We are just madly in love with Zaz. Heard her on the radio the other day. Gypsy jazz meets Piaf by way of pop… Here’s an acoustic version of Les Passants. You can buy her eponymous album at the Francophilia Amazon Store.
Go virtually shopping at the Galeries Lafayette
The Galeries Lafayette has an iPhone app out for Christmas! Download if from the App Store.
via VIPad.fr
Google gives us Paris in 3D
With Google Earth’s “3D Buildings” layer turned on (or by using the Google Earth plug-in for Google Maps) you can wander the streets of the Montmartre district made famous by artists like Picasso, Van Gogh and Dalí from your living room.
via Google LatLong
Dior Homme mini-movie by Guy Ritchie, with Jude Law
Seems Dior likes to hire prominent directors and stars to make mini-movie “ads” for their products, like they did with David Lynch and Marion Cotillard. Watch this one for Dior Homme cologne filmed in Paris and featuring Exogenesis Symphony Part 1, by Muse.
The new décor of the BNP Opéra branch: beurk*
Purple shag-pile carpets, a glitzy silver hexagon-patterened ceiling and a wall covered with green shrubs are just some of the decorations adorning the re-opened branch, which has iPads on display and a kids’ corner with walls to scrawl upon.
Here’s a slideshow of the migraine-inducing décor. Looks like a cross between 70s Vegas and Google HQ…
*barf.
via Reuters
“Paris: The Luminous Years” documentary
Watch the full episode. See more Paris The Luminous Years.
A storm of Modernism swept through the art worlds of the West in the early decades of the twentieth century, uprooting centuries of tradition in the visual arts, music, literature, dance, theater, and beyond. The epicenter of this storm was Paris, France.
Airing on PBS (US) this weekend, check the program schedule!
France tries to seduce US screenwriters
Some things are just done differently in France. Take the invitation of 10 successful Hollywood screenwriters on an eye-popping, all-expenses paid, eight-day trip to rural France in exchange for, well, nothing.
via latimes.com
Don’t mess with my Hermès…
The family shareholders of the French luxury goods maker Hermès will hold crisis talks tomorrow to discuss how to defend themselves against a potential takeover by the rival conglomerate LVMH.
via The Guardian
Geneviève de Fontenay: a fixture of French pop culture
She’s one of those institutions who’s everywhere, and long before I had any idea what the hell she’d done I’d learned that her mime-white face was one to be respected and feared, and that she was ubiquitous. What she did is run French beauty pageants for years.
via Jezebel
French architect’s groovy green house design
Parisian architect Patrick Nadeau is currently constructing a gorgeous green house disguised as a grassy hill in the city of Reims, France.
via Inhabitat
Manga series gives French vintner a big boost
Jean-Pierre Amoreau, the owner of the estate in France that produces Château Le Puy wine, has experienced a huge boom in demand for his product after the Japanese manga series “The Drops of God” [Les Gouttes de Dieu / 神の雫] featured it as one of the world’s finest wines.
via Japan Probe
Les Machines de l’Ile de Nantes
In the warehouses of the former shipyards in Nantes, les Machines de l’Ile project is the work of two artists, François Delarozière and Pierre Orefice, who envisioned a travel-through-time world at the crossroads of the imaginary worlds of Jules Verne and the mechanical universe of Leonardo da Vinci. (Wikipedia)
Seen at ScottWesterfield.com
Did Picasso give his electrician 271 works of art?
The Picasso Administration, which manages the artist’s estate and is headed by his son Claude Picasso, is suing Le Guennec and his wife for possession of stolen property, while the electrician claims that the artworks were gifts.
via ARTINFO.com