Market and Musée Bourdelle

Saturday October 19 started with rain which lasted until about 2:00 p.m.  It then cleared and warmed up to about 15C.

Alain with our new portable espresso maker (Nanopresso) - great crema- we highly recommend it for travel

We decided to visit the Marché d'Aligre, the large indoor and outdoor market on Rue d'Aligre and which operates six days a week.  It is about a 20 minute walk from our apartment.  We wanted to pick up some fish, chicken, cheese and vegetables for a few dinners.  We got a 1/2 rotisserie chicken for Saturday's dinner (they just look too enticing).

We first stopped at a wonderful bakery to pick up a bqguette

Outdoor section- mostly fruits and veg

Olive folks

Inside covered market building where we got our fish

Flowers at the market

We took the food back to the apartment, had a coffee at Yellow Toucan, and then headed out to the Musée Bourdelle to see the exhibit: Back Side/Dos a La Mode (Fashion from Behind).  It was a very interesting exhibit focusing on the perception we have of our own and other people's backs, in a society that is focussed on faces.

The exhibit presented over 100 items of clothing and accessories from the 18th century to the present day from the collections of the Palais Galliera (Paris's Fashion Museum which is presently closed).  There was also a section of photography.  The clothes were placed among Bourdelle's sculptures in a number of rooms and then the largest park of the exhibit was shown in the contemporary extension of the Museum.  The exhibit really worked as a dialogue between fashion and sculpture.  While we are not huge fans of Bourdelle's massive sculptures,  the detailed powerful muscular backs of some of the smaller works interspersed with the clothes that focused on the back provided a new take on Bourdelle.

Being the largest flat surface of the body, the back can provide a large space on which fashion designers can apply patterns and designs that are displayed without the wearer ever seeing the glances they attract.

Poster outside the Museum

We had visited the museum during our 2011 stay in Paris.  We find his large works rather overwhelming, but the exhibit did work.

Outside garden

The Row, Ready-to-wear, spring-summer 2018

Chloé by Karl Lagerfeld, Ready-to-wear, autumn-winter 1983-84

Walter Van Beirendonck, WOW collection autumn-winter 2019-20

Givenchy by Clare Waight Keller, Haute couture, spring-summer 2018, worn by Cate Blanchett at Cannes Film Festival

Comme Des Garçons, 1997 Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body collection; Bourdelle, August Rodin bust 1909 in background

                                                                         Close up of the bust of Rodin

Marine Sitbon, Ready-to-wear, autumn-winter 1997-98

Bourdelle- Centaure mourant, bust 1914.  Sayings about the back on wall.

Guy Laroche, Haute couture 1972, worn in Yves Robert's 1972 film Le Grand Blond.

Balenciaga, Haute couture, autumn-winter 1961-62, Evening Dress with Bourdelle, Adam torso, 1889

Yohji Yamamoto,Dress and Skirt, ready-to-wear autumn-winter 1996-97 with Bourdelle,  Beethoven in the wind with drapery 1904-08.

Dresses by Rick Owens (top 2011, skirt 2006), Jean Paul Gaultier, 2011-12, and Maggy Rouff, 1934

There were some wonderful photos entitled Looking at the Back, by Jeanloup Sieff (1933-2000)

Self- Portrait c. 1962

Ève de Dos (Eve from behind), Kim Islinnski, New York, Martine Sitbon top and skirt 1997

Lace Back, Marina Schiano, Yves Saint Laurent dress, Paris 1970

There was a wonderful section of dresses and a sculpture with wings.  The angel with feathered wings, a symbol of the immaterial and the spiritual, has been a recurring motif of Christian iconography since the 4th century.

Comme des Garçons -The Infinity of Tailoring collection-Bermuda Suit, 2013-2014 (on left); Thierry Mugler, The Winter of Angels collection 1984-85, Alexander McQueen (1969-2010), Angels and Demons posthumous collection 2010-11 with Bourdelle, Hannibal's First Victory 1885.

Bourdelle, Genie Carrying the Great Lyre, study for the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées 1911; Yoji Yamamoto, Dress with backpack train 2001 and Nick Klavers, Coat 1998

Bourdelle, Woman, raised arms 1907, Jean Paul Gaultier, 2003-04 Passe-passe corset

Bourdelle, Woman, arms around her back 1909 and John Galliano, ready-to-wear, autumn-winter 1998-99 Sheath dress with 51 buttoms

Givenchy by Clare Waight Keller, Haute couture, autumn-winter 2018-19

Lanvin by Alber Elbaz Ready-to-wear, autumn-winter 2010-11

Left dress, unlabelled c. 1931; Eve Alger- Dress and belt between 1930-35; Bourdelle, Dawn without drapery 1894

Bourdelle, Anatole France, bust 1919; Craig Green, Ready-to-wear, spring-summer 2017

There was also a series of photographs by American photographer Susan Barnett taken of the backs of people around the world.  They are from 2010 on-going and from the "Not in Your Face" series.  Barnett has said, "By photographing people from behind, I try to challenge the tradition of the frontal portrait by questioning whether bodies, clothes, and behaviours can tell us just as much as a face might."

Selection of Barnett's photos 

The final section was a series of the back of various coats around a Bourdelle sculpture Mécislas Golberg, bust-stele 1898.

panorama shot

Remember when Melania Trump wore this Zara jacket!

We walked back to the entrance of the Museum and stopped at Bourdelle's Painting Studio to see a metal bust designed by Alexander McQueen and made by the jeweller Shaun Leane in 2000.

Rose Corset designed by Alexander McQueen for the 2000 spring-summer collection, from the life cast of the bust of the model Laura Morgan, in Bourdelle's Painting Studio.

It was a very good exhibit.  The pairing of dresses and other clothing with elaborate backs really worked with Bourdelle's sculptures of strong and muscular backs.  Interesting take on the intersection of fashion and sculpture.

View of the Eiffel Tower-- always a beacon

We walked back into the Saint-Germain-des Près area and stopped for a very late lunch at Bar De La Croix Rouge.

Outside section

We shared a tuna tartine on Polaine bread

Wonderful Haussmann building across the street

We stopped at Lafont, a wonderful glasses store where we had bought frames in the past.  Alain bought a new frame- similar shape, but wonderful colours- part of the new collection.

Outside of Lafont Opticien

Alain wearing the new frame

We stopped at the Thierry Marx bakery located in the Beaupassage, a wonderful passage on Rue Grenelle with art installations and a number of gourmet cafés, restaurants and boutiques.

Alain got a mini pain au chocolat

We passed by the newly renovated Hotel Lutetia on Boulevard Raspail.  The Hotel originally opened in 1910 with a daring move from art nouveau to the emerging style of Art Deco.  Many famous cultural figures lived, worked and entertained at the Hotel.  James Joyce wrote "Ulysses" there.

It was requisitioned during WWII by the Nazis.  In 1944, the hotel became a centre for displaced people and families seeking to be reunited with their loved ones.  Between April 26 and September 1, 1945, 20,000 people repatriated from the camps, transited through the hotel.

Hotel Lutetia at night

We stopped at Le Bon Marché, which was open until 8:00 p.m.   There had been a "So Punk " exhibit that was ending on October 20.  Unfortunately, the windows had already been taken down and there was only a small section of the "punk" goods remaining.

Alain got "punk" and bought a cool T-shirt that says "Always Forward".

We got back to the apartment for a late dinner of 1 /2 a rotisserie chicken, haricots verts and a salad.

Alain making a toast