat-resistant plastic wrap) and the French translation for sunchokes (topinambours) to the contents of his addictive white salad (fennel, endive, celery, cucumber, white truffle, lemon and parmesan). Meanwhile, Laura moves around the table to fill glasses and give the inside scoop on each accompanying wine.

Despite the complexity and elegance of the 5-hour meal, the atmosphere and energy at the table is amazingly relaxed. Mid-way through dinner you’ve forgotten that your tablemates began the evening as absolute strangers. By dessert, you’re exchanging phone numbers and emails. By the time you go to pay, you wish someone would plan a follow-up party to keep the spirit alive.  One night, one guest was so charmed by the evening’s company he insisted on picking up the tab for the entire table.

“Complete strangers who have met at our table have decided to go have drinks together the following night,” says Braden.

But the true champions of this cuisine-led community are the hosts themselves. “Almost everyone that we know in Paris has come from Hidden Kitchen,” says Braden, who in between HK events holds more casual, comfort food dinner parties of pea soup with dill dumplings and handmade pizza with home cured meats, ricotta and pickled cherry peppers for his and Laura’s group of friends.

Unfortunately, those events are by invitation, not reservation, only.

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Suggested Donation: 80€/person, not including gratuities

Like a trip to the Louvre or stroll around Montmartre, a hammam expedition should be at the top of every Paris to-do list. With close to 80 hammams scattered throughout the city (with larger concentrations, biensûr, in the North African communities) they play a prominent role in Paris’ cultural tapestry.

For the uninitiated, hammams are public bathhouses where people go to steam, scrub, relax, socialize and rejuvenate. Descended from the Romans and modeled after Turkish baths, they consist of interconnected tiled rooms full of steamy air, streaming faucets and half-naked bodies (they’re traditionally single sex, with special co-ed slots at times).

No two hammams are alike. Choose poorly and you could wind up having one of the most harrowing experiences of your life (believe me!); choose wisely, and you’ll be tempted to swear off sunshine forever.

Since the bathing offerings at hammams are pretty much standard, what sets them apart is their atmosphere (from hospital stark to warm and Moorish), and size (from William Klein’s Club Allegro Fortissimo to what you see below).

That is why if you can’t squeeze a trip down to Marrakesh, a journey to Les Cents Ciels is your best bet for authentic, luxurious bathing en mass. Located in a posh suburb of Paris twenty minutes by metro from the center of town, this lantern-lit, 1000m2 hamman (the biggest in Europe) is filled with cozy couches, starry ceilings, vaulted walkways, and a gorgeous mosaic-tiled steam room big enough to fit a couple of American baseball teams (now that’s a yummy image).

As soon as you cross the threshold to Les Cents Ciels you feel like you’ve walked onto the set of “A Thousand and One Nights” only the walls are real, the people aren’t actors and the only costumes worn are meant to get wet. Once you process the dramatic change in scenery from drab suburbia outside, you’re welcome to slip into the house attire (bring your swim suit, they take care of the rest) and journey down the stairs to the various bathing rooms.

I’m told I have one hour of languor in the wet heat before my gommage, and that fifteen minutes before my appointment I should slather myself in a moisturizing sludge to primp my skin for scrubbing. I bake in the sauna and take a dip in the pool before venturing into the main steam room where a handful of ladies lounge about as if Ingres were painting their portrait.

My caramel-coated body joins the scene until I’m moved to a private chamber for my scrub down. With a brillo-like mitt, I’m scoured from neck to toe, flipped over twice, then dumped with buckets of warm water like a baby in a tub; only I’m lying on a table. After a brisk shower and inspection of my now buttery soft, glowing skin, I venture upstairs to one of the low-lit relaxation rooms to snuggle up with my tea on a plush, super sized couch. Despite it being one of the most glorious days of spring, I lay there staring up at the ceiling’s twinkling stars for hours.

Who needs the sun when you’ve got one hundred skies?

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Basic entrance fee: 40E, includes access to hammam, suana, chill out rooms, restaurant & pool.
Extras: treatments such as massage, gommage, and facials need to be booked in advance.
Access: women only, except for evenings (Mon, Wed, Thurs, Fri) and Sunday afternoons (2nd and 4th of each month) when the hammam goes co-ed.
Need to pack: your bathing suit and toiletries

All images courtesy Les Cents Ciels

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Appointment with: Catherine Hervé, Meilleur Ouvrier de France in duchess lace
When: 2pm, February 17th, 2009
Where: Her weekly lacemaking class at a community center in Paris’ 15th arrondissement.
On the Agenda: Learn the secrets to handmade lace from France’s preeminent expert.
Glossary: Métier (cushion), gatlap (cloth with cut-out center), fuseaux (bobbins), fil (thread), grillé (grill-like pattern), toilé (cross-cross pattern)

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This might come as a shock, but before I discovered the haute handiwork of lace designer Catherine Hervé at a fair devoted to French artisans, the subject of handmade lace had never once flittered through my mind. (Crazy, I know!) Was it like crocheting? Did it require looms? Were there patterns? Easels? For the life of my, I just couldn’t picture how it was done, who was doing it, where they did it and why.

