Style Sphere

Thursday, June 4, 2009

PUCES Á PARIS

Style-Sphere has taken an extended holiday recently but promises to be back in action with some interesting style musings once the glorious sunshine departs these shores. However, I will devote a post to my longstanding Puces préfèré Marché de Vanves which I revisited recently in Paris.

Puces de Vanves located in the south east of Paris is the third biggest and in my opinion the best flea market that Paris has to offer. The beauty of Vanves lies in its ability to capture all the charm, whit, customs, and eccentricity of the French all in the one Sunday morning visit.

Wading through Vanves every onlooker is treated to a tranche de vie of French flea market culture . Two Vendors enjoy a game of chess behind their stall, a man wearing a sailor cap plays a piano at the other end of the street, while a crazy couple fumble over a bottle of Bordeaux in between two children playing hopscotch with an old cigarette tin. I on the other hand, camera in hand, am interrupted from my gaze by an homme Francais asking me to take his portrait, 'j’étais un mannequin' he jovially informs me. He proceeds to pawn off a hideous dress to me telling me that the colours are 'super bonne' pour les Rousses (redhead en français).

Vides Greniers which literally translates as an attic clearout is commonplace in Paris, it always occurs to me that French folk must be natural born hoarders, unlike us Irish counterparts who decided to throw everything out during the sixties. One tradition the French do uphold is to keep every odd toy, book, and delph as well as various other obscure objects that tickle take their fancy. An entire stall was devoted to vintage keyrings and another to antique buttons. Irish people tend to have a more ‘out with the old, in with the new kind of attitude, we aren‘t natural born hoarders like the French.