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.