It was an early start again to make our way to Premier Vision, the world’s premier fabric show.

Unfortunately I could not take any photos at the show as we were not allowed. However I did made mental notes on the fabrics and visual language used. Each stand had exciting fabrics for future collections that reflected next seasons colour palettes.

Seeing as I couldn’t take any photos today I have posted a video on Premier Vision giving you an insight into what the event was like…

At the trade show there were trend magazines available to purchase and look through. As students, we could get a discounted rate for the magazines. After looking through about 30 magazines, undecided as to what to buy as I wanted all of them I ended up buying a collection of 3 trend magazines on surface and texture. Here are some examples of the magazine. The visual content of the magazine was amazing and detailed.

That evening we went to eat in a little restaurant by the Eiffel Tower. I have included a picture of me in front of it all lit up.

Back to the hotel to get some sleep as we have to leave at 7.30 a.m in the morning to go home.

Street style outside the Pompidou...

The Pompidou centre has a great architectural structure to the exterior with a complete contrast to the interior. I found the exhibitions stimulating, exciting, whilst at the same time disturbing. One of the exhibitions was about genitals and some of the images and visual references were quite shocking and surprising. But like they say ‘its art’! I really loved all the contemporary art work in the gallery.

This is just a sneak preview of some of the work at the Pompidou…

Our next stop was the lifestyle store, Colette. What a shop! It sold everything from clothes to CDs, books, magazines, watches and art work. The mens collections were very retro with bright coloured prints and ice cream motifs on the sweaters. Being inside the store gave me a feel for the lifestyle that people bought into, which was an expensive one! The store had a really great concept with limited edition products and collaborations with artists for certain items. If I could I would have bought every item of clothing in their!

Street style outside Colette…

It was time for lunch and our tutors had recommended a famous tea room called Angelina’s which was situated right by Colette. This was no ordinary tea room but one that had beautiful 19^th Century décor inside and was famous for its African hot chocolate. I had to try it of course. It was seriously heaven. Wow! My friends tried the pastries and cakes which were also delicious. All the cakes and macaroons were displayed in glass cabinets all stacked up so perfectly.

After experiencing Angelinas, we planned the route on the metro map to get to the Printemps department store to look at predominantly, the menswear section. On the way to the metro we passed a luxury chocolate shop where all the chocolate were handmade each day and had an array of multicoloured chocolates.

We finally arrived at the Printemps department store and went to look at the menswear department first where we found most of the designer clothes were displayed in an orderly way, neatly folded and hung perfectly. Each designer had they own visual merchandising and colour palette.

I picked up a look book on mens current trends in the department store here are some visuals below of how it looked inside.

When I arrived back to hotel I was shattered, but after an hour of rest I felt refreshed and ready to go back out. Helena and I decided to go to the Six Huit boat bar that the guy in the salad bad had recommended to us. I was pleasantly surprised when we arrived to find it situated in full view of the Notre Dame and lit up so beautifully on the canal. We ordered tapas and listened to a jazz singer whilst having a spectacular view of Paris.

Here is a video clip of the live band in Six Huit…

Off to sleep.

I purchased 3 small postcards from the museum shop of some hand drawings from Yves Saint Laurent’s designs.

By this point the snow was coming down fast but luckily it wasn’t far to get to the Palais De Tokyo museum. However when we arrived we found out that there were no exhibitions on due to the weather and building work until the end of February. These are the leaflets I picked up on the future exhibitions, which I can’t read as they are in French. What I did find unusual was the leaflet that had instructions on how to assemble a peice of art work in the gallery made from wooden blocks. It was as though you could go home and make it yourself!

Feeling disappointed, we headed for the museum shop which had an amazing collection of magazines, journals, books and dairies. Here you can see the vast range of magazines on display which include fashion, film, photography, architecture and graphics.

After feeling overwhelmed with the vast choice of magazines we discovered ‘Black Block’, the street art shop where products were displayed in fridges. Products include limited edition plastic figures from Japan as well as posters, t shirts and street art.

Just thought I would also include Helena with a LARGE Panini in the Palais de Tokyo café! Although we didn’t get to see any art work the shops were worth a visit on their own.

The next port of call was to see the living eco exterior at the ‘musee du quai branly’ which was fascinating to experience but to be honest it didn’t look very living to me. I assume in the summer the exterior looks a little more alive. The living exterior was an unusual contrast to any building I have ever seen.

Feeling peckish we came across a gorgeous salad bar which made fresh wraps, salads and sandwiches. The guy working there was very helpful and recommended a place to go for tapas and live music called ‘Six Huit’.

Now, my favourite part of the day. The Baccarat museum, designed by Philip Stark held a collection of the finest glassware, perfume bottles and furniture. The interior of the museum was beautifully decorated with satin walls and grand chandeliers. Surprisingly, the toilets were by far the best part of the museum also designed by Philip Stark. Each wall had mirrors with red reflections and chandeliers. Just to emphasise how beautiful they were I thought I would get a picture of me sitting on the couch in the toilet!

It was time to do some retail therapy and explore the shopping experience in Paris, only a few minutes to the Champs Elysees where all the international shops were located. After visiting Louis Vuitton we decided to take a look in the Guerlain flagship store which was situated just accross the road. It was the most amazing store spread across 2 floors filled with oversized perfume bottles and gold mosaic walls.

The store had lots of rooms sectioned off each with a different collection including perfume, makeup and artwork. Gold chandeliers hung in each room creating a luxurious atmosphere to the store.

Whilst walking down the Champs Elysees we passed a beautiful café called ‘Unisex’ which had a quirky, retro quality to the interior. The walls were coated in metallic pink, metallic silver couches and shiny pink tables.

We then found Zara men and I managed to get a few pictures of the current collection and the visual merchandising in store. I noticed the trend tone on tone which seemed to be shown in quite a few retail stores when displaying new collections or products.

We stumbled across this library when looking for a toilet to use and ended up finding this unusual piece of art work outside of a skull and butterflies. Not the kind of art work you expect to see outside a library but it certainly caught my attention. The shop inside had lots of books on display as well as a hanging display of postcards. It was something I would love to have in my room at home with all my photos attached to!

oh yes, there wasn’t a toilet in the end so we found somewhere else.

That night we got the metro to Notre Dame and ate in a French restaurant nearby with a group of us. After that we went straight back to the hotel to find someone playing the bagpipes next door until 2 a.m which was all we needed when we were living on little sleep anyway.