Your key to the city's hidden doors

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?

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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:

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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?

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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.

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