There was only one person I knew could solve this puzzle: the Queen of Lace herself.

In 2004, Hervé became the third person since 1924 to win the Meuilleur Ouvrier de France (Best Craftsman of France) title for duchess lace, giving her instant street cred as France’s leading practitioner of this painstaking craft.

After winning the MOF, Hervé traded in her job as a legal assistant to devote herself full-time to lace. By blending traditional techniques with non-conventional materials (colored threads, rayon, leather, wool, silk) she hopes to give the endangered medium a fresh, modern patina. In addition to creating her own original designs (which include three-dimensional lace sculptures, lace jewels, lace canvases, and lace appliqués for apparel) Hervé teaches the art of this mysterious medium each week to a growing number of devotees. From fashion designers and chatty grannies to summer tourists and this guy from Chartes who likes frog motifs, lace holds a seductive spell over a rather eclectic cast—one that I plan to temporarily join to witness the virtuoso at work.

So there I am one Tuesday afternoon sitting in on a lacemaking gathering at the community center out in Paris 15th where Hervé conducts her classes. Six women are seated around two rectangular tables. In each woman’s lap is a large circular pillow (métier) covered by a piece of blue cloth with a small circular cutout in its center (gatlap). The window of the fabric is placed over the section of the lace under construction, like a surgeon’s cloth during an operation. Peeking through the circle is a dash of lace with strands hanging out and down into a system of wood bobbins (fuseaux) that patter pleasantly when jostled about. Scalpels, spotlights, magnifiers, pins and patience are in abundance too; further adding to the strangely surgical, yet restorative energy in the room.

The women are each working on a beautiful lace pattern designed specifically for them by Hervé. An illustrator since childhood, Hervé first fell in love with lace as a way to bring tactility to her drawings.

Using cotton thread as fine as hair to create nature-inspired motifs (flowers, animals, leaves), the technique being taught is duchess bobbin lace, an extremely delicate type of lace name after the duchess of Brabant, Marie-Henriette of Austria who later became the Queen of Belgium. Patron of the arts and a lace fetishist, she popularized this new variety of lace introduced in the 1850s by adorning much of her royal wardrobe with it.

“Lace is the opposite of embroidery,” explains Hervé of the mystifying nature of her art. “Instead of applying thread to fabric, you create fabric with thread.”

Pins keep the pattern and threads in place on the pillow while the lace maker maneuvers her bobbins to create two different stitches: grillé, a grill-like pattern that controls density and thus contrast; and toilé, a criss-cross pattern that creates a fabric-like effect. The epitome of labor intensive, the average lace-maker clocks a whopping 1cm2 (roughly the size of a quarter) per hour. Even with exactly the same pattern, materials, and technical plan, however, it’s impossible to recreate the same effect twice. Handmade lace displays the unique style and characteristics of its maker.

So what are you waiting for? See how your signature style translates to lace at one of Hervé’s hands-on workshops. All courses are conducted in French, so you’ll need to bring a translator or study up.

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Sept-June: 414E per trimester (six, three-hour courses, twice monthly)
July-August: 69E (one three-hour class); week long summer workshops available by request.

Anyone who’s every tried to find a proper American martini (no, not the sweet vermouth!!) in Paris knows that while the city lays claim to many indulgent pleasures, the cocktail is not one of them. Luckily, Colin Field, the master mixologist who transformed the historic Bar Hemingway at the Ritz Hotel from dusty relic to vibrant laboratory of libations, is doing his part to change all that.

While Field’s cocktail philosophy is complex and his affect over-the-top, he’s cocktails are anything but. A minimalist at heart, Field privileges purity, simplicity and elegance above all, going so far as to create his own essences, such as wild strawberry vodka elixirs and homemade coconut liquor, to capture aromas without the distraction of sweet.

Author of the best-selling book The Cocktails of the Ritz and winner of multiple awards, multilingual Field  shares the secrets to his craft with a handful of participants several times a month during a special cocktail appreciation course at the Bar Hemingway.

During this stand-out two hour class (which invariably runs over to accommodate Field’s flamboyant storytelling), hear all about the bar’s famed beginnings as Ernest Hemingway’s den of debauchery, sit on Coco Chanel’s favorite seat, learn how to properly shake a mixer, silently pop a champagne cork, refine your taste buds, and conceive of luscious cocktails to impress the kids at home.

Cost: 100 Euros/